WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1917
S
SWEET CLOVER may be utilized for feeding purposes, as pasturage, hay, or ensilage. With the possible exception of alfalfa on fertile soil, sweet clover, when properly handled, will furnish as much nutritious pasturage from early spring until late fall as any other legume. It seldom causes bloat.
Stock may refuse to eat sweet clover at first, but this distaste can be overcome by keeping them on a field of young plants for a few days.
As cattle crave dry roughage when pasturing on sweet clover, they should have access to it. Straw answers this purpose very well.
An acre of sweet clover ordinarily will support 20 to 30 sholes.
On account of the succulent growth, it is often difficult, in humid climates, to cure the first crop of the second season into a good quality of hay.
When seeded without a nurse crop, one cutting of hay may be obtained the first year in the North and two or three cullings in the South. Two cuttings are often obtained in the South after grain harvest. The second year a cutting of hay and a seed crop usually are harvested.
Sweet clover should never be permitted to show flower buds before it is cut for hay. It is very important that the first crop of the second season be cut so high that a new growth will develop. When the plants have made a growth of 36 to 40 inches it may be necessary to leave the stubble 10 to 12 inches high.