MANURES AND HUMUS IN SOIL. 167 
tention to the fact that alfalfa and sweet clover 
bear the same bacteria on their rootlets and that 
sweet clover inoculates land for alfalfa. (Breeder’s 
Gazette, Sept. 16, 1903.) So there is quite a use- 
ful combination of facts. Sweet clover is very 
hardy, it will grow on poor soil, it enriches soil very 
much and it improves the physical condition of soils, 
then it inoculates the land for alfalfa. In truth 
many fine fields of alfalfa have had their start from 
inoculation taken from sweet clover weed patches 
along roadsides. 
Melilotus has never been treated as a farm crop in 
the North. In the South it is much used in Alabama 
and Mississippi, both as pasture and for hay. No 
better authority on melilotus could be found than 
Prof. J. F. Duggar, Director of the Alabama ex- 
periment station. I quote from a letter from him: 
In reply to your request, I give you the following data on 
Melilotus alba (sweet clover), as it is grown in the central 
prairie belt of Alabama and Mississippi. 
The seed should be sown in February and lightly covered. It 
may be sown either on ground devoted entirely to this crop or 
sown with seed oats or among growing plants of fall-sown oats. 
At least one bushel of unhulled seed per acre is needed. If sown 
alone and on good land there will usually be one or two cuttings 
the first year. If sown with oats as a nurse crop and on poor 
land, the first year’s growth wil scarcely be sufficient for cut- 
ting, but will afford a fair amount of pasturage. 
The second year new shoots spring from the old crowns early 
in March and the first cuttings of hay can be made early in May. 
There is usually a second cutting. Melilotus should be cut when 
just beginning to bloom, since after this date it rapdly becomes 
woody. The hay, especially that secured the year the seed are 
sown, is very nutritious, the composition resembling that of 
alfalfa, though melilotus hay contains a smaller proportion of 
leaves, and the stems are coarser, especially in the hay secured 
the second year of the plant’s life. At first live stock do not 
