326 CLOVERS 



sown on reclaimed alkaline lands, and growing it 

 on these tends to remove the alkali and to sweeten 

 and otherwise improve the soils. 



The place for this plant in the rotation is readily- 

 apparent. Like crimson clover, it it clearly a catch 

 crop, as it were, and a winter plant, but with the 

 difference that it grows much more rapidly under 

 suitable conditions and furnishes much more food. 

 The advantage of growing it northward in the 

 Western mountain valleys when sown in spring, as 

 intimated by the writer of the bulletin already re- 

 ferred to, would seem to be at least problematical, 

 since it could not be sown early enough in the spring 

 to produce a crop as early as alfalfa already estab- 

 lished. It would then be grown also as the crop of 

 the season, rather than as a catch crop. The place 

 for Egyptian clover in the rotation is clearly that 

 of a winter crop, to provide soiling food for stock 

 and plant food for the land, which may be utilized 

 by the summer crop that follows. 



In Egypt the seed is frequently sown on the silt 

 deposited by the waters that have subsided and be- 

 fore it would be dry enough to plow. At other 

 times, it is sowed on land stirred on the surface to 

 a greater or less depth, and sprouted through the 

 aid of irrigating waters. In the valleys of the ^^^est 

 that preparation of the soil found suitable for alfalfa 

 would also, doubtless, be found suitable for this 

 clover. 



The seed is sown in the autumn in Egypt, usu- 

 ally in October, but the season of sowing lasts from 

 September to January, and some crops have been 



