heads may still be in full flower. Vigorous crops may be cut with the self-rake reaper set to cut low, otherwise many of the heads will not be gathered. To facilitate this process, the ground should be made quite smooth even before sowing the seed. But the seed crop is more commonly cut with the field mower, to the cutter bar of which a galvanized platform is bolted, the sides of which are about 6 inches high. From this the clover is raked off into bunches with a rake. These bunches should not be large, and since nearly all the heads in them will point upward, they should not be turned over if rained on, but simply lifted up with a suitable fork and moved on to other ground.

The seed crop cures quickly. It may be drawn and threshed at once, or it may be stacked and threshed when convenient. If stacked, a goodly supply of old hay or straw should be put next the ground, and much care should be taken to protect the clover by finishing off the stack carefully with some kind of grass or hay that will shed the rain easily. Since the heads are very small and numerous, and since, as with all clovers, they break off easily when ripe, much promptness and care should be exercised in harvesting the seed crop. The best machine for threshing a seed so small is the clover huller.

The yields of seed will run all the way from less than 3 bushels per acre to 5 bushels, and some crops have been harvested in Wisconsin which gave 7 bushels per acre. Four bushels would probably be about an average yield. As the price is usually

relatively high compared with other clovers, the seed from white clover would be quite remunerative were it not that in a dry season the yield is disappointing. In some instances two crops are grown in succession; in others, one crop is reaped. The land is then sown to barley the next year, and the following year clover seed may be reaped again without sowing a second time. Usually, after two successive crops of seed have been cut, blue grass crowds the clover.

It should be possible to grow prodigious crops of white clover in ccrtain of the northern Rocky Mountain valleys, as, for instance, in Montana and Washington, where the conditions for the application of water to grow the plants and of withholding the same when ripening the seed are completely under the control of the husbandman. The soils in these valleys, as previously intimated, have high adaptation for growing white clover.

Renewing. White clover is probably more easily renewed than any plant of the clover family. In fact, it seldom requires renewal in a pasture in which it has obtained a footing as long as it remains a pasture. This arises from the abundance of the seed production and from the power of the same to retain germinating properties for a long period. Nevertheless, there may be instances when it may be wise to scatter more seed in the early spring in a pasture in which white clover may not be sufficiently abundant. It is also renewed, in a sense, when suitable fertilizer is applied on the pastures. A dressing of potash will greatly stimulate the

growth of any kind of clover on nearly all soils; hence, the marked increase in the growth of the clover that usually follows the application of a dressing of wood ashes, especially in the unleached form. Top-dressings of farmyard manure are also quite helpful to such growth.

The conclusion must not be reached that because white clover is not much in evidence in a permanent pasture for one or two, or even three dry seasons, if these should follow each other, that it will not come again and with great vigor and in much abundance when a wet season arrives again.

For Lawns.-No other plant of the clover family is so frequently sown when making lawns. For such a use it is not sown alone, but is always the complement of Kentucky blue grass or of a mixture of grasses. No two plants can be singled out that are more suitable for lawn making than white clover and Kentucky blue grass. Both are fine in their habit of growth. The two in conjunction usually make a more dense sward than either alone, and the clover will grow and produce many flowers, if not kept clipped too closely when the blue grass is resting in midsummer.

As lawns are usually small, and a dense sward is desired as quickly as it can be obtained, the seed should be sown thickly on lawns, at the rate of not less than 5 pounds of seed to the acre. The early spring is the best time for sowing the seed, but in mild climates it may be sown at almost any season that may be convenient, providing the ground is moist enough to germinate the seed. In cold cli

mates, the seed should be sown not later than August, unless when sown too late for autumn germination. This in some instances may not only be proper, but commendable.

As a Honey Plant. -White clover is proverbial for its ability to furnish honey. There is probably no single plant which furnishes more or better honey. But its value for such a use varies greatly in different years. In seasons that are quite dry in the spring, it makes but little growth and produces but few blossoms; hence, in such seasons bees can obtain but little honey, relatively, from such a source. It would doubtless be good policy, therefore, for the growers to encourage the sowing of alsike clover where bees are much kept, since the growth of this clover is less hindered by dry weather at the season named. Less close pasturing than is commonly practiced would favorably influence the production of honey from white clover, and would also result in considerably greater yields of pasture.

CHAPTER IX

JAPAN CLOVER

Japan Clover (Lespedeza striata) was introduced from China or Japan, or from both countries, into South Carolina in 1849, under the name Japan clover. It is thought the seed came in connection with the tea trade with these countries. According to Phares, the generic term Lespedeza, borne by the one-seeded pods of the plants of this family, was assigned to them in honor of Lespedez, a governor of Florida under Spanish rule. It is sometimes called Bush clover, from the bush-shaped habit of growth in the plants when grown on good soils, but is to be carefully distinguished from the Bush clovers proper, which are of little value as food plants.

Japan clover is an annual, but owing to its remarkable power to retain its hold upon the soil, through the shedding of the seed and the growing of the same, it has equal ability with many perennials to retain its hold upon the soil. It does not start until late in the spring, nor can it endure much frost; but its ability to grow in and retain its hold upon poor soils is remarkable, while its powers of self-propagation in the South would seem to be nearly equal to those of small white clover (Trifolum repens) in the North. It is, therefore, one of the hardiest plants of the clover family. Where it