SWEET CLO^EE FOUND GOOD. 



Tliis article caps the discussion ot the newly certified 

 merits of sweet clovei, which we have presented to our 

 readeis in recent issues Sweet clover has been given a sci 

 entific try-out. Prot. B C Buftum, director at the Wyoming 

 Experiment Station, has taken it m hand He has grown it, 

 fed it, tested and observed it, and has thoroughly demon- 

 strated its worth. Furtheimore, he has tound hope of im- 

 proving it, and has undertaken the task. Here is his account. 

 -^Editor, Farm and Firesidjb.. » 



Bokhara, or sweet clover lias so long been con- 

 sidered worse than useless that there is a widespread 

 and almost universal prejudice against the plant. 



Its hardiness, adaptability, persistence, and grow- 

 ing power under adverse conditions are well known; 

 but it is not easy to convince the skeptical that it has 

 any kind of value, or that improvement may make 

 sweet clover one of the most important of all our 

 forage crops. My experience with sweet clover dates 

 bacK some years and my results with the plant are 

 such that the past season I planted twenty acres of it 

 for breeding purposes and to improve the soil. I have 

 two varieties, and shall attempt crossing and hyEridiz- 

 iug in addition to other methods of changing its 

 character and composition. 



So far as I am informed, sweet clover first came into 

 use as a forage plant in Mississippi and other por- 

 tions of the South. Then reports came from Utah 

 that sweet-clover hay was being baled and used for 

 stock-food. In 1903 I visited Big Horn Basin, Wyom- 

 ing. Here on the "Pitchfork" Ranch, one of the best 

 developed in the West, the owner told me that one 

 year he planted and put up a large area of sweet- 

 clover hay, and that his cattle apparently ate it as 

 well and thrived on it as well as they did on alfalfa. 

 I then resolved to carry out some investigations of 

 sweet clover. 



There was an area of land on the Wyoming Experi- 

 ment Station farm which lacked drainage, and where 

 tne accumulation of alkali salts had destroyed a stand 

 of alfalfa. This ground was covered with a menacing 

 growth of what Western stockmen call "foxtail." 

 This is not the tame foxtail of the East, but more 



84 



