Clover seeds are buried more deeply in dry than in moist climates, and
also more deeply in dry portions of the year than when moisture is
sufficient. While it may be proper in some instances to scatter the
seeds on the surface without any covering other than is furnished by
rain or frost, it will be very necessary at other seasons to provide a
covering to insure a stand of the seed.
When clover seed is sown on ground honeycombed with frost, no covering
is necessary. When sown on winter grain in the spring, the ground not
being so honeycombed, covering with the harrow is usually advantageous.
When sown on spring crops and early in the season, it may not be
necessary to cover the seed, except by using the roller, even though the
seed should fall behind the grain tubes while the grain crop is being
sown, or should be sown subsequently by hand. In other instances the
harrow should be used, and sometimes both the roller and the harrow.
Under conditions such as appertain to New England and the adjacent
States to Ontario and the provinces east and to the land west of the
Cascade Mountains, clover and also grass seeds do not require so much of
a covering as when sown on the prairie soils of the central portion of
the continent.
=Sowing Alone or in Combinations.=--Whether clover seed should be sown
alone or in combination with the seeds of other grasses will depend upon
the object sought in sowing it. When sown to produce seed, it is usually
sown without admixture, but not in every instance; when sown to produce
hay, it is nearly always sown in mixtures, but to this there are some
exceptions; when sown to produce pasture, it is almost invariably sown
with something else; and when sown to enrich the land, it is, in all,
or nearly all, instances, sown without admixture.
When sown primarily to produce seed, there are no good reasons why
timothy and probably some other grasses may not be sown with medium red
and mammoth clover, when pasture is wanted from the land in the season
or seasons immediately following the production of seed.
The presence of these grasses may not seriously retard the growth of the
clover plants until after they have produced seed, and subsequently they
will grow more assertively and produce pasture as the clover fails.
Moreover, should they mature any seed at the same time that the clover
seeds mature, they may usually be separated in the winnowing process,
owing to a difference in the size of the seeds. But timothy should not
be sown with alsike clover that is being grown for seed, since the seeds
of these are so nearly alike in size that they cannot be separated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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