LEGUMES FOR FORAGE 187 



pasture for the first time while hungry or before the dew has risen. 

 Dry forage, such as hay or straw, should also be placed in feed racks 

 in the pasture. 



Clover is particularly valuable for soilage, ranking next to alfalfa, 

 and furnishes 3 or 4 cuttings annually if the weather is favorable. 

 In some cases clover has made good silage, but so many failures have 

 occurred that this plant cannot be recommended for such purpose, 

 except where weather conditions prevent its being properly cured into 

 hay. The same precautions should then be taken as with alfalfa for 

 silage. 



III. Other Clovers and Leguminous Forage Plants 



Mammoth clover. — This clover grows ranker than medium red 

 clover, has coarser stems, and blooms 2 to 3 weeks later. It usually 

 lives 3 years or more and thrives better on poor or sandy soil than 

 does red clover. As it is coarser, the hay is more difficult to cure and 

 somewhat less palatable. Since it yields but a single cutting during 

 the season, this clover is frequently pastured for several weeks in the 

 early spring. After the stock is removed the plants shoot up and are 

 soon ready for the mower. 



Alsike clover. — Alsike clover flourishes on land too acid or too wet 

 for other clovers and is a hardier, longer-lived plant, enduring 4 to 6 

 years on good soil. Since it j^ields but one cutting, it is excelled by 

 red clover where the latter thrives. However, as alsike will grow on 

 "clover-sick" soil, it is replacing red clover on many fields. It should 

 be seeded with timothy or other grasses to support the weak stems. 

 Alsike hay is fine-stemmed and fully equal to red clover in value. 



White clover. — This creeping perennial thrives in almost any soil 

 from Canada nearly to the Gulf of ^Mexico, if moisture is ample. In 

 the North it is important in mixed pastures, forming a dense mat of 

 herbage thruout the growing season. In the South it nearly disap- 

 pears in summer, but reappears in the fall furnishing winter pas- 

 turage, and thus combines well with Bermuda grass. Owing to its 

 low growth it does not yield hay. 



Sweet clover. — White sweet clover is a biennial widely distributed 

 along roadsides and in waste places over southern Canada and a large 

 part of the United States, thriving best on soils rich in lime. It will 

 grow in soil so poorly drained or so worn and low in humus that al- 

 falfa or red clover will not live. Where these more valuable legumes 

 do not thrive, sweet clover, which was once viewed as a weed, is of 

 considerable value. It may be used for pasture, hay, and soilage, and 

 has occasionally been ensiled. At first animals usually refuse sweet 

 clover, for all parts of the plant contain cumarin, a bitter compound 



