ON LIVE STOCK FOOD 



it produces enormous quantities of seed that fall 

 from the stalks when ripe, and in our dry climate 

 may remain edible for some months. 



The plant was at first thought to be a nuisance, 

 but its value in a region where there is no rain 

 for months together soon came to be recognized. 

 To any one who is not acquainted with the burr 

 clover it is matter for astonishment to see a herd 

 of sheep, cattle, or horses, or a drove of hogs 

 pastured in a field where there is not a vestige 

 of green herbage; and yet to note that these ani- 

 mals are well-conditioned and even fat. They 

 feed on the burr clover seed, the pods of which 

 sometimes cover the ground half an inch or more 

 in depth. 



The plant itself has withered or disappeared, 

 but the seed-bearing pods furnish a forage crop 

 that has no substitute in this region, although it 

 would probably be of no special value in the East. 



The burr clover has a small leaf and small 

 blossoms. It runs and spreads by long, wiry, 

 slender stalks, and does not stand upright, so that 

 it could never be profitably cut for hay, making 

 only a tangle of tough thread-like stalks. Yet its 

 peculiar property of producing an abundant crop 

 of pods makes it in some localities quite as valu- 

 able a pasture plant as the common red clover is 

 in the East. 



[93] 



