Some authorities recommend sowing medium and other clovers without any nurse crop. The advantages claimed are that more or less of a crop may be obtained the same season, and that a stand of clover is more certain when the seed is sown thus. The first claim is correct in the main. In some localities favored with long seasons for growth, as in certain areas of Missouri, for instance, good yields may be obtained from sowing the seed thus. This has happened even in Minnesota. But in other areas and under other conditions, the yield would be light. In some localities, as, for instance, the Willamette Valley, Oregon, satisfactory returns have been obtained by sowing clover seed and rape seed in May and then pasturing both. The chief objections to sowing clover seed thus are, first, that in a great majority of instances a sufficient stand of the plants may be obtained when the seed is sown with a nurse crop; and second, that when it is not thus sown, the first cutting of the hay will contain more or less of weeds. That a stand is more assured when clover seed is sown alone in areas where adverse weather conditions prevail cannot be disputed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that whenever in order to get a stand of a short-lived crop, like clover, it is necessary to sow it alone, and in many instances get but little return the same season, it will be well to consider if there is not some more satisfactory way of securing a crop that will prove an equivalent. In northerly areas the stubbles of the nurse crop frequently render substantial service to the clover by holding the snow on the crop, and also by protecting it more or less from the effect of the cold winds. The old-time practice of sowing clover with a nurse crop is likely to be continued, notwithstanding that it has some disadvantages. These disadvantages include the following: 1. The young plants are liable to be weakened by the crowding and by overmuch shading from the grain when it grows rankly and thickly, and to such an extent that they perish; 2. When the grain lodges, as it frequently does, on rich ground, the clover plants underneath the lodged portions succumb from want of light; 3. Where the supply of moisture is low, in the struggle for the same between the stronger plants of the nurse crop and the weaker plants of the clover, the former secures the larger share. As a result, when the nurse crop is harvested, should the weather prove hot and dry beyond a certain degree, the clover plants will die. This is an experience not at all uncommon on the loose prairie soils of the upper Mississippi basin.