108 PRACTICAL NOTES ON GRASSES AND GRASS GROWING. 
at’once brand it as the most unsatisfactory and the most 
disappointing. 
Red clover being so uncertain a crop, and never at all 
dependable on the same land, except after a period of eight 
years at least, the perplexed farmer is often inclined to select 
trefoil as the lesser of two evils; with more consideration we 
think he could do better. This he usually sows on the lines of 
the old adage laid down by his forefathers, “a peck of heavy 
with a peck of light,” and to this mixture he adds 2 lb. to 
4 lb. of white clover—a peck of perennial ryegrass generally 
being the light seed selected, or perhaps he choses Italian rye- 
grass. In so doing he entirely ignores the fact that a peck of 
perennial will go as far in seeding the land as a_ bushel 
of Italian ryegrass, or a peck of clover as far as two pecks 
of trefoil; and then he wonders at the failure of his layers. 
Cow grass and Loliums, Alsike, or white clover, Loliums, 
and red suckling, would doubtless form a better mixture for 
him ; but as he fears they may impair the efficiency of his 
clovers when their turn comes round, he falls back upon trefoil, 
or a trefoil mixture. 
Trefoil is an uncertain cropper, and a captious plant, 
although it appears to grow on almost any soil. It likes good 
living, and gives but poor results upon inferior land. It will 
stand cold weather fairly, but not perfectly. The same 
remarks apply to dry weather, but it likes the rain, little and 
often, in preference to a surfeit. By reason of these peculiari- 
ties it is rare that we have a season particularly suitable to 
trefoil growing. 
It flowers a fortnight earlier than clover; although it is an 
early spring grower, it is not a plant well adapted for hay. If 
cut before the seed pods—which are at the bottom of the stalk 
—are quite black, the hay is bitter, and will be rejected by stock ; 
but it produces early feed, and in some seasons plenty of it. 
Still neither stock nor sheep are over partial to its taste, and do 
