60 RANGE IMPROVEMENT IN CENTRAL TEXAS. 
winter in vigorous condition. It suffered little, if any, on account 
of the frosts of December, 1900, and January and February, 1901. 
March, 1901, was a cold month for central Texas, but every root of 
the sweet clover on March 19, when the station work closed, was alive 
and vigorous. No effort was made to convert the green growth into 
hay. Had the plants been cut when young and tender, doubtless a good 
quality of fairly soft hay could have been secured. The cutting, how- 
ever, was done when they were 2 to 3 feet high and the stems were 
woody. <A couple of bales of the hay were made, one of which was 
given to Mr. P. O. Forbus (foreman of the station working force), 
who placed it in his own barn, where it perfumed his entire hay crop. 
The other bale, made in the summer of 1900, was opened in April, 
1901, and fed to a horse andacow. The horse ate a part of it, with- 
out much relish, but the cow greedily ate the balance. Several tests 
have been made of the sweet clover in the Abilene country, in every 
case with satisfactory results. Mr. F. C. Digby-Roberts, now mayor 
of Abilene, saved it for his honeybees, and was much pleased with the 
results. Others tested it as a green forage crop. They found that 
cattle and horses did not relish it much at first, but as it was green 
before anything else on the range, they soon took kindly to it and ate 
it readily. Some roots of this clover dug up in the grass garden and 
sent to the Division of Agrostology, Washington, D. C., were surpris- 
ingly long and large. It is deemed safe to recommend sweet clover 
for green forage and hay purposes to central Texas stockmen and 
farmers. 
WHITE CuLoveER ( Trifolium repens) . 
The tests made in the grass garden with this variety were not satis- 
factory. Seeds were sown broadcast in the spring of 1899, and a thin 
stand only was secured. At no time were the plants vigorous. Dur- 
ing the summer most of the roots died, and those that survived were 
winterkilled. November 13, 1900, seeds were drilled, but only in low, 
moist, fertile soil. Very few of them germinated. The few roots 
secured did not grow well and most of them did not survive the hot 
and dry summer months. During the succeeding winter every root 
left was killed. As at its best this variety produces but a small quan- 
tity of green forage or hay, it is not recommended to central Texas 
stockmen or farmers. 
PEAS AND BEANS. 
Cowpea ( Vigna catjang) . 
During the season of 1899 about sixteen varieties of cowpeas were 
tested. In every case the results were satisfactory. The seeds were 
planted in drills 3 feet apart, and as long as the season permitted the 
ground was kept stirred between the rows and about the roots. The 
plantings were all made the same day—April11. Good stands were 
