=Securing Seed.=--Japan clover is ready for being harvested when the major portion of the seeds are ripe. This is late in the season. The seed crop is more easily gathered when grown on good land, owing to the more upright habit of growth. The self-rake reaper is probably the best implement for cutting, since it lays it off in loose sheaves, and on well-prepared land it may be made to cut so low as to gather the bulk of the seed. But it may also be cut with the field mower as small white clover is frequently cut. (See page 275.) Owing to the lateness of the season at which the seed matures, careful and prompt attention may be necessary to secure the seed crop without loss, owing to the moistness which characterizes the weather at that season. When Japan clover is to be harvested for seed, care should be taken to prevent weeds from ripening their seeds in the same. With a view to prevent this, it will be found helpful in many instances to run the mower over the field some time after the clover has begun to grow freely in the late spring or early summer. Such clipping will also have the effect of securing more uniformity in the ripening of the seed. The seed may be threshed in much the same way as other clover seed. (See page 107.) The yields per acre should run from 3 to 8 bushels. It weighs 20 pounds per bushel. =Renewing.=--Since Japan clover is an annual, it is not necessary to renew it, in the sense in which more long-lived clovers are renewed, as, for instance, the alsike variety. (See page 216.) About the only renewal practicable is that which insures successive crops of pasture, hay or seed from the same land where the crop has once been grown. (See page 285.) But the growth may, of course, be stimulated by the application of dressings of fertilizer, such as gypsum, or those that may be termed potassic in character. CHAPTER X BURR CLOVER