Preparing The Soil
Category:
ALFALFA
Since sweet clover will grow on the firmest and
most forbidding soils, even when self-sown, it would not seem necessary,
ordinarily, to spend much time in specially preparing a seed-bed for it.
The fact stated is proof of its ability to grow on a firm surface. It
does not follow, however, that such a condition of the seed-bed will
give a better stand of the plants than a pulverized condition of the
same, as some have contended. It may be that on soils that are quite
loose near the surface, and under conditions that incline to dry a
seed-bed firm and even hard, may be more conductive to growth in the
plants than one in which the conditions are the opposite. Much rolling
of loose soils has been recommended when preparing the seed-bed with a
view to firm them.
When the seed is sown along with grain, the preparation of the soil
needed for grain would be ample preparation also for the clover. When
sown on stubble land, in many instances no preparation by way of
stirring the soil would seem necessary. And when sown on railroad
embankments, road sides, rocky situations and byplaces generally no
preparation of the soil would be possible.
=Sowing.=--In the North sweet clover is best sown in the spring. In
fact, it can only be sown then with the assurance that it will survive
the winter north of a certain limit. That limit will vary with altitude,
but it will probably run irregularly across the Middle States, from the
Atlantic westward to the Cascade Mountains, beyond which it will veer
away to the North. In the Southern States, it may be sown fall or
spring, but if sown late in the fall the young plants will in some
instances succumb to the frost of winter. Early fall sowing, therefore,
is much to be preferred to sowing late.
The method of sowing may be the same as in sowing medium red clover (see
page 78); that is, when the seed is sown with grain crops. When sown in
byplaces, it will ordinarily be sown by hand. In such places it will
re-seed itself and will likely grow in these for successive seasons. On
railroad embankments, the seed is scattered more commonly on the upper
portion, and from the plants which grow there the seeds produced scatter
downward. The plants not only lessen washing in the soil, but they
prepare the same for the growth of grasses. They also aid thus in the
introduction of grasses into rocky and very hard soils.
Sweet clover may be sown with almost any kind of a nurse crop desired,
which does not destroy it with an over-abundant shade. Or it may be sown
alone where such a necessity exists. But the instances are not numerous
in which it would be desirable or necessary to sow it alone on arable
soils. There may be conditions when it could be sown successfully at the
time of the last cultivation given to corn and with a view to soil
enrichment.
Since sweet clover is seldom sown for the purpose of providing food for
live stock, it is not sown in mixtures, nor is it well adapted for being
sown thus, because of the large and luxuriant character of the growth,
which would tend to smother other plants sown along with it.
The amount of seed to sow has been variously stated at from 15 to 20
pounds per acre. The smaller amount should be enough for almost any
purpose, and a much smaller amount should suffice for sowing in byplaces
and along road sides, where the plants retain possession of the ground
through self-seeding.
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