SWEET CLOVER : GROWING THE CROP. 



27 



results are likely to be obtained at first. Fair results have been 

 secured by planting seed with disk drills on prairie sod after it had 

 been double-disked in the early spring. This method should be 

 used in preference to broadcasting the seed and depending on cattle 

 to trample it in. Mr. George Hummer, of Prairie Point, Miss., re- 

 ports good success in his locality by simply broadcasting 1 peck of 

 unhulled seed on Ber- 

 muda-grass sod not later 

 than January 1. 



INOCULATION. 



Excepting soil acidity. 

 lack of inoculation prob- 

 ably is responsible for 

 more failures with sweet 

 clover than any other 

 one cause. When sweet- 

 clover plants are not in- 

 oculated they must de- 

 pend upon the available 

 nitrogen in the soil for 

 their supply, and as the 

 crop is grown for the 

 most part on soils low 

 in nitrogen the plants 

 can not be expected to 

 make more than a small 

 growth. (Fig. 9.) 



Arny and Thatcher, at 

 the Minnesota Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, obtained 10 times as 

 much dry matter in the 



tons and" seven timps <i<; 

 P S anCl 



milch in the roots of 

 sweet-clover nlintswhirh 

 had been grown On thor- 



oughly inoculated soil as 



FIG. 9. White sweet clover at Arlington, Va., showing 

 the effect of inoculation upon their growth. The 

 plants at the left represent the average growth on 

 the inoculated plats ; those at the right the average 

 growth on the plats not inoculated. The plats had 

 been previously limed and were seeded on the same 

 date. 



from plants which had been grown on soil not inoculated. More- 

 over, the plants grown on the inoculated soil contained 117 pounds 

 more nitrogen to the acre than those grown on the uninoculated soil. 

 Experiments in many other sections of the country, and espe- 

 cially in the northeastern quarter of the United States, where but 

 little sweet clover or alfalfa has thus far been grown, show that 



