The Huttig news., 1910-09-17
SPOTTED BUR CLOVER.
A Very Valuable Cover Plant for the Cotton
 Region.

us of plants which includes alfalfa as it's most famous member. The name of the genus is Medicoga. but it is sometimes shortened to Medic. The Spotted bur clover has been called the Spotted Medic and the California bur clover, Toothed Medic. There are many other species of this genus known to botanists, but the seedmen handle the seed only of alfalfa, California bur clover and Spotted bur clover.
 Both the cloyers here mentioned are annual plants, i. e., plants which die down every year and are reproduced only from the seed. Both are good plants, but the Spotted bur clover is somewhat hardier than the California bur clover and, judging from experience, is the bet ter plant to recommend.
 I Very little has been done with this clo- yer for hay making and it is at least an open question whether it will prove a satisfactory hay plant, but it may and should occupy another niche in the agri- culture of the South-a niche of real im- portance.
 One of the crying needs of Southern agriculture is that the soil be covered in winter with a growing crop. Crops of | corn and cotton covering, as they do, nearly 90 per cent of the cultivated land of the cotton region leave the ground bare in winter, subjecting it to rains which gutter and gullie the hillsides and wash the best part of the soil into the rivers muddying the same and interfer ing with navigation. There is period of six months, from October l April L. when something should be growing on the land, even though it is plowed under by the latter date. For this pur- pose one may sow anything which grows in the fall, winter and early spring, such as wheat, oats, rye, barley. red clover. crimson clover, the yetches or bur clover. Simply as winter cover the Spotted bur clover is not superior to some of the crops mentioned, but it is good for the purpose and ought to be used this way.
 Any winter cover crop may be used for pasture if desired. Spotted bur clo- yer is good pasture and ought to be used freely as such. Poultry are fond of the growing plants in the growing seas on and hens eat the dry, mature burs after the crop is ripe. June l and after sheep and hogs are fond of this clover and do we'll on it. Cattle, horses and mules need to be eduated to it but 1t is good, nutritious pasture for all kinds of stock When sowed early enough 1t makes fall and winter pasture, but when sowed late or when fall is unfavorable for growth it makes little pasture before early spring. During March, April and May, however, it makes a very vigorous growth. Bur clover pasture and Bermu- da makes fine combination. There is Bermuda bur clover pasture near Mon ticello, of nearly so years standing, on which the bur clover has perpetrated it. self during the whole period. It goes to oCSQ OdliC ollQ NOiilCS oSQitl HUH tIS seed in the fall Even under rather close grazing it makes seed close to the ground and perpetuates itself. To start it on Bermuda sod it is best to scarify the surface or to plant in miniature furrows few feet apart. whence it will spread across the intervening space.
 Spotted bur clover is nitrogen gath erer like cowpeas and enriches the soil with this plant food but, unlike >owpeas, it makes its growth in the fall, winter and spring. Cowpeas may follow bur clover the same year thus getting two fertilizer crops on the land the same season. In quantity of material per acre it is fully equal to cowpeas and it is as rich in nitrogen as red clover.
 In addition to it value as a winter cover, as a pasture and as fertilizer, Spotted bur clover has certain special characteristics which commend it to the attention of farmers. Given an oppor- tunity to go to seed it will just as surely volunteer and grow again as Japan clo- yer, though it does not spread with the rapidity of Japan clover On Bermuda pasture, as already mentioned, it volun- teers and comes again year after year When the mature crop is plowed under and late crop planted after it (such as cowpeas, late corn, etc., it will come again in the fall from seed plowed under the lst of June. To express it in another way, one may get a full crop of bur clo- yer and use as a fertilizer get some kind of money crop off the land and have a better stand of bur clover in the fall than the one he started with the year before Pound for pound and ton for ton Spotted bur clover is not quite as good a fertil-I ger as cowpeas or the yetches but in it's habit of volunteering it is superior to either. It can therefore be handled, of ten-times, in such a way that one sow ing is sufficient for several years.
 As a seed producer none of the legum- nous plants in comm use will annroac ch