It is peculiarly fitted for being grown in orchards. In these it may be
grown from year to year. It may be thus grown not only to gather
nitrogen for the trees, but to make them more clean than they would
otherwise be when the fruit is being gathered, to protect the roots of
the trees in winter and to aid in the retention of moisture when plowed
under. But this plant may also, with peculiar fitness, be made to
precede late garden crops. It may be plowed under sufficiently early to
admit of this, and when so buried it aids in making a fine seed-bed,
since the roots promote friability in the land. When grown under what
may be termed strictly farm conditions, it usually precedes a cultivated
crop, as potatoes, corn, or one of the sorghums. It is equally suitable
in fitting the soil for the growth of vine crops, such as melons,
squashes and pumpkins.
But in some localities this crop may be grown so as to break down the
lines of old-time rotations, since in some instances it may be
successfully grown from year to year for several years without change.
Potatoes and sweet corn, for instance, may be thus grown.
=Preparing the Soil.=--In preparing the seed-bed for crimson clover, the
aim should be to secure fineness of pulverization near the surface and
moistness in the same. The former is greatly important, because of the
aid which it renders in securing the latter at a season when moisture is
often lacking in the soil. As it is rather grown on soils deficient in
humus than on those plentifully supplied with the same, fineness in the
seed-bed is not so important as it is with some classes of prairie
soils.
In starting the seed, drought is the chief hindrance to be overcome in
the North, owing to the season at which the seed must be sown; hence,
the aim should be to begin preparing the seed-bed as long as possible
before the sowing of the seed. The preparation called for will be
influenced by the kind of soil, the crop last grown upon it and also the
weather; hence, the process of preparing the seed-bed will vary. The
judgment must determine whether the land should be plowed, or disked and
pulverized, or simply harrowed. After potatoes and other garden crops,
harrowing may suffice; after certain grain crops on soils not too stiff,
disking may suffice; but where much trash is to be buried, plowing would
be necessary, and when the ground is at all cloddy, the roller should be
freely used. In corn fields the last cultivation will make a suitable
seed-bed, and the same is sometimes true in cotton fields.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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