The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1902-03-25
In Restoring Soil That
Has Been Worn Out.
RESULTS OF TEST
State Experiment. Station Re-
ports on Experim ants In Sow
ing Wild Clover on Washed
and Puddl,d Land.

The Ohio agricultural station has
been sending out great many practi-
cal and useful statements for the bene-
fit of farmers. fruit grQwers and or
chardists. which the News-Democrat
has from time to time given to Its
readers.
One of the most important subjects
for the farmer to study Is how to re-
store soil. Many casual observer has
noticed that on bare clay banks in soil
where scarcely anything else would
grow, the common sweet clover is fire.
quently found to grow luxuriantly.
This fact led to investigation and ex-
pertinent. The results of these exper-
iments are given in the following
statement sent out by the experiment
station:
Those who have carefully observed
the habits of the wild sweet clover
or meliloD have noticed that its volun-
teer growth is practically confined to
roadsides where the surface soil has
beenscraped away or where the ground
has been puddled by trampling and to
similar locations elsewhere, such as
the bottoms of abandoned brickyards
or places in pasture fields where the
soil has been trampled while wet, or
hillsides from which the surface soil
has been washed away. 1t is practi-
cally never found invading pastures or
other lands which have been kept in
good condition.
SOME GOOD TESTS.
At the Ohio Experiment station the
seeds of this plant have repeatedly
been sown on soils which were merely
thin, but not washed or puddled, but
invariably without success. The only
case in which 1t has been induced to
grow was where 1t was sown on the
bottom of an old .brickyard at Colum-
bus in 1888. Here full stanG and
vigorous growth were obtained, and the
crop was allowed to stand and re-seed
itself until the fell of 1891, when it
was plowed undertand the land sown to
wheat. The result was yield of 26.9
bushels of wheat per acre on the land
where melilot has grown. against
yield of 1876 bushels on similar land
alongside, which had been cropped
with corn and oats the two seasons
previously.
The Experiment Station Record re-
ports an experiment made near Tost,
Germany, in which melilots was sown
with rye in the spring of 1889 and was
plowed under the following spring and
the land sown TO oats followed by pota
toes. The result was an increase of II
bushels per acre in the oats crop and a
doubling of the potato crop.
FOR FORAGE AND HAY.
Animals do not eat sweet clover
readily. but when confined to it they
are said to soon learn to relish it. and
it is largely grown for forage and hay
in the southern states. 1t resembles
alfalfa in appearance and habits Of
growth, and like alfalfa must be cut
before full blossoming If it is desired
to make hay Of 1t, otherwise the stems
become too hard and woody. Like
alfalfa 1t will furnish two or three
crops of hay in season: but it diff
fers from alfalfa in being a biennial
plant. so that it will disappear at the
end of the second season after seed
ing unless permitted to re-seed itself.
AS plant for green manuring Prof.
s. M. Tracy, formerly of the Missis-
sippi Experiment Station, says of 1t in
Farmers Bulletin 18 of the U. s. de-
partment of agriculture: "As re-
storative crop for yellow loan and
white lime lands this plant has no su-
perior, and for black prairie soils It
has no equal. The roots are very long,
penetrating the soil to depth Of 8 or 4
feet; are quite large, and by their de-
cay at the end of the second year
leave the soil with innumerable min
ute holes which act as drains and loos-
en- the soil, SO that the roots of other
crops can go deeper and find more
abundant supplies of food and bear
drouth better"
The appearance Of sweet clover is
signal that the soil Is out Of condition.
It's mission seems to be to occupy the
waste places and neglected spots of the
earth and to prepare them for the
growth Of other plants.
CHAS. e. THORNE, Director.
Ohio Experiment Station.