These marked advantages have been verified many 

 times by observation. They were first noted aloi# 

 the roadsides where melilot first gained footholl 

 The crop of grass succeeding a growth of sweet clover 

 is always luxuriant. Even beds of sand, which never 

 bear more than few coarse weeds, after a growth of 

 sweet clover were completely covered with a thick 

 sward. In roadway ruts and ditches the bare subsoil 

 is first clothed with meiilot which is followed by grass 

 and the ugly gashes are soon healed. Noting the 

 liking of sweet clover for bare spots, the writer 

 sowed some stony hilltops and barren slopes in cul- 

 tivated fields. A marked improvement was noted in 

 the crops raised on the clover plowed under on these 

 spots. 



Clearer proof was noted on a neighbor's field seeded 

 to rye. Here a hatful of seed was scattered upon a 

 ridge in the center of the field. The spring winds 

 blew the rye plants out of the ground, but the. sweet 

 clover made a good stand and in the fall covered 

 the ground. Oats followed the rye and on the patch 

 of sweet-clover sod the growth and yield was twice 

 as heavy as elsewhere. 



But the best test has just been made by our- 

 selves on a 16-acre field of badly worn soil, the 

 land having been cropped with little change for 

 50 years and had lately yielded less than half crops. 

 It was seeded with timothy, clover, and melilot The 

 latter made a good stand only where inoculated by 

 wash from the baeteria-mfected roadside, but there 

 it made a fine growth and the first cutting gave four 

 loads per acre. This seeding was kept three years 

 Pastured the last year, it gave double the feed af- 

 forded by adjacent pastures. 



Last fall a thin coat of manure was given the 

 weak spots and the sod was turned for corn. Corn 

 was drilled in the well-fitted ground about May 20th 

 and the strong growth thus started was kept by good 

 conditions until the finish. It took 70 pounds of twine 

 to harvest the crop and the yield was taken off at 50 

 loads; only the lightest has been husked but tli ^ 

 yields 120 baskets per acre. 



74 



