Fig. 1.—Cattle pasturing on sweet clover.
SWEET CLOVER AS A PASTURE CROP.
With the possible exception of alfalfa on fertile soils, no other leguminous crop will furnish as much nutritious pasturage from early spring until late fall as sweet clover when it is properly handled. Live stock which have never been fed sweet clover may refuse to eat it at first, but this distaste is easily overcome by turning them on the pasture in the spring, as soon as the plants start growth ([fig. 1]). Many cases are on record where stock have preferred sweet clover to other forage plants. The fact that it may be pastured earlier in the spring than many forage plants and that it thrives throughout the hot summer months makes it a valuable addition to the pastures on many farms. Sweet clover is an especially valuable forage plant for poor soils where other crops make but little growth, and it is upon such soils that thousands of acres of this crop are furnishing annually abundant pasturage for all kinds of live stock. In many portions of the Middle West, where the conditions are similar to those of southeastern Kansas, it bids fair to solve the serious pasturage problems. Native pastures which will no longer provide more than a scant living for a mature steer on 4 or 5 acres, when properly seeded to sweet clover will produce sufficient forage to carry at least one animal to the acre throughout the season. In addition to this, a crop of hay or a seed crop may be harvested from a portion of the land when it is so fenced that the stock may be confined to certain parts of the field at specific times. Land which is too rough or too depleted for cultivation, or permanent pastures which have become thin and weedy, may be improved greatly by drilling in, after disking, a few pounds of sweet-clover seed per acre. Not only will the sweet clover add considerably to the quality and quantity of the pasturage but the growth of the grasses will be improved by the addition of large quantities of humus and nitrogen to the soil.
Sweet clover has proved to be an excellent pasture crop on many of the best farms in the North-Central States. In this part of the country it may be seeded alone and pastured from the middle or latter part of June until frost, or it may be sown with grain and pastured after harvest.
When sweet clover has been seeded two years in succession on separate fields, the field sown the first year may be pastured until the middle of June, when the stock should be turned on the spring seeding. When handled in this manner excellent pasturage is provided throughout the summer, and a hay or seed crop may be harvested from the field seeded the previous season.
Some of the best pastures in Iowa consist of a mixture of Kentucky bluegrass, timothy, and sweet clover. On a farm observed near Delmar, Iowa, stock is pastured on meadows containing this mixture from the first part of April to the middle of June. From this time until the first part of September the stock is kept on one-half to two-thirds the total pasture acreage. The remainder of the pasture land is permitted to mature a seed crop. After the seed crop is harvested the stock again is turned on this acreage, where they feed on the grasses and first-year sweet-clover plants until cold weather. The seed which shatters when the crop is cut is usually sufficient to reseed the pastures. By handling his pasture land in this manner, the owner of the farm has always had an abundance of pasture and at the same time has obtained each year a crop of 2 to 4 bushels of recleaned seed to the acre from one-third to one-half of his pasture land. This system has been in operation on one field for 20 years and not until the last two year's has bluegrass showed a tendency to crowd out the sweet clover. It is essential that sufficient stock be kept on the pastures to keep the plants eaten rather closely, so that at all times there will be an abundance of fresh shoots.
Whenever the first crop of the second year is not needed for hay or silage it can be used for no better purpose than pasturage. In fact, it is better to pasture the fields until the middle of June, as this affords one of the most economical and profitable ways of handling the first crop. In addition to its value for pasture, grazing induces the plants to send out many young shoots close to the ground, so that when the plants are permitted to mature seed a much larger number of stalks are formed than would be the case if the first crop were cut for hay. The hay crop is likely to be cut so close to the ground that the plants will be killed, whereas but little danger of killing the plants arises from close pasturing early in the season. Excellent stands of sweet clover will produce an abundance of pasturage for two to three mature steers per acre from early spring to the middle of June.
Cattle which are pasturing on sweet clover alone crave dry feed. Straw has been found to satisfy this desire and straw or hay should be present in the meadow at all times, After stock are removed from the field it is an excellent plan to go over it with a mower, setting the cutter bar so as to leave the stubble 6 to 8 inches high. This will even up the stand, so that the plants will ripen seed at approximately the same date.
Experiments by many farmers in the Middle West show that sweet clover is an excellent pasture for dairy cattle. When cows are turned on sweet clover from grass pastures the flow of milk is increased and its quality improved. Other conditions being normal, this increase in milk production will continue throughout the summer, as the plants produce an abundance of green forage during the hot, dry months when grass pastures are unproductive. If pastures are handled properly they will carry at least one milk cow to the acre during the summer months.