Very little sweet clover thus far has been grown in mixtures with other
crops. A few farmers have sown red clover and sweet clover together,
but such a mixture has no advantage over sweet clover seeded alone
for hay, as sweet clover should be cut at least two Weeks before the
red clover is ready to harvest. Sweet clover is being seeded to some
extent on native prairie sod in the Northwest, where it is claimed it
adds greatly to the value of the native grasses for pasturage. A thin
seeding of sweet clover is often desired in bluegrass pastures on this
account. One of the best pastures in eastern Iowa consists of a mixture
of bluegrass, timothy, and sweet clover. The Mississippi Agricultural
Experiment Station recommends a mixture of Johnson grass and sweet
clover. In this mixture the first cutting will consist of almost pure
sweet clover, while the second and third cutting's will be a mixture
of those plants. A number of southern farmer have had good success in
seeding sweet clover on Bermuda-grass sod.
The New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station has obtained excellent
results from a mixture of Dwarf Essex rape and sweet clover, and also
by the addition of soy beans to this mixture. It was found that by
seeding 6 pounds of rape and 10 pounds of sweet clover per acre an
abundance of nutritious pasturage was produced and that pigs preferred
this mixture to alfalfa. When soy beans were added it was seeded at
the rate of 1 bushel of soy beans, 6 pounds of Dwarf Essex rape, and
18 pounds of sweet clover. The soy beans were drilled by themselves,
and the rape and sweet clover were mixed and seeded with a press drill.
Brood sows made a gain of from three-fourths to 1 pound a day during
July on this mixture without additional feed and gave unusual evidence
of thrift and vigor.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.--A cornfield, showing the effect of fall and
spring plowing in killing sweet clover that had made but one year's
growth. The portion of the field at the left was plowed in the autumn,
while that at the right was plowed the following spring, after the
plants had started growth. The corn is 4 inches high.]