Estancia news-herald. [volume] (Estancia, Torrance County, N.M.) 1912-19??, 1920-12-23
A SWEET GLOVER
SYMPOSIUM
Sweet Clover May Be an Important
Factor in the Development of
the Estancia Valley.

Sweet clover has grown as a vol
unteer plant in the Estancia valley
for number of years. 1t has been
found growing in isolated patches,
usually scattered group of stalks,
from two or three to dozen or so
in number, ard the fact that it
seemed to flourish without regard
to its situation or the character or
condition of the soil in which it
grew, has attracted attention and re-
mark.
These facts have before been
mentioned in this paper, and in the
last few years there have been some
efforts by progressive farmers to
learn what it will do here.
We print herewith picture fur
nished by Fred H. Ayers, and print
following a symposium which ought
to be of interest to a very large
number of valley farmers who are
turning their attention to dairying.
Article from Western Farm Life.
AS we have given sweet clover
and alfalfa particular attention for
the past five years, we believe we
may be able to offer your readers
a few suggestions gained from our
experiments that will prove quite a
saving to those desiring to grow
these crops, and especially those who
have raw or sod land they wish to
seed to either alfalfa or sweet clo-
yer.
The first thing is to decide the
kind of sweet clover to grow, the
white or the yellow Our expert
ments prove to us that the yellow
biennial is far superior to the white,
in that it comes in the spring, fully
three weeks earlier than the white,
enabling you to have this three
weeks more pasture for stock when
most needed until the pasture grass
has time to get good start and
strength.
You can secure this three weeks
pasture and still get three cuttings
a year easier than you can with the
white-and the white is not pas
tured. Our altitude is 6,7OO feet.
Another important point in favor
of the yellow is, that it has much
smaller stalk and in this more near
ly equals the best alfalfa. We find it
retains more leaves, while the white
produces more stalk that stock will
not eat so readily.
A majority of people have not
even tried to grow alfalfa or sweet
clover, because they are of the opin-
ion it is very expensive to prepare
the ground for a seed bed. In this
nothing is farther from the actual
facts; either one has required less
expense and produces greater re-
turns than any crop that we have
experimental with.
Some three years ago we seeded |
some four hundred acres Of old
ground to Grimm alfalfa. To kill
the weeds, it was necessary that we
plow the ground-this was in June,
To secure firm seed bed required
that we roll and pack the soil twice
before drilling, then drilled as shall
low as possible one-fourth to three
fourths inches deep, then followed
the drill with the roller-packer.
You can calculate the expense of
seeding; first the plowing, then roll
ing and packing-three operations,
making four expenses in the opera
tion in addition to the drilling.
While doing this seeding the writ
er noticed a stalk of alfalfa here
and there out on the sod that had
simply had its start from seed being
blown or carried there in some man
ner, and he said to himself, eff this
volunteer alfalfa lives and grows
year after year on sod, why not if