Clover seed may also be sown with corn and certain other crops that are
usually grazed down, as rape and mixed grains. When sown with corn, the
seed is usually scattered over the ground just before the last
cultivation given to the corn. Attention is now being given to the
introduction of cultivators which scatter such seeds as clover and rape
in front of them, and so preclude the necessity for hand sowing. From
Central Ohio southward, this method of securing a stand of clover will
succeed in corn-growing areas, the other conditions being right. North
from the areas named, the young clover plants may be winter killed when
the seed is sown thus. The less dense the shade furnished by the corn,
and the less dry the weather subsequently to sowing the seed, the better
will be the stand of the plants secured.
When sown with rape that has been broadcast, clover usually makes a good
stand, providing the rape crop is not sown too late in the season. When
the rape is grazed down, the grazing does not appear to materially
injure the clover, and when the shade has been removed by such grazing,
the clover plants may be expected to make a vigorous growth on such
land. In northerly areas, clover seed may be sown along with rape seed
as late as the end of May. If sown later than that time, the season may
prove too short subsequently to the grazing of the rape to allow the
plants to gather sufficient strength to carry them safely through
northern winters. When clover seed is sown with rape, the seeds may be
mixed and sown together.
Clover seed in several of the varieties may be successfully sown on
certain grain crops grown to provide grazing, especially when these are
sown early. Such pastures may consist of any one of the small cereal
grains, or more than one, or of all of them.
The seed may be sown in these the same as with any crop sown to furnish
grain. A stand of clover may thus be secured under some conditions in
which the clover would perish if sown along with the grain to be
harvested; under other conditions it would not succeed so well. The
former include soils so open as to readily lose moisture by surface
evaporation. The tramping of the animals on these increases their power
to hold moisture, the grazing down of the grain lessens its demands upon
the same, thus leaving more for the clover plants, and they are further
strengthened by the freer access of sunlight. The latter include firm,
stiff clays in rainy climates. To pasture these when thus sown, if moist
beyond a certain degree, would result in so impacting them that the
yield of the pasture would be greatly decreased in consequence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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