Chapter 28

THE CLOVERS

Red Clover.--Wherever red clover thrives there is no more valuable plant than this legume for making and keeping soils productive under ordinary crop-rotations. The tyro in farming finds his neighbors conservative in thought and method, and may rightly see room for improvement. He naturally turns to new crops that are receiving much exploitation, but should bear in mind that the world nowhere has found a superior to red clover as a combined fertilizing and forage crop for use in short rotations. Farmers turn aside from it because it turns aside from them. There has been increasing clover failure in our older states for a long term of years. It has become the rule to seed to timothy with the clover in the short crop-rotations as well as in the longer ones, and chiefly for the reason that clover seeding has become no longer dependable. In many regions the proportion of timothy seed used per acre has been made large because the clover would not surely grow. In the winter-wheat belt, where the custom has been to make such seedings with wheat, timothy being sown in the fall and clover the next spring, this increase in the timothy has made matters worse for the clover, but it has helped to insure a sod and a hay crop. "Clover sickness," supposedly resulting from close clover rotations, and the prevalence of plantain and other weeds, have been assigned as a partial cause of clover failure. It is only within recent years that the true cause of much failure has been recognized.

Clover and Acid Soils.--There are limited areas in which some clover disease has flourished, and in some years insect attacks are serious. Barring these factors which have relatively small importance when the entire clover area is taken into account, the causes of clover failure are under the farmer's control. The need of drainage increases, and the deficiency in organic matter becomes more marked. The sale of hay and straw, and especially the loss of liquid manures in stables, have robbed many farms. These are adverse influences upon clover seedings, but the most important handicap to clover is soil acidity. There is sad waste when high-priced clover seed is put into land so sour that clover bacteria cannot thrive, and there is ten-fold more waste in letting land fail to obtain the organic matter and nitrogen clover should supply. When land-owners refuse to let their soils remain deficient in lime, clover will come into a prominence in our agriculture that it never previously has known.

Methods of Seeding.--It is a common practice to sow clover in the spring, either with spring grain or with wheat or rye previously seeded in the fall. This method has much to commend it. The cost of making the seed-bed is transferred to the grain crop, and there is little outlay other than the cost of seed. Wheat and rye offer better chances to the young clover plants than do the oat crop which shades the soil densely and ripens later in the summer. The amount of seed that should be used depends upon the soil, the length of time the sod will stand, and the purpose in growing the clover. When soil fertility is the one consideration, 12 to 15 pounds of bright, plump medium red clover seed per acre should be sown. A fuller discussion of the principles involved in making a sod and of seed mixtures is given in Chapters VII and VIII.

Fertility Value.--Attempts have been made to express the actual value of a good clover crop to the soil in terms of money. The number of pounds of matter in the roots and stubble has been determined, and analyses show the percentage of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash contained. The two crops harvested in the second year of its growth likewise have their content of plant-food determined. If the total amounts of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash have their values fixed by multiplying the number of pounds of each ingredient of plant-food by their respective market values, as is the practice in the case of commercial fertilizers, a total valuation may be placed upon the clover, roots and top, as a fertilizer. Such valuation is so misleading that it affords no true guidance to the farmer. In the first place, the phosphoric acid and potash were taken out of the soil, and while some part of these materials may have been without immediate value to another crop until used by the clover, no one knows how much value was given to them by the action of the clover. Again, no one knows what percentage of the nitrogen in the clover came from the air, and how much was drawn from the soil's stores. The proportion varies with the fertility of the land, the percentage of nitrogen taken from the air being greater in the case of badly depleted soils.

A big factor of error is found in the valuations of the ingredients found in the crop. All plant-food is worth to the farmer only what he can get out of it. He may be able to use 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre in the form of nitrate of soda, at 18 cents a pound, when growing a certain crop, but could not afford to buy, at market price of organic nitrogen, all the nitrogen found in the clover crop, and therefore it does not have that value to him.

On the other hand, these estimates do not embrace the great benefit to the physical condition of the soil that results from the incorporation of a large amount of vegetable matter.

Discussion has been given to this phase of the question in the interest of accuracy. Values are only relative. The practical farmer can determine the estimate he should put upon clover only by noting its effect upon yields in the crop-rotation upon his own farm. It is our best means of getting nitrogen from the air, it provides a large amount of organic matter, it feeds in subsoil as well as in top soil, bringing up fertility and filling all the soil with roots that affect physical condition favorably, and it provides a feed for livestock that gives a rich manure.

Taking the Crops off the Land.--The feeding value of clover hay is so great that the livestock farmer cannot afford to leave a crop of clover on the ground as a fertilizer. The second crop of red clover produces the seed, and, if the yield is good, is very profitable at the prices for seed prevailing within recent years. The amount of plant-food taken off in the hay and seed crops would have relatively small importance if manure and haulm were returned without unnecessary waste. Van Slyke states that about one third of the entire plant-food value is contained in the roots, while 35 to 40 per cent of the nitrogen is found in the roots and stubble. Hall instances one experiment at Rothamstead in which the removal of 151 pounds of nitrogen in the clover hay in one year left the soil enough richer than land by its side to produce 50 per cent more grain the next year. He cites another experiment in which the removal of three tons of clover hay left the soil so well supplied with nitrogen that its crop of Swede turnips two years later was over one third better than that of land which had not grown clover, the application of phosphoric acid and potash being the same. When two tons of well-cured clover hay are harvested in June, removing about 80 pounds of nitrogen, 45 to 50 pounds are left for the soil. The amounts of potash are about the same, while phosphoric acid is much less in amount.

Physical Benefit of the Roots.--While the roots and stubble contain less than two fifths of the total plant-food in a clover crop, one may not safely infer that the removal of the crop for hay reduces the beneficial effect of the clover to the soil fully 60 per cent, or more. The roots break up the soil in a way not possible to a mass of tops plowed down. They improve the physical condition of the subsoil as well as the top soil. The amount of the benefit depends in part upon the nature of the land. Its value cannot be surely determined, but the facts are called to mind as an aid to judgment in deciding upon the method of handling the clover crop.

Used as a Green Manure.--Where dependence must be placed upon clover as a fertilizer, little or no manure being returned to the land, at least one of the two clover crops within the year should be left on the land. The maximum benefit from clover, when left on the land, can be obtained by clipping it before it is sufficiently heavy to smother the plants, leaving it as a mulch. When the cutter-bar of the mower is tilted upward, the danger of smothering is reduced. Truckers, remote from supplies of manure, have found it profitable to make two such clippings just prior to blossoming stage, securing a third heavy growth. The amount of humus thus obtained is large, and the benefit of the mulch is an important item.

Some growers clip the first crop for a mulch, and later secure a seed crop. The early clipping and the mulch cause increase in yield of seed.

A common practice is to take one crop off for hay, and to leave the second for plowing down the following spring. Early harvesting of the clover for hay favors the second crop.

When to turn Down.--When the maximum benefit is desired for the soil from a crop of clover, the first growth should not be plowed down. Its office should be that of a mulch. In its decay all the mineral plant-food and most of the nitrogen go into the soil. The second crop should come to maturity, or near it. As a rule, there is gain, and not loss, by letting the second crop lie on the ground until spring if a spring-planted crop is to follow. Some fall growth, and the protection from leaching, should equal any advantage arising from rotting the bulky growth in the soil. In some regions it is not good practice to plow down a heavy green crop on account of the excessive amount of acid produced. When this has been done, the only corrective is a liberal application of lime.

Mammoth Clover.--When clover is grown with timothy for hay, some farmers prefer to use mammoth clover in place of the medium red. It may be known as sapling clover, and is accounted a perennial, though it is little more so than the red. It is a strong grower and makes a coarse stalk but, when grown with timothy, it has the advantage over the red in that the period of ripening is more nearly that of the timothy. It inclines to lodge badly, and should be seeded thinly with timothy when wanted for hay. The roots run deep into the soil, and this variety of clover compares favorably with the medium red in point of fertilizing power, the total root-growth being heavier. While its yield of hay, when seeded alone, is greater than the first crop of the red, its inclination to lodge and its coarseness are offsets. It produces its seed in the first crop, and the after-growth is small, while red clover may make a heavy second crop. Its use should become more general on thin soils, its strong root-growth enabling it to thrive better than the red, and the lack of fertility preventing the stalks from becoming unduly coarse for hay. The amount of seed used per acre, when grown by itself, should be the same as that of red clover.

Alsike Clover.--A variety of clover that may have gained more popularity than its merit warrants is alsike clover. It is more nearly perennial than the mammoth. The roots do not go deep into the subsoil like those of the red or the mammoth, and therefore it is better adapted to wet land. It remains several years in the ground when grazed, and is usually found in seed mixtures for pastures. It is decumbent, and difficult to harvest for hay when seeded alone. It is credited with higher yields than the red by most authorities, but this is not in accord with observation in some regions, and it is markedly inferior to the red in the organic matter and the nitrogen supplied the soil in the roots.

The popularity of this clover is due to its ability to withstand some soil acidity and bad physical conditions. In regions where red clover is declining on account of lack of lime, one may see some alsike. The rule is to mix alsike with the red at the rate of one or two bushels of the former to six bushels of the latter. As the seed of the alsike is hardly half as large as that of the red, the proportion in the mixture is greater than some farmers realize. The practice is an excellent one where the red will not grow, and the alsike adds fertility, but when the soil has been made alkaline, the red clover should have nearly all the room. Alsike is a heavy producer of seed.

Crimson Clover.--Wherever crimson clover is sufficiently hardy to withstand the winter, as in Delaware and New Jersey, it is a valuable aid in maintaining and increasing soil fertility. It is a winter annual, like winter wheat, and should be seeded in the latter half of summer, according to latitude. It comes into bloom in late spring. The plant has a tap-root of good length, but in total weight of roots is much inferior to the red. This clover, however, compares favorably with red clover in the total amount of nitrogen added to the soil by the entire plant when grown under favorable conditions. It is peculiarly fitted for a cover crop in orchards and wherever spring crops are removed as early as August, or a seeding can be made in them, as is the case with corn. Even when winter kills the plants, a successful fall growth is highly profitable, adding more nitrogen before winter than red clover seeded at the same time. Where the plants do not winter-kill, they are plowed down for green manure when in bloom in May, or earlier in the spring to save soil moisture and permit early planting, although a good hay for livestock can be made, and the yield is about the same as that of the first crop of red clover.

In the northern states a large amount of money has been wasted in experimental seedings with crimson clover, and it is only in exceptional cases that it continues to be grown. There is reason to believe that many of these failures were due to lack of soil inoculation. The Pennsylvania experiment station is located in a mountain valley where winters are severe. Crimson clover is under test with other cover crops for an experimental orchard, and success with it has increased as the soil has become fully inoculated. This view is supported by the experience of various growers in the North, and while crimson clover can never make the success in a cold climate that it does in Delaware, there is a much wider field of usefulness for it than is now occupied. Experiments should be made with it under favorable conditions respecting moisture and soil tilth. Fifteen pounds of seed should be used, and the seed should be well covered, as is the case with all seeds sown in mid-summer.