While some varieties of clover may be grown in various rotations and
with profit, one of the best of these, where the conditions are
favorable, is a three years' rotation. The first year some small cereal
grain is grown and clover is sown along with it or, at least, on the
same land. The next year the clover is grown for hay or pasture. The
third year a crop of corn, potatoes or vegetables is grown, and the
following year small cereal grain and clover. The clover may thus be
made to furnish nitrogen indefinitely for the other crops, but in some
instances it may be necessary to add phosphoric acid and potash.
=Preparing the Soil.=--Clovers are usually sown with a nurse crop. The
exceptions are crimson clover, and in many instances alfalfa. When thus
grown, the preparation of soil for the nurse crop will usually suffice
for the clovers also. But there may be instances in which it would be
proper to give more attention to cleaning and pulverizing the soil to
properly fit it for receiving the clover seed. The leading essentials in
a seed-bed for clover are fineness, cleanness, moistness and firmness.
Ordinarily black loam soils, sandy loam soils, sandy soils, humus soils
and the volcanic ash soils of the West are made sufficiently fine
without great labor. Clay soils may call for the free use of the harrow
and roller used in some sort of alternation before they are sufficiently
pulverized. Excessive fineness in pulverization of these soils is also
to be guarded against in rainy climates, lest they run together, but
this condition is present far less frequently than the opposite.
Cleanness can usually be secured when clovers follow cultivated crops by
the labor given to these when the land is not plowed in preparing it for
the clovers. In other instances the longer the land is plowed before
putting in the seed and the more frequently the surface is stirred
during the growing part of the season, the cleaner will the seed-bed be.
In the spring the land is usually sufficiently moist for receiving the
seed. In the autumn moisture is frequently deficient. Stirring the
surface of the soil occasionally with the harrow will materially
increase the moisture content in the soil near the surface, even in the
absence of rain. As crimson clover is usually sown in the late summer
and alfalfa is frequently sown in the autumn, it may sometimes be
necessary to give much attention to securing sufficient moisture to
insure germination in the seed.
When clovers are sown in the spring on land which is also growing a
winter crop, no preparation is necessary in preparing the land for
receiving the seed. On some soils the ground becomes sufficiently
honeycombed through the agency of water and frost to put it in a fine
condition for receiving the seed. When this condition is not present,
the seed will usually grow if sown amid the grain and covered with the
harrow.
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