248 



SOILS AND PLANT LIFE 



Along the highways, on stony hillsides, in neglected 

 places, and here and there in cultivated fields from Ala- 

 bama to Wyoming, and from California to New Jersey, 

 we find a once rejected plant that is now coming to be 

 recognized as one of the farmer's truest friends. It is 

 sweet clover, — and it is not a weed. Rather it is a valu- 

 able forage and pasture crop when stock have once learned 

 to eat it. It is a wonder worker for the soil and it yields 

 honey for the bees. In barren, neglected tobacco fields, 

 in stiff clayey irrigation land, and indeed in nearly any 



Fig. 110. — The white clover. 



soil that is rich in lime, even though it be lacking other- 

 wise in fertility, sweet clover thrives and prepares the 

 way for other crops. 



When the portion of the line, which is following up 

 the Mississippi River, reaches the junction of , that river 

 with the Missouri, they will find the red clover, which most 

 of us know and love so well, coming into its own. 

 Westward they will find it to Kansas, eastward, to the 

 coast, and northward, to the Canadian line. Those in the 

 far West will also find it on the Pacific coast north of 

 California. Red clover, good farmers will tell you, are 



