nate freezing and thawing in the soil; or (c) the land is too low in fertility to produce a sufficiently vigorous growth in the plants.

3. The mechanical effects upon the soil from growing crimson clover on it are very marked, especially when it inclines to stiffness, owing to the strong development of the root growth.

4. When crimson clover has been sown in the spring, a reasonably good growth is usually obtained before midsummer, even as far north as the Canadian boundary line, but since hot weather checks further growth and frequently causes wilting in the plants, this variety is not equal to some of the other varieties of clover for being sown at that season.

5. In the Southern States, crimson clover has been found to render considerable service by aiding in preventing land from washing in the winter

season.

6. When plowed under in orchards, the work should be done at an early rather than a late stage in the growth of the plants, lest it should rob the trees of their rightful share of the moisture. Because of this, in some instances, if not in all, the plants should be buried before the season of full bloom and sometimes before the blooms begin to open.

7. The seed is more certain to germinate while yet enclosed in the chaff scales, and because of this, where home-grown seed is used, it may be worth while to secure it in this form by flailing out the seed or treading it out with horses.

CHAPTER VIII

WHITE CLOVER

White Clover (Trifolium repens) is also called Dutch, White Dutch, White Trefoil, Creeping Trifolium and Honeysuckle clover. The name Dutch clover has doubtless been applied to it because of the extent to which it is in evidence in the pastures and meadows of Holland; the name Creeping Trifolium, because of the creeping character of the stems, which, under favorable conditions, send roots down into the soil; and Honeysuckle clover, because of the honey supplies which it furnishes for bees. It is one of the plants known as Shamrock, the national emblem of Ireland.

White clover is perennial, the stems of which creep along the ground and, as above intimated, root at the joints; so that from this source plants are indefinitely multiplied. They also come from the seed. The leaves are small and very numerous, and with the exception of the flower stems and flowers, furnish all the forage obtained. The flowers are very numerous, especially when showery weather precedes and accompanies the flowering season. They are large for the size of the plant, are supported by a leafless stem of considerable length, and are white or tinted with a delicate rose color. The

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roots are numerous and fibrous. They cannot go down into the soil so deeply as the larger clovers; hence, the dwarfing effect of dry seasons upon the growth.

This plant is exceedingly hardy. It comes out from under the snow with a green tint, and the leaves are not easily injured by the frosts of autumn. The growth is not rapid until the general late rains of spring fall freely. It then pushes on rapidly, and, sending up innumerable flower stems, turns the pastures in which it abounds into immense flower gardens in the months of May and June, according to the latitude of the locality. The bloom remains out for a considerable time, and free grazing has the effect of prolonging the period of bloom. Under such conditions, blossoms continue to form and mature seeds during much of the summer. When these escape being grazed, they fall down upon the land and aid in forming additional plants. Hence it is that when white clover has once possessed a soil, it so stores the land with seed possessed of so much vitality that subsequently white clover plants grow, as it were, spontaneously on these lands when they have been thus grazed event for a limited term of years.

The power of this useful plant to travel and possess the land is only equalled by that of blue grass. When timber lands are cleared, white clover plants soon appear, and in a few years will spread over the whole surface of the land. But the amount of grazing furnished by it varies greatly with the character of the season. Some seasons its bloom

is scarcely in evidence; other seasons it overspreads the pastures.

While it is an excellent pasture plant for stock, they do not relish it so highly as some other pasture plants; when forming seed, it is least valuable for horses, owing to the extent to which it salivates them. Its diminutive habit of growth unfits it for making meadows, unless in conjunction with other hay plants. In nutritive properties, it is placed ahead of medium red clover. Some growers have spoken highly of it as a pasture plant for swine.

Being a legume, it has the power of enriching soils with nitrogen, but probably not to so great an extent as the larger varieties of clover. Its rootlets, however, have a beneficent influence on the texture of soils, because of their number, and because of the power of the stems to produce fresh plants, which occupy the soil when other plants die. The latter furnish a continued source of food to other grasses, which grow along with white clover in permanent pastures.

Along with blue grass, white clover plants aid in choking out weeds. This result follows largely as the outcome of the close sod formed by the two. But in some soils, plants of large growth and bushes and young trees will not thus be crowded out.

Distribution. White clover is certainly indigenous to Europe and to the Northern States, and probably Western Asia. It grows in every country in Europe, but with greatest luxuriance in those countries which border on the North Sea, the climates of which are very humid, and more especially