156 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA, 
needing humus sadly. It has failed in countless in- 
stances because of lack of inoculation. If one wishes 
to grow it he should either inoculate with soil from 
some successful crimson clover field or should per- 
sist year after year in growing it on the same soil 
till at last the inoculation comes. There seems 
a wild clover along the Atlantic Coast that carries 
the same bacteria as crimson clover but this is not 
found west of the Alleghenies. With proper inocu- 
lation crimson clover will succeed over a far wider 
territory than is now known or supposed. 
Melilotus or Sweet Clover—What is a weed? A 
plant out of place? Weeds there are and weeds. It 
one must have them, and usually he will, he could 
hardly have a better one than Melilotus alba, or 
white sweet clover. There are two sorts of sweet 
clover, one with white blooms and one with yellow. 
The yellow-flowered sort is Melilotus officinalis. It 
is not so good as the white nor so common. Sweet 
clover looks like alfalfa. Indeed, it is a sort of first 
cousin to the alfalfa plant. The main difference is 
that it has a less deeply boring root stock and is a 
biennial, or a two-year plant, while alfalfa may live 
half a ceutury. Sweet clover is a good sort of weed, 
because it is not unsightly and it feeds the bees and 
wherever it grows it mightily enriches land. It 
loves lime land and hard places along roadsides and 
on railway embankments. It will grow 6 or 8 feet 
high in favorable places or if it is cut down close it 
will bear seed when only just above the earth. 
‘ It was Dr. Cyril G. Hopkins who first called at- 
