72 CLOVER CULTURE. 



fertility than before the first clover was sown. The crop of 

 mammoth clover seed, under these conditions, is much more 

 certain than that from the common red, and an average yield 

 would be somewhere in the neighborhood of three bushels 

 per acre, provided always that it is all secured. 



Another class of farmers, who have given more attention 

 to stock growing and have their farms fenced in separate 

 fields, desire more or less tame hay as well as fall pasture. 

 For these we recommend the mixture described below. If the 

 rotation they have adopted be such that they can allow the 

 land to rest two years in grass, we would sow a mixture of 

 ten pounds of common red clover and eight pounds of timo- 

 thy, sown with spring grain and covered to the depth that is 

 found best in the soils of the neighborhood, as explained more 

 fully in Chapter III. The first year the stand will be mostly 

 clover, and it it is desired to secure the seed crop, this should 

 be mown, in the latitude of central Iowa, before July ist. If 

 for any reason there should be a failure in the seed crop, the 

 second growth or aftermath will yield a large amount of fall 

 pasturage, except in seasons and localities of very extreme 

 drouth. The next year timothy will take the lead, most of 

 the clover having died the previous winter, and that which 

 survives being, for the most part, plants from seed that, for 

 some reason, did not germinate the first year. Under these 

 circumstances, an ordinary season seldom fails to produce a 

 large crop of timothy, due to the fact that it finds an abund- 

 ant supply of all the elements of fertility iri the decaying 

 roots of the clover that perished the previous winter. 



Under ordinary circumstances the land should then be 

 plowed for corn, although if it has been pastured off after the 

 second crop has had a chance to reseed the ground, the pre- 

 vious year, clover is likely to assert its supremacy the follow- 

 ing year. If it does the field can be kept as a permanent 

 meadow, in many sections at least, for an indefinite number 

 of years, each second crop contributing its quota of seed. We 

 have this year taken the eleventh crop from part of a field 

 managed in this way, and the yield has been larger, both in 

 clover and timothy, than from the first year's sowing. Where 

 the intention from the first is to establish a permanent mead- 

 ow of this kind, we advise in all sections where orchard grass 

 (dactyhs glomerata) does well, to sow it with the previous 

 mixture at the rate of half a bushel per acre, mixing the seed 

 with sand or road dust to secure an even cast, sowing after 

 the clover and timothy have been covered, and covering: the 



