MINOR VARIETIES OF THE CLOVERS, 



CAHPTER VI. 



While the red and mammoth clovers (trtfolium pratense) 

 the alfalfa (medicago sativa) the white or Dutch clover {tri- 

 folium repens) and the alsike (trifolium hybridum) are the clo- 

 vers most valuable in the eastern, northern and north-western 

 states, there are a number of other varieties of no little local 

 value. Some of these will grow in what is usually known 

 as the "corn and grass belt," but being inferior to the varie- 

 ties just mentioned, are properly neglected or regarded as 

 weeds. Of these is the melilotus alba, commonly known as 

 sweet clover, which can be found growing in gardens, whence 

 it escapes to the highway, vacant lots, especially in cities, and 

 to neglected fields. A sub variety of it is known as Bokhara 

 clover. It grows to the height of six or eight feet on good 

 land when not cropped, and its only value, on lands that will 

 grow red or mammoth clover profitably is as bee pasture. For 

 this purpose it will pay apiarians to sow it along the road- 

 sides or in the vacant corners and other neglected lands. In 

 the drier portions of the West and in the South this clover 

 has very considerable value. It is proving a valuable forage 

 plant and also one of the renovating crops greatly needed in 

 some of the more southern states. An illustration of this 

 variety will be found on next page. Trials at the Mississippi 

 Agricultural College and by planters in that state seem to 

 have established this fact beyond question. Like all the 

 other clovers it has the capacity of appropriating nitrogen 

 from the atmosphere and thus enriching the land and prepar- 

 ing it for the profitable production of other crops. Where it 

 has been found impossible to grow the better varieties of clo- 

 ver it is worthy of trial, and experiment stations in those 

 states where the better varieties are not a success should 

 make a still more careful and thorough investigation of its 

 merits. 



