
_ WHITE FLOWERING SWEET CLOVER for Heavy Soil 
PLANT WHITE FLOWERING SWEET CLOVER ON BLACK LAND 
(Melilotus Alba Bi.) 
INOCULATE SEED WITH NITRAGIN "A” 
White Flowering Sweet Clover is a biennial 
and, as a rule, does not bloom the first year 
after planting; the growth is much more 
rapid the second year. With the stimulus of 
food stored in the roots and the second year 
growth starting early in the spring of the 
second season, you are assured a good early 
pasturage or an abundant hay crop. 
The first year’s growth of this plant should 
be used for pasturage. The second year’s 
growth can be used for pasturage as early 
as March—before most summer plants are 
available—and may be pastured throughout 
the early summer. 
Sweet Clover requires a firm, well-settled 
seed bed, with only a bit of loose soil on the 
surface to permit the seed to be covered 
Kightly. 
For spring sowing, soil that has been 
ploughed in the fall is usually in the proper 
shape. Land should be ploughed several 
months or more in advance of sowing of Sweet 
Clover. Should the seed be sown on soil that 
appears to be a bit loose, it will be wise to 
roll the field after sowing. 
Sow in the fall and spring at the rate o 
15 pounds per acre, 
Scarifying of seed hastens the germination, 
Nicholson’s Tested White Flowering Sweet 
Clover seed is hulled and scarified, both of 
which help and hasten germination and insure 
you a good stand. 
Sweet Clover is useful for soil improvement, 
for hay, for pasturage, and as a honey plant 
for the bees. For soil improvement it is very 
valuable to lime and heavy clay and black 
lands, not only on account of the luxuriance 
of stems and foliage, but also because the 
thick roots, on decaying, improve the drain- 
age and texture of the soil. 
In Texas, this great Clover is especially 
adapted to the stiff lands, and even clay soils, 
that are too poor in organic matter to support 
a thrifty growth of Alfalfa or other clovers 
and grasses. Such soil will increase greatly in 
value with each year’s growth of Sweet 
Clover. 
Growing Sweet Clover is the best known 
method of building up worn-out lands. Black 
lands especially will respond to Sweet Clover 
where commercial fertilizer fails. 

SWEET CLOVER 
Winter legumes sown in the fall protect the soil from wind and 
water erosion. The soil becomes covered with a blanket of plant 
growth. It is not left bare and thus exposed to weather conditions. 
They also serve the useful purpose of absorbing and holding min- 
eral plant-food nutrients that may be otherwise leached away in 
the drainage waters. 
The yield of cotton following a good growth of winter legumes 
may be increased by 200 to 300 pounds of lint cotton per acre. 
The main purpose of growing legumes is to increase the organic 
matter and nitrogen content of the soil. The amount of nitrogen 
added to the soil by plowing under winter legumes is usually 
expressed as the nitrate of soda equivalent. This has been found to 
vary from several hundred pounds per acre to one-half ton and 
mnore per acre depending upon the plant growth. 
Our winters are so mild that such plants as Alfalfas and Clovers, 
Winter Peas and Vetches, as well as most grasses and cereal 
grains, will grow in the late fall and winter unmolested by the 
cold, and at a time when the land would otherwise be idle. 
READ THIS --LEGUME PLANTERS 
Corn yields have been increased by 20 or more bushels per acre 
following a winter legume. These facts afford ample proof that 
winter legumes bring better paying crops to Southern farmers. 
Land owners should be interested in the growing of legumes as 
a permanent investment, since the soils thus occupied will in 
time be just as rich and productive as they were in the beginning. 
A major portion of the forage or pasture plants suited to the 
South are sown in the fall of the year. These plants fill the soil 
with live roots throughout the winter months, utilizing the soil’s 
supply of nitrogen as it becomes soluble. If these soluble nitrates 
were not so taken up, they would be leached or washed away 
and completely lost. 
The nitrates taken up in such a manner by the plants of Clovers, 
Vetches, Austrian Winter Peas and even winter grasses are stored 
in the tissues of the plants, together with the nitrogen gathered 
from the air, until the plants are eaten by livestock or until they 
decay on the land. In either instance, the nitrogen is returned 
to the soil for use of summer growing crops. 
FOR SUCCESS IN PLANTING SMALL GRASS SEEDS 
Soil Preparation 
Breaking the land is not necessary, except where it has become 
badly baked or where the grass sod is so dense that the seed can 
not well come in contact with the soil. In most cases, merely stir or 
scar the land with a disc harrow or scratcher, setting your machine 
for very shallow work. 
A firm seed bed that has been prepared a couple of months in 
advance and is thoroughly compact is highly important for such 
grasses as Dallis and Carpet. A short dry spell will kill the young 
seedlings in loose ground, such as is prepared for corn and cotton. 
In the wooded sections the underbrush and most of the trees 
should be removed, leaving only some of the best trees for shade 
and timber, The stumps should also be removed as soon as pos- 
sible, so that the pasture can be mowed to control weeds. 
Should you intend planting the seed on soil that is not going to 
_ be harrowed, it will be well to have it free from weeds. 
One of the most important things to remember in soil preparation: 
If the ground be plowed, it should be done several months before 
sowing the seed, so that the soil may become well settled, as a firm 
seed bed is absolutely necessary. 
More failures with grasses and clovers have been due to soil 
preparation than any other cause. Farmers often get the idea that 
they must have a good “loose” seed bed for grasses and clovers, 
just as they would for farm crops. This is not true. You must have 
a firm seed bed, or the small seedlings will die soon after sprout- 
ing. Lands that have had crops on them this season are well 
enough prepared. 
Planting Suggestions 
The seeds of grasses and clovers are so extremely small as to be 
able to come up through only a thin layer of soil. The covering of 
the seeds can scarcely be too shallow. Suitable implements for 
covering such seeds are a weeder, a brush drag, or a spike-tooth 
harrow set up for very shallow work. Under some conditions, mere 
rolling gives sufficient covering, and we know of a good many 
successful plantings where the seeds were not covered at all, when 
planted just before a rain. One successful planter has told us that 
he simply sows the seed on top of the soil and forgets them, claim- 
ing a more satisfactory stand when handled in this manner. 
It is also reported by a great many successful planters that mix- 
ing the seed with barnyard manure, and placing a small shovelful 
of the mixed manure and seed about five feet apart over the field, 
results in a better stand than is the case where the seed is sown 
without the manure. 
Should you sow the seed and attempt to cover them, remember 
that the small seeds will not come up should they be covered too 
deep. 
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RR SSS a a 
ROBERT NICHOLSON SEED CO. —17— 
DALLAS, TEXAS 
