Treatment of Clover. 135 



covered until the last moment. Don't let it lie bare all winter as 

 the result of fall plowing. Keep live roots in the soil to gather 

 up any stray fertility that would otherwise go to waste. This is 

 best here, with our open winters. In Maine or Wisconsin it may 

 be a very different matter. There, winter locks up and stays. 

 Here it may be open half or more of the time, with great rainfall. 

 My clover goes into the winter, the second year, with the ground 

 mulched even more than the first. And this mulching is systema- 

 tically done, even that is not left to run itself. Man can generally 

 help nature to advantage. The clover would fall every which 

 way, perhaps, if left to itself. So when it gets about knee-high, and 

 just before it goes down, we harrow it down with smoothing har- 

 row the same way we want to plow in the spring. Thus the 

 clover lies away from the plow, and with a jointer on there is little 

 trouble in turning under a heavy crop . And it is harrowed down 

 evenly all over field. Every square foot gets its share. If it fell 

 down it might fall so as to give spots a double dose and others 

 very little. Our second crop usually would make two tons of hay 

 per acre, so there is quite a quantity to turn under. It delays 

 plowing a little in the spring. This I dislike, but see no way to 

 help it. The land is longer drying out when so much shaded. 



The midge has troubled us some here. He lives in the heads 

 and sucks the life out of the seeds as they are forming. Not 

 wanting the clover from one field for hay one year, I managed so 

 as to get a good crop of seed in spite of midge. There are two 

 broods, one coming when clover blooms naturally the first time 

 and the other get around for second crop bloom. I don't think 

 they have any daily papers to inform them, but nature teaches 

 them when clover will be ready for them. I mowed off my clover 

 ab'out middle of May, say, when ten inches high, and let it lie. 

 This brought a second crop in bloom at an unusual time, earlier, 

 and the result was a mass of full bloom, the real, old-fashioned 

 kind, and a good crop of seed. 



The clover root beetle has troubled us some a little beetle 

 that you can see with the naked eye, if you look closely, that eats the 

 roots until they are all but destroyed sometimes. They have not 

 hurt clover the year of seeding arid not until the second crop was 

 well along the next year. If the clover w r ere to stand another year 

 they would do great damage. It would not amount to much with 

 the tap roots all eaten out. But clover should not stand another 

 year. After two full years' growth it has done its best for one, 

 and should then be turned under, and the fertility it has gathered 

 up turned into money. A very common practice is to sow timo- 

 thy with it and let the clover run out, and then the timothy eats 

 up the accumulated fertility, and is taken off, and then, perhaps, 

 when the clover is all run out the sod is plowed, and the farmer 

 says : " I don't see any gain in fertility from clover growing. 

 I believe that Terry is a confounded liar ! ' ' 



