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Show SWEET CLOVER IS NOT WEED Rank Growth Is Mowed Down and Used as Mulch Around Orchard Trees, Adding Nitrogen. Sweet clover, a much-condemned plant, is at last coming into its own. For years farmers have looked upon it as an obnoxious weed and its native habitat has been neglected roadsides and waste lands. Now agricultural science is beginning to see great possibilities pos-sibilities in this plant. It is highly recommended as a green manuring crop, and in Kentucky and . Illinois sor.ie farmers are growing it in the place of alfalfa as a feed for live stock. Several of the experiment stations sta-tions are making a study of its culture cul-ture and use. Thsre are two varieties varie-ties of the sweet clover, or melilotus, as it is rightly called, the white and the yellow. The white makes a ranker growth and is recommended for plowing under as a green manure, while the yellow is grown for forage. The farmers of the eastern and southern t states are making the greatest use of this crop, especially for renovating wornout lands. One leading seed firm in Ohio reports that the demand for melilotus seed has in creased 125 per cent during the laBf I year. The seed sells at the same I price as alfalfa seed. It will grow on nearly any kind of land and an average aver-age crops of seed is about ten bushels per acre. Prof. V. 11. Davis of the college of agriculture, Ohio State university, is growing white sweet clover as a cover crop in his orchards. The rank growth ia mowed down and used as a mulch around the trees. Being a legume, le-gume, D-Krogen is added to the soil' through the action of the bacteria growing on the roots of the plant, and the decay of the crop supplies ls-ge I quantities of humus. |