The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1897-03-23
TIME TO SOW CLOVER SEED.
An Advocate For Early Sowing Gives
Reasons For This Practice.

An Advocate For Early Sowing Gives
Reasons For This Practice.
The unusual success that followed
sowing clover seed, early and late and
under all conditions, will cause many
to be lax and careless this spring. As a
rule sowing is more apt to be too late
than too early. 1t is too much the rule
to sow to miss the freezes and take the
chances against the drought, when it
would be much better to make the great
est effort to escape the damaging results
from drought. At least this is the opin-
ion of an Ohio Farmer correspondent,
who makes these statements:
1t is the almost universal plan to SOW
with some grain crop, more commonly
with wheat, sometimes with rye or oats.
AS a rule the results are uncertain if
sown with the latter crop. If the oats
are sown for full crop, the shade will
be too dense for the clover. It was dem
onstrated last year that it was not
necessary for the clover to have pro-
tecting crop Only from the practice of
sowing with other crops could have
come the belief that sheltering crop is
necessary.
Some years ago, working under the
belief that freezing was the greatest foe
to success, we waited till we could har-
row the wheat. This usually could not
be done till in April. Sown before or
after the harrow work we were almost
sure to get good catch. But we too
often met with loss before the droughts
OF summer were past. With this kind of
sowing we soon found that we had no
assurance that we could continue a reg
ular unbroken three year rotation. FL
nally we learned that under proper con-
ditions of the soil it was possible to
have almost universal success with early
sowing. For IA years we have made it
study to know these conditions. While
our success has not been as complete as
desirable, still the failure has not been
such as to cause us to break our rotation.
Here in southern central Ohio we SOW
the last half of February or the first
week in March, on wheat, of course.
When it is sown at this time, we never
expect to harrow before sowing. We
aim to select morning when the
ground is honeycombed with frost. Usu-
ally on such a morning the ground will
begin to thaw before noon. To get the
work done while the soil is in the most
desirable condition it must be done rap
idly. The machine we use sows a breadth
of 30 feet at round.
The point aimed at by early sowing
is to get the seed as thoroughly covered
as possible In this condition 1t will
pass through short warm spells and not
be sprouted. When well covered, it will
not sprout till settled warm weather
comes. Three years ago the hard March
freeze destroyed great deal of early
sown clover. A good growth of wheat
and rye was sufficient protection to ours
to save us fair stand, yet it would
have been profitable to have given
light reseeding But as this is the only
time we have in our experience met dis
aster from early sowing we shall con-
tinue the practice. A second advantage
from early sowing lies in the fact that,
the seed being covered, the roots are
deeper, and consequently the plant
stands drought better.