Clovers and How to Grow Them

by Thomas Shaw

Harvesting for Hay.—Since white clover is seldom grown alone for hay, and since it seldom forms the most bulky factor in a hay crop, the methods of harvesting will be similar to those practiced in harvesting the more bulky factor or factors of the crop. The want of bulk in this clover is against it as a hay crop, owing to the smallness of the yields, compared with the other hay crops that may be usually grown on the same land. As a factor of a hay crop, however, this little plant will add much to its weight and also to its palatability, especially for sheep and dairy cows.

When it is grown for hay in mixtures in which the large clovers or timothy predominates, the white clover should, of course, be cut at the most suitable season for cutting these clovers or the timothy, as one is present in excess. When the larger clovers predominate, the method of curing will be the same as for curing these (see [page 234]), that is to say, it can best be cured in cocks. When timothy predominates, the method of curing will be the same as for timothy; that is to say, it may be cured in the cock or in the winrow, according to circumstances. Owing to the fineness of the stems, it may be cured more quickly than red clover; hence, its presence in a crop of timothy will not delay much the curing of the latter unless when present in great abundance.

Under some conditions it would be easily possible to grow white clover for hay alone, and in some instances with profit, more especially in providing what would be a matchless fodder for young lambs and young calves. It might be so grown in the clover lands that lie immediately southward from Lakes Superior and Huron, in the northern Rocky Mountain valleys and on the valley lands around Puget Sound. On these lands in a favorable season, it would be quite possible to cut not less than 2 tons per acre, while on average land white clover alone would not yield more, probably, than ½ ton per acre. But even when grown for the purpose named, some alsike clover sown along with the white clover would add to the yield of hay, and without in any considerable degree lessening its value for the use named.

Securing Seed.—White clover is a great seed-producing plant. The season for bloom covers a period relatively long, and the number of blossoms produced under favorable conditions on a given area is very large. But when seed crops are to be produced with regularity, it is necessary that moisture can be depended upon in sufficient supply in the spring months to produce a vigorous growth in the plants. Such a climate is found in the Puget Sound country and in a less degree for some distance south from Lakes Huron and Superior. In areas which can be irrigated, it is not imperative that the climate shall be thus moist. Such areas, therefore, may be looked upon as possessed of superior adaptation for the growth of seed crops of white clover.

The areas are limited, however, in which seed crops are grown in the United States; so limited are they that it has been found very difficult to locate them. Wood County in Central Wisconsin grows a considerable quantity, and some counties northward in the same State, and probably also some parts of Northern Michigan, will grow seed equally well.

Where a seed crop is grown every care should be exercised to have it free from foul weeds. The aim should be to grow it on clean land. Sometimes, however, the seed is self-sown; that is, it comes into the land without being sown, but even in such areas it is safer to sow 3 pounds of seed per acre in the early spring along with a nurse crop. The best seed crops in Wisconsin and Michigan are grown on a reasonably stiff clay soil. To get a full crop of seed, it should be pastured for a time in the spring, or the crop should be run over with the mower about June 1st, setting the mower bar so as to cut 3 or 4 inches high. No harm will follow if some of the tops of the clover should be cut off. The grass and weeds thus cut are usually left on the ground, but sometimes it may be necessary to remove them. In a short time the field should be one mass of bloom.

The crop is ready for being harvested when the bulk of the heads have turned a dark brown and when the bulk of them have assumed a reddish brown tint, notwithstanding that some of the later heads may still be in full flower. Vigorous crops may be cut with the self-rake reaper set to cut low, otherwise many of the heads will not be gathered. To facilitate this process, the ground should be made quite smooth even before sowing the seed. But the seed crop is more commonly cut with the field mower, to the cutter bar of which a galvanized platform is bolted, the sides of which are about 6 inches high. From this the clover is raked off into bunches with a rake. These bunches should not be large, and since nearly all the heads in them will point upward, they should not be turned over if rained on, but simply lifted up with a suitable fork and moved on to other ground.

The seed crop cures quickly. It may be drawn and threshed at once, or it may be stacked and threshed when convenient. If stacked, a goodly supply of old hay or straw should be put next the ground, and much care should be taken to protect the clover by finishing off the stack carefully with some kind of grass or hay that will shed the rain easily. Since the heads are very small and numerous, and since, as with all clovers, they break off easily when ripe, much promptness and care should be exercised in harvesting the seed crop. The best machine for threshing a seed so small is the clover huller.

The yields of seed will run all the way from less than 3 bushels per acre to 5 bushels, and some crops have been harvested in Wisconsin which gave 7 bushels per acre. Four bushels would probably be about an average yield. As the price is usually relatively high compared with other clovers, the seed from white clover would be quite remunerative were it not that in a dry season the yield is disappointing. In some instances two crops are grown in succession; in others, one crop is reaped. The land is then sown to barley the next year, and the following year clover seed may be reaped again without sowing a second time. Usually, after two successive crops of seed have been cut, blue grass crowds the clover.

It should be possible to grow prodigious crops of white clover in certain of the northern Rocky Mountain valleys, as, for instance, in Montana and Washington, where the conditions for the application of water to grow the plants and of withholding the same when ripening the seed are completely under the control of the husbandman. The soils in these valleys, as previously intimated, have high adaptation for growing white clover.