SWEET CLOVER 313 



Value as a Fertilizer — The high value of this 

 plant as a fertilizer and soil improver cannot be 

 questioned. But whether it should ever be sown 

 for such a use will depend on the capacity of the 

 soil to produce other crops valuable for fertilizing 

 and also more valuable for producing forage or fod- 

 der. Where other clovers more useful can be grown, 

 also cow peas, soy beans and other legumes valuable 

 for food uses, it would seem unwise to sow sweet 

 clover. This would restrict its use, therefore, as 

 a soil renovator ; first, to soils too poor to grow those 

 useful legumes; second, to areas where the climate 

 conditions will not admit of the growth of these; 

 and third, to areas from which the surface soil has 

 been removed, and which it is desirable to so ameli- 

 orate and improve the soil thus laid bare that it 

 could later be covered with some more valuable 

 cover crop. Under present conditions this would 

 restrict its growth for the purpose named to sandy 

 and gravelly soils, to certain areas in the semi-arid 

 region east of the Rocky Mountains, and to such 

 small areas as the surface soil had been removed 

 from. 



In the semi-arid region where crops of grain and 

 also some varieties of field corn can be grown suc- 

 cessfully, but where the clovers are not successful, 

 it would seem practicable to sow a few pounds of 

 sweet clover seed per acre at the same time as the 

 grains, and to plow under the plants produced some 

 time in the month of May the next season. The 

 clover thus buried could be at once followed 

 by corn or potatoes, or, indeed, by any i<ind of a 



