74) 
ht 
RICHARD FROTSCHER’S ALMANAC AND GARDEN MANUAL 
both maintain equal possession ; or one 
year one may seem to rule, and the next 
year the other. 
VALUE. 
On sands, gravels, or denuded clay 
hill tops no other plant known to me is 
so valuable for grazing. Taking a suc- 
cession of ten years, the same assertion 
would not be far out of the way for rich 
lands, while few forage plants on these 
would yield so much or so valuable hay. 
The analysis of red clover gives 16 per 
cent. albuminoids and 41 carbohydrates. 
The average of two analyses of Japan 
clover gives 15.85 albuminoids and 56 
carbohydrates, placing it above red 
clover in nutritive value. Itis 
SUPERIOR TO OTHER FORAGE PLANTS 
in several important particulars not 
generally observed by the careless 
stock-man. 1. The growing plant con- 
tains less moisture than any other very 
valuable forage plant with perhaps a 
single exception. Hence we never hear 
of animals having hoven or bloat or 
scours from eating this plant as when 
they have free access to red clover, pease 
and many grasses. 2. We have never 
yet found on the Japan clover any 
fungous growths which are so common 
on other plants as to cause many deaths 
annually among animals grazing on 
them or fed with the hay. 3. Heavy graz- 
ing for a few weeks destroys the clovers, 
lucerne and most of the grasses, while 
this plant may be grazed however close- 
ly, whether the season be wet or pro- 
longed drouth prevail, without damage. 
4. There is less difficulty of obtaining a 
eatch with this plant than most others. 
The seed may be scattered on bare. 
poor, barren ground, rich soil, among 
weeds and dead grass, or in March on 
small grain sown the previous autumn 
or winter and a catch will be obtained. 
5. The grain being harvested when 
ripe does not injure the Lespedeza; 
which is ready for the mower through 
September and October. 6. It is more 
easily cured than the clovers, pea vines 
and many grasses. 7. It does not lose 
the foliage in curing as do clovers, pease 
and some other plants. 8. It furnishes 
good grazing from May, some years last 
of March till killed by frost in October 
or November. 
PRODUCT OF HAY. 
On medium to good land it ranges 
from one to three tons per acre: and 
this may be obtained after having dur- 
ing the summer harvested from the same 
land a good crop of grain and straw. 
QUALITY. 
Some ofour farmers, who have been 
mowing Lespedeza striata for five to ten 
years regard it as the soundest, best. 
most wholesome and palatable hay they 
ever used. These mowings have ranged 
from two to three hundred tons on 
single farms in one season. Yet no 
complaint as to quality, or relish of 
animals for it, or. as to its nutritive 
value and good effect on the stock has 
ever reached us. Those who have used 
it longest and in largest quantities and 
kept animals —cattle. sheep, horses and 
mules—in best condition commend it 
most. We have now before usa beauti- 
ful sample of this hay from Louisiana 
being from a crop of perhaps 300 tons 
mowed last autumn. 
SEEDING. 
A measured half bushel of seed per 
acre ay be sown broad-cast the first 
week in March south of parallel 32° of 
latitude, a few days later as we proceed 
northward for each degree or two. Sown 
in the fall or winter it springs up, but 
freezes often throw it out and destroy 
it. As already stated it germinates and 
grows wellon land in any condition, if 
the surface is not so loose as to let the 
seed sink too deep. When land has been 
prepared for or sown in grain, the winter 
rains put it in about the best condition 
for growing this plant for heavy crops 
of hay. 
All our remarks on this plant, as 
found in our Southern States, are based 
on what we have seen and learned of it 
in a belt lying between 303° and 34° of 
latitude. 
The only 
COMPLETE PROOF © 
of the value of a forage plant is found in 
the concurrence of chemical analysis 
and the observation and experience of 
thestockman. Whenthe relish of an 
