sweet clover, cut young, as well as vetch (another 

 plant at first rejected) with apparent relish: 



I am glad to see the real merits of melilot clover 

 more and more appreciated, as may be seen in the 

 columns of recent issues of FARM AND FIRESIDE and 

 other agricultural papers. Hundreds and thousands 

 of acres in the suburbs of our cities, and other un- 

 occupied lands in their vicinity, are annually covered 

 with a dense mass of sweet clover, and all of this is 

 anowed to go to waste, as may be seen by the dead 

 and leafless stalks every fall. If cut in proper season 

 it might be utilized for food for horses, cattle, swine, 

 and poultry in the closed season. It has the same 

 food value as alfalfa meal. When the sweet-clover 

 piant gets old and tough and woody, and loses its 

 leaves, it has also lost its feeding value. Secure it 

 in time. T. GREINER. 



SWEET CLOVER IN ALFALFA MEADOWS. 

 From The Ohio Farmer. 



In buying Western alfalfa seed one is pretty apt to 

 get a small proportion of sweet clover along with it 

 (Melilotus alba). It had not occurred to the writer 

 to mention the presence of sweet clover in alfalfa 

 seed; but as he now recalls it he can not remember 

 an alfalfa-field established upon Woodland Farm with- 

 in recent years where sweet clover did not appear in 

 greater or less amounts the first year. Some of it will 

 even show the second year, but after that it is seen 

 no more. Sweet clover is a biennial, and can not en- 

 dure mowing off. If not allowed to mature seed it is 

 soon extinct. It is hardly right to classify sweet 

 clover with weeds, since it is a splendid soil-enricher, 

 one of the most energetic nitrogen-gatherers known, 

 and it carries the same nitrifying bacteria that alfalfa 

 does, and is thus a direct benefit to a young alfalfa- 

 field, since it pioneers the way and makes the alfalfa 

 that succeeds it thrive all the better. However, one 

 should mow it off at least two or three times in a 

 year, and that will prevent its seeding and becoming 

 too plentiful. 



Sweet clover in the South is much used as a sheep 

 and pig pasture. It is greedily eaten there when it 



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