24 FARMERS* BULLETIN 797. 



produce a good stand as earlier seeding. Late spring seeding may 

 be preferable when the ground is weedy and the clover is to be seeded 

 without a nurse crop. Under these circumstances a crop of weeds 

 may be destroyed before seeding. 



Very good success has been obtained in the Southern and Central 

 States, and in some of the Northern States., by seeding sweet clover 

 in the late summer or early autumn. When there is sufficient moisture 

 in the soil for germination and when good seed is used, better stands 

 Lave been obtained by seeding about eight weeks before severe frosts 

 are to be expected than from spring sowing. This is particularly 

 true in regions where late spring droughts or severe summer droughts 

 are likely to occur. Seeding at this time may be done after an early 

 crop has been harvested and when weeds are not likely to be trouble- 

 some. Plants from fall seeding mature from 10 days to two weeks 

 later the following season than plants from spring sowing of the 

 same year. The later time of maturing is an advantage, in that the 

 plants will be ready to cut during better haying weather. The root 

 growth is not as large from fall seeding as from spring seeding, and 

 therefore not quite as much humus is added to the soil. Late fall 

 seedings are very likely to be^injured from heaving on wet clay soils. 



UNHULLED SWEET-CLOVER SEED. 



Unhulled sweet-clover seed is sown principally in Kentucky, Ala- 

 bama, and Mississippi. On the limestone soils of these regions, which 

 appear to be naturally adapted to sweet clover, very good results are 

 obtained by using unhulled seed. It is not because sout'hern-grow T n 

 unhulled seed germinates better than northern-grown unhulled seed 

 that better stands are obtained in the South from it, but it is mainly 

 because southern farmers better understand the somew r hat exacting 

 conditions necessary for obtaining a stand with this kind of seed. 

 Unhulled sw r eet clover contains a large percentage of hard seeds 

 which will not germinate until they have been in the soil for some 

 time and have been subjected to varying temperatures. 



Seeding experiments have been conducted at Arlington, Va., where 

 unhulled seed which contained 90 per cent of hard seed was sown 

 during each month of the winter. Good stands were obtained on 

 those plats seeded at the rate of 24 pounds (3 pecks) of seed to the 

 acre during December and January, and fair stands on the plats 

 seeded at this rate in February. Later seedings failed to produce 

 a stand. 



A large percentage of the unhulled seed sown in the South is 

 seeded during January and the first part of February. Good stands 

 are seldom obtained from unhulled seed south of the latitude of 

 Washington, D. C., when the seed is sown later than the middle of 

 February. 



