Fig. 68. Hungarian grass.
Red Clover
([Fig. 69]) is an artificial grass of the leguminous family, and one of the most valuable of cultivated plants for feeding to dairy cows. It flourishes best on tenacious soils and stiff loams. Its growth is rapid, and a few months after sowing are sufficient to supply an abundant sweet and nutritious food. In the climate of New England clover should be sown in the spring of the year, while most of the natural grasses do far better sown in the fall. It is often sown with perfect success on the late snows of March or April, and soon finds its way down into the soil and takes a vigorous root. It is valuable not only as a forage plant, but as shading the ground, and thereby increasing its fertility.
The introduction of clover among the cultivated plants of the farm has done more, perhaps, for modern agriculture than that of any other single plant. It has now come to be considered indispensable in all good dairy districts.
Fig. 70. White Clover.
White Clover
([Fig. 70]), often called Honeysuckle, is also widely diffused over this country, to which it is undoubtedly indigenous. As a mixture in all pasture grasses it holds a very high rank, as it is exceedingly sweet and nutritious, and relished by stock of all kinds. It grows most luxuriantly in moist grounds and moist seasons, but easily accommodates itself to a great variety of circumstances.
With respect to the mixtures of grass-seeds most profitable for the dairy farmer, no universal rule can be given, as they depend very much upon the nature of the soil and the locality. The most important point to be observed, and one in which we, as a body, are perhaps most deficient, is to use a large number of species, with smaller quantities of each than those most commonly used. This is nature’s rule; for, in examining the turf of a rich old pasture, we shall find a large number of different species growing together, while, if we examine the turf of a field sown with only one or two different species, we find a far less number of plants to the square foot, even after the sod is fairly set. No improvement in grass culture is more important, it seems to me. I have suggested, in another place, a large number of mixtures adapted to the different varieties of soil and circumstance, together with the reasons for the mixture in many instances. (See A Practical Treatise on Grasses and Forage Plants, comprising their Natural History, Comparative Nutritive Value, Methods of Cultivating, Cutting, and Curing, and the Management of Grass Lands, &c. 236 pp. 8vo., with illustrations.) As an instance of what I should consider an improvement on our ordinary mixtures for permanent pastures, I would suggest the following as likely to give satisfactory results, dependent, of course, to a considerable extent, on the nature and preparation of the soil:
| Meadow Foxtail, flowering in May and June, | 2 | pounds |
| Orchard Grass, flowering in May and June, | 6 | “ |
| Sweet-scented Vernal, flowering in April and May, | 1 | “ |
| Meadow Fescue, flowering in May and June, | 2 | “ |
| Redtop, flowering in June and July, | 2 | “ |
| June Grass, flowering in May and June, | 4 | “ |
| Italian Rye Grass, flowering in June, | 4 | “ |
| Perennial Rye Grass, flowering in June, | 6 | “ |
| Timothy, flowering in June and July, | 3 | “ |
| Rough-stalked Meadow Grass, flowering in June and July, | 2 | “ |
| Perennial Clover, flowering in June, | 3 | “ |
| White Clover, flowering in May to September, | 5-40 | “ |