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Trifolium hybridum (Alsike Clover}. A splended plant and a 

 useful fodder, inferior to Red-clover only in this respect, that it 

 does not yield so large a bulk and that, if served separately, it is 

 on account of its somewhat bitter taste not eaten by cattle with 

 that greed as is the case with Red clover. It is superior to Red 

 clover in this respect, that it lasts 3 or 4 years or longer even; 

 that it does not put such a stringent demand to the kind or quality 

 of the soil; that, whereas Red clover does neither thrive on super- 

 fluous wet nor dry soils and is rather sensitive for alternate wet 

 and frosty weather as well as for keen night frosts in early spring, 

 Alsike stands all that far better; can be grown again with a 

 rather short interval even on the same tract of land that was in 

 cultivation with it before, a thing which Red clover tiring out 

 sooner would not easily stand, and will do even in a wet marshy 

 soil, where the other would soon die away. Owing to its habit of 

 growing in a rather creeping way before turning up its stalks, it 

 has a tendency of lying down on the earth, especially there where 

 it has a heavy well-manured soil when and where it grows up 

 somewhat luxuriantly and the bulk becomes a heavy-one. Result 

 of this may be, that in such a state it is liable to rot on the field 

 if the farmer cannot get it mown and saved for hay in time. It is 

 therefore advisable to sow Alsike in connection with something else; 

 we would even say that such is, in our opinion, the right way 

 only as it does away with the two drawbacks alluded to, viz: that 

 of the plants creeping too much along the surface by being kept 

 erect through the medium of the accompanying varieties; and that 

 of diminishing the bitter taste of the Alsike to which cattle do 

 more or less object. 



Under such circumstances it is in the first place the grasses 

 that are being thought of as an admixture ; and the question a 

 seedsman and a farmer has to put before him is : which varieties 

 come in most useful to be sown with Alsike. 



If for a short duration only, say of 3 or 4 years, we would 

 recommend the Ryegrasses, perennial and Italian, A v e n a 

 e 1 a t i o r (Tall Oat-grass), Dactylis glomerata (Orchard- 

 grass) Festuca pratensis (Meadow Fescue) and Timothy. 



If for turning such a field into a permanent pasture later-on, 

 Alopecurus pratensis (Meadow Foxtail], Anthoxanthum 

 odoratum (Sweet-scented Vernal, true], Avena flavescens 

 ( Yellow Oat-grass, true), Cynosurus cristatus (Crested Dogstail}., 

 Festuca elatior (Tall Fescue), Festuca rubra (Red Fescue), 



