Methods Of Sowing
Category:
SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES WHICH APPLY TO THE GROWING OF CLOVERS
Clover seed may be sown by hand, by hand machines,
and by the grain drill, with or without a grass-seed sowing attachment.
These respective methods of sowing will be discussed briefly here, but
since they are practically the same as the methods to be followed in
sowing grass seeds, and since they are discussed more fully in the book
Grasses and How to Grow Them by the author, readers who wish to pursue
the subject further are referred to the book just named.
When clovers are sown by hand, usually but one hand is used. Enough seed
is lifted between the thumb and two forefingers of the right hand to
suffice for scattering by one swing of the same. On the return trip
across the field the seed should be made to overlap somewhat the seed
sown when going in the opposite direction. In other words, the seed is
sown in strips or bands, as it were, each strip being finished in one
round. Some sowers, more expert at their work, sow with both hands and
complete the strip each time they walk over the field. When the ground
is plowed in lands of moderate width the furrows will serve to enable
the sower to sow in straight lines. Where the sowing is done on land
sown to grain by the drill, the drill marks may be made to effect the
same result. When sown on light snows, the foot-marks will serve as
guides. In the absence of marks it will be necessary to use stakes to
guide the sower. Four stakes are used, two of which are set at each end
of the field, and these are moved as each cast is made. At each round
made over the field, from 12 feet to 15 feet may be sown by the sower
who sows only with one hand. The sower with two hands will accomplish
twice as much.
A comparatively still time should be chosen for sowing the seed by hand,
more especially when grass seeds, which are usually lighter, are sown at
the same time. In hand sowing much care is necessary in scattering the
seed, so that each cast of the seed will spread evenly as it falls,
leaving no bare spaces between the cast from the hand or between the
strips sown at one time. Hand sowing, especially in the Western States,
is in a sense a lost art, owing to the extent to which machine sowing is
practised; nevertheless, it is an accomplishment which every farmer
should possess, since it will oftentimes be found very convenient when
sowing small quantities of seed, and in sowing seeds in mixtures which
cannot be so well sown by machines.
Hand machines are of various kinds. Those most in favor for ordinary
sowing consist of a seeder wheeled over the ground on a frame resembling
that of a wheelbarrow. It sows about 12 feet in width at each cast of
the seed. It enables the sower to sow the seed while considerable wind
is blowing and to sow it quite evenly, but it is not adapted to the
sowing of all kinds of grass and clover mixtures, which it may be
desirable to sow together, since they do not always feed out evenly,
owing to a difference in size, in weight, in shape and in the character
of the covering.
When clover seed is sown with the grain drill, it is sometimes sown
separately from grain; that is, without a nurse crop, and is deposited
in the soil by the same tubes. But it is only some makes of drills that
will do this. Clover seed, and especially alfalfa, may be thus sown with
much advantage on certain of the Western and Southern soils, especially
on those that are light and open in character, and when the seed is to
be put in without a nurse crop. Eastern soils are usually too heavy to
admit of depositing the seed thus deeply, but to this there are some
exceptions.
When sown with a nurse crop, the seed is in some instances mixed with
the grain before it is sown. In some instances it is mixed before it is
brought to the field. At other times it is added when the grain has been
put in the seed-box of the drill. This method of sowing is adapted to
certain soils of the Western prairies and to very open soils in some
other localities, but under average conditions it buries seeds too
deeply. There is the further objection that they all grow in the line of
the grain plants and are more shaded than they would be otherwise.
Nevertheless, under some conditions this method of sowing the plants is
usually satisfactory.
One of the most satisfactory methods of sowing clover seeds along with a
nurse crop is to sow the clover with a seeder attachment; that is, an
attachment for sowing small seeds, which will deposit the same before or
behind the grain tubes as may be desired. The seed is thus sown at the
same time as the grain, and in the process is scattered evenly over the
surface of the ground. These seeder attachments, however, will not sow
all kinds of clover and grass mixtures any more than will hand-sowing
machines do the same.
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Depth To Bury The SeedPrevious:
Seasons For Sowing
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