14 CLOVER CULTURE. 



being able to grow on soils on which the larger varieties do 

 not succeed and to grow on all soils in which they do. 



Thealsike, (trifolium hybridum) ,is distributed less wide- 

 ly, mainly because to grow a profitable crop it requires a 

 much larger amount of moisture audit is especially valuable for 

 wet lands where none of the other varieties succeed so well. 

 It takes its technical name from the mistaken belief of the 

 earlier botanists that it is a hybrid, or cross between the red 

 and the white. This has long since been ascertained to be an 

 error. The technical name is further objectionable because 

 the term "hybrid" is properly applied only to the results of 

 those violent crosses such as that of the ass and the horse, of 

 which Nature forbids the reproduction. Alsike is preferred 

 to the mammoth or common red, not only on wet sloughs, 

 but on soils where it is believed that these varieties winter- 

 kill. We are inclined to the belief that its preference in 

 northern latitudes is due not so much to any peculiar ability 

 to stand extreme cold, but to the fact that unlike the two 

 former, it is perennial, and hence does not ordinarily perish 

 at the end of the second year. The illustrations that will be 

 furnished when we come to discuss the best methods of the 

 cultivation of each will enable the reader to clearly distin- 

 guish these different varieties. 



Alfalfa is the clover peculiarly adapted to the semi-arid 

 regions and to the arid regions where irrigation is possible It 

 is entirely true that it can be cultivated on any good corn 

 lands, that are not underlaid with rock, hardpan or heavy clay, 

 provided it is protected during the first winter in northern 

 latitudes, but when thus grown is much inferior to the mam- 

 moth or common red in latitudes where these can be grown 

 profitably, and hence its cultivation under these circumstances 

 is not advisable. It is, however, to be preferred to any other 

 in the regions of deficient rainfall, or where the rainfall, how- 

 ever abundant, in any given year, can not be depended upon 

 for a succession of years/ It has been grown very successfully 

 over Central and Western Kansas, every county in the state 

 but three reporting more or less alfalfa, and these counties 

 lying in the eastern part of the state where red clover is 

 so pronounced a success that farmers do not need to look fur- 

 ther. The extreme length of its root enables it to go down 

 in the years of sufficient rainfall to depths where it is in a 

 measure independent of surface moisture, and the normal dry- 

 ness of the climate furnishes the condition for curing it into 

 excellent hay, a difficulty that is almost insuperable in sec- 



