80 FIELD AND GARDEN PRODUCTS 



pecially by stock, and when they can get other grazing, they often 



ass it by, thus leaving the impression on people sometimes that stock 

 o not eat it. As a matter of fact, they do eat it, and at a time when 

 there is little else to eat, and it is very nutritious. In East and South 

 Texas and other localities having about the same climate, bur clover 

 always gives good grazing from one to two months before Bermuda 

 and other summer grasses are ready. It thus enables us to almost fat- 

 ten cattle before flies, heat and other annoying conditions appear. As 

 grazing for dairy cows, it materially lightens feed bills, and in a large 

 measure compensates for the lack of silage, one of the best and 

 cheapest dairy feeds to be had. 



For hogs it affords good grazing from November to May, say 

 full half the year, and the grazing is just as nutritious, according 

 to chemical analysis, as alfalfa. Alfalfa probably does not afford 

 grazing more than eight months in the year, and yet it is one of the 

 greatest pork-producing crops known, when grazed in connection 

 with light corn feeding. An acre of alfalfa has often produced pork 

 enough to pay for the corn consumed, and from 500 to 750 pounds 

 besides. With plenty of winter and summer grazing, and a little 

 corn feeding, hogs have often been produced for from 2 to 2^2 cents 

 a pound, while hogs raised and fattened on corn alone probably cost 

 in the neighborhood of 10 cents a pound. It should not be forgotten, 

 however, that no grazing crop alone will make hogs grow rapidly 

 without some grain or other concentrated food in connection with it. 

 Bur clover on Bermuda grass is the finest kind of combination 

 for an all-the-year-around pasture. The clover grows in winter, while 

 the Bermuda is dormant, and in the early spring before the latter gets 

 a start. The grass sod holds up the stock while the clover is being 

 grazed. The clover dies root and top in time to begin to rot ana 

 fertilize the soil by the time the weather is warm enough to start the 

 grass. The nitrogen gathered from the air by the clover, and gradu- 

 ally given to the grass through the summer as the clover stems, roots 

 and leaves rot, makes the grass larger, greener, tenderer and more 

 nutritious. 



Before the clover dies in spring, it makes a great quantity of 

 burs, containing the seed, from 50 to 200 bushels per acre, and these 

 are left on the ground to come up again in the fall, which they never 

 fail to do when the fall rains come, and without any further prepara- 

 tion of the land whatever. If, for any reason, the land is plowed or 

 harrowed or otherwise treated, it makes no difference they come 

 up anyhow. The writer has seen old bur clover land planted in cot- 

 ton or other hoed crops, and yet the bur clover would continue to 

 come up each fall for three years. (Texas Agr. Exp. Sta. Bui. 108.) 



LESPEDEZA, OR JAPAN CLOVER. 



Lespedeza, or Japan clover (Lespedeza striata) is a native of 

 eastern Asia that was first found in this country in central Georgia 

 in 1846. It has spread since then so that it now covers more or less 

 abundantly the whole area from central New Jersey westward to 

 central Kansas and southward to the Gulf of Mexico. There is rea- 

 son to believe that it has now reached nearly the limits over which it 



