CLOVER 



CLOVER 



235 



makes fairly good hay, although the very hairy 

 character of the plant tends to the formation 

 of hair-balls in the stomachs of the animals. An 



acre should yield five to ten 



bushels of seed. 

 Berseem or Egyptian clover 



(T. Alexandrinum, Linn.) (Figs. 



91, 308) is annual, with yellowish 



white flowers in oblong heads, 



erect and tall, somewhat hairy. 



[See Berseem, page 215.] 



Fig. 339. 

 TrifoUum agrariwm. 



Fig. 338. Crimson clover. 



Group II. Less important 

 or weed clovers. 



The small, introduced 

 clovers of this group, 

 occurring about culti- 

 vated lands or along roadsides, are of two kinds, — 

 the yellow-iiowered and the silky-headed. They are 

 all low, more or less trailing or weak-spreading 

 annual plants, producing little herbage and of 

 small value where other clovers will succeed. One 

 of the black medics (Medicago lupulina, the, bur 

 or hop clover) is often confused with the true 

 clovers. 



The commonest yellow-headed clovers are Tri- 

 foUum agrarium, L'inn., sometimes called yellow or 

 hop clover (Fig. 339 ), with ovate-oblong leaflets 

 that are all sessile and narrow stipules attached 

 prominently to the petiole, the plant about a 

 foot high ; T. proeumbens, Linn., the low of creep- 

 ing hop clover (Fig. 340), with wedge-shaped leaf- 

 flets, the terminal one of which is short-stalked, 

 and short stipules, the heads smaller (one-half inch, 

 or less, long), and the plant more spreading and 

 about six inches tall. T. agrarium (sometimes 

 called T. aureum) is very abundant on sandy lands 

 in some parts of the country, and is considered 

 to be of some value as pasture. 



The other group comprises only one common 

 species, the rabbit-foot or stone clover (T. arvense, 

 Linn.) (Pig. 341). The plant grows a foot high, 

 silky-gray all over, the leaflets linear or oblanceo- 

 late, the whitish-flowered heads becoming silky 

 and soft. This clover is often so abundant on 

 light lands as to form the principal growth after 



harvest. It might be utilized in some places as an 

 early mulch or a catch-crop. 



Group III. Wild or little-known clovers. 



There are a good number of native clovers, but 

 they have not come into prominence agriculturally 

 and they need not be discussed here. Descriptions 

 of them may be found in the standard floras. 

 Some of these clovers have been cultivated to a 

 limited extent, or in an experimental way, in this 

 country or abroad. Feeding-value analyses have 

 been made of some of them at the Oregon Experi- 

 ment Station (Bulletin No. 62), of T. Wormskioldii, 

 at the California Station (Report of 1895-7). The 

 wild T. Beekwithii is mentioned as worthy of culti- 

 vation by J. G. Smith in Bulletin No. 2, Division of 

 Agrostology, United States Department of Agri- 

 culture. 



Literature. 



Thomas Shaw, "Clovers and How to Grow 

 Them," 1906; chapters and ref- 

 erences in vari-ous crop books, 

 as the books on forage crops 

 by Hunt, Voorhees and others ; 



Fig. 340. 



TrifoUum pro- 



cuTnbens. 



scattered bulletins of 

 Experiment Stations 

 and the United States 

 Department of Agri- 

 culture. 



Red Clover Seed- 

 Growing. 



By C. B. Smith. 



The clover-seed crop 

 of the United States, 

 in 1900, was placed 

 by the census of 

 that year at 1,349,209 

 bushels. Over 85 per 

 cent of the crop 

 was produced in the 

 group of states in- 

 cluding Indiana, Ohio, 

 Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, — mentioned in 

 the decreasing order of their importance. The 

 yield varies from nothing to eight bushels per 

 acre, the average being not far from two to three 



Fig. 341. Rabbit-foot clover 



{TrifoUum arvense). 



