SWEET CLOVER: UTILIZATION'. 5 



forage to carry at least one animal to the acre throughout the season. 

 In addition to this, a crop of hay or a seed crop may be harvested 

 from a portion of the land when it is so fenced that the stock may be 

 confined to certain parts of the field at specific times. Land which is 

 too rough or too depleted for cultivation, or permanent pastures 

 which have become thin and weedy, may be improved greatly by 

 drilling in, after disking, a few pounds of sweet-clover seed per acre. 

 Xot only will the sweet clover add considerably to the quality and 

 quantity of the pasturage but the growth of the grasses will be im- 

 proved by the addition of large quantities of humus and nitrogen 

 to the soil. 



Sweet clover has proved to be an excellent pasture crop on many 

 of the best farms in the North-Central States. In this part of the 

 country it may be seeded alone and pastured from the middle or lat- 

 ter part of June until frost, or it may be sown with grain and pas- 

 tured after harvest. 



When sweet clover has been seeded two years in succession on 

 separate fields, the field sown the first year may be pastured until the 

 middle of June, when the stock should be turned on the spring 

 seeding. When handled in this manner excellent pasturage is pro- 

 vided throughout the summer, and a hay or seed crop may be har- 

 vested from the field seeded the previous season. 



Some of the best pastures in Iowa consist of a mixture of Ken- 

 tucky bluegrass, timothy, and sweet clover. On a farm observed near 

 Delmar, Iowa, stock is pastured on meadows containing this mix- 

 ture from the first part of April to the middle of June. From this 

 time until the first part of September the stock is kept on one-half 

 to two-thirds the total pasture acreage. The remainder of the pasture 

 land is permitted to mature a seed crop. After the seed crop is har- 

 vested the stock again is turned on this acreage, where they feed on 

 the grasses and first-year sweet-clover plants until cold weather. The 

 seed which shatters when the crop is cut is usually sufficient to reseed 

 the pastures. By handling his pasture land in this manner, the 

 owner of the farm has always had an abundance of pasture and at 

 the same time has obtained each year a crop of 2 to 4 bushels of re- 

 cleaned seed to the acre from one-third to one-half of his pasture 

 land. This system has been in operation on one field for 20 years and 

 not until the last two years has bluegrass showed a tendency to 

 crowd out the sweet clover. It is essential that sufficient stock be 

 kept on the pastures to keep the plants eaten rather closely, so that 

 at all times there will be an abundance of fresh shoots. 



Whenever the first crop of the second year is not needed for hay 

 or silage it can be used for no better purpose than pasturage. In 

 fact, it is better to pasture the fields until the middle of June, as this 

 affords one of the most economical and profitable ways of handling 



