FToperly a wild barley called "sauirrel-tail grass" ia 

 ■le older botanies. It grows in waste places, or some- 

 Hmes in meadows, and the beards cause much, trouble 

 to stock eating hay contaminated with it. I planted 

 four acres of this land to sweet clover in spite of the 

 protests of friends that I should be mobbed for in- 

 troducing and fostering what to them was only a dan- 

 gerous weed. It was planted late, and in the short 

 season made no growth that could be harvested the 

 first year. The next season, however, I cut two crops, 

 and put up four small stacks of the hay. The yield 

 of cured hay was 2% tons to the acre. One-half the 

 hay was salted with seven or eight pounds of common 

 salt to the load as it went into the stack. 



The assistant head of our live-stock department was 

 requested to make feeding trials with sweet-clover hay 

 that fall ; but either his own skepticism or some other 

 cause prevented the order being carried out, and my 

 sweet-clover stacks perfumed the air through that 

 winter and the next summer and fall before the feed- 

 ing traits were actually organized. I must pause here 

 to note the first beneficial effect of growing sweet 

 clover. In the two seasons it had cured the land of 

 foxtail, and apparently did some good to the alkalized 

 ground as well. Sweet clover is a weed-eradicator 

 and nitrogen-gatherer worthy of wide and extended 

 use. Our station-chemists' analyses, I remember, gave 

 as high as twenty-three and eight-tenths per cent, 

 crude protein; the others gave fifteen and nineteen 

 per cent. At the same time our high-altitude-alfalfa 

 hay was showing more richness than other alfalfa, 

 with about sixteen per cent, protein and high digesti- 

 bility. Our richest sweet clover was higher in protein 

 than any other roughage, and showed one condition to 

 be avoided. Care must be taken not to gxve too much 

 of it, as stock may become cloyed and go '''off feed" 

 from overfeeding. 



When given to the lambs on experiment, the hay 

 was eaten with great relish, even the coarse stems 

 being readily consumed. My men fed carefully, and 

 j^ts of ten lambs each were fed on sweet clover, com- 

 Ikred with alfalfa and with native hay; lambs fed 



