THE IBBIGATION AGE. 



265 



MELILOTUS ALBA NO LONGER DESPISED 



M [ 



E. G. Finnup, who has 

 3.000 acres seeded to weet 

 clover. 



ELILOTUS ALBA ! 



Do you recognize the name ? 

 No? 



Well, he is an old friend of yours 

 or rather you have considered 

 him a foe, if you have lived east 

 of the one hundredth meridian. If 

 you have farmed in the eastern 

 country you have waged relentless 

 war upon him. Even the state leg- 

 islatures have passed laws to exter- 

 minate him. 



But he would not be downed. No 



matter how poor the land or how gravelly the road- 

 side, Melilotus Alba found some spot to call home 



and to grow and to thrive. None but the bees and 



their masters ever 



said a kind word 



for him, but still his 



white blossoms, with 



their fragrance, and 



the deep green of 



the leaves, continued 



to lend cheer to 



friend as well as 



foe. 



A n d still you 



don't recognize Mel- 

 ilotus Alba? Well, 



his other name is 



Sweet Clover. 



And now Sweet 



Clover defines dol- 

 lars instead of nox- 

 ious weed. 



Its value as a hay 



and forage crop has 



been proven, and 



hundreds of farm- 



e r s have seeded 



fields with it this 



year. Thousands 



more will do so next 



year. The demand 



for sweet clover seed 



is greater than the 



supply today. 



Investigation has 



proven that it com- 

 pares favorably as 



a forage and hay 



crop with alfalfa. It 



is superior in some 



particulars to red 



clover. It has a more 



beneficial effect upon 



Spring lambs pasturing on sweet clover on W. U. Sanderson's Farm at Nysta, Ore. 



grows on land too wet, too dry, or too rocky for 

 other crops. But it is not only a waste land crop. 

 It is a crop that will pay well on the best land on 

 the farm, and many farmers are seeding their choicest 

 pasture to it. It is drouth resisting; therefore val- 

 uable where the rainfall is light. 



Cattle will not eat it ? True in many cases. Prob- 

 ably you had to learn to eat olives or rattlesnake steak 

 or muskrat roast or snails or any of the other high- 

 priced delicacies of one of Chicago's gilded res- 

 taurants. Cows, horses and other livestocks are a 

 good deal like humans. Some even have to learn to 

 like corn. 



Sweet clover makes very good pasture in early 

 spring, and if the stock is turned in while the leaves 

 are young and succulent, they quickly develop an 



appetite for it. After 

 becoming a c c u s- 

 tomed to it, many 

 cattle eat it in pref- 

 erence to other 

 kinds of hay. 



There are numer- 

 ous varieties of 

 sweet clover, but 

 Melilotus Alba, the 

 ordinary white blos- 

 somed kind, is gen- 

 e r a 1 1 y considered 

 the most valuable. 



One of the pio- 

 neers in the sweet 

 clover industry was 

 E. G. Finnup, whose 

 farm is located near 

 Garden City, in Fin- 

 ney county, Kansas. 

 He has 3',000 acres 

 in sweet clover this 

 year. But let him 

 tell his own story. 



"I started to feed 

 this sweet clover 

 about eight years 

 ago," said Mr. Fin- 

 n u p. "I t is the 

 white blooming va- 

 riety (Melilotus 

 Alba), which is con- 

 sidered the best; 

 and from watching 

 my stock feeding on 

 it I began to believe 

 that they did better 

 on sweet clover hay 



beneficial effect Upon Handlmg sweet clover with a "boat Jed." Fiom 1.500 to 2,000 pound, of sweet cloverhaycanbecarried than IllOSt any Other 



the soil Tt has -A t the thresher on one of these sleds. 2x 1 2x20 feet. Any seed, which is shattered off the shocks into the boats. rniio-Vinocc en T r-nm 



Ildi> d. is swept up and saved. rOUgnnCSS, SO 



high protein content. menced to spread the fields and got to sowing it until 



Sweet clover will grow where hardly anything now I have about 3,000 acres. 



else will grow. It has been found to do well in land "Sweet clover has proven to be as good feed for 



too high in alkali for anything else to live on. It all kinds of stock as alfalfa. 



