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For Blowing Soils

Categories: Soils, Fertilizers and Irrigation

I am going to dry-sow rye late this fall. I want some leguminous plant

to seed with the rye for a wind-break crop, not to plow under. The land

varies from heavy loam to blow-sand. I have under consideration sweet

clover, burr clover, vetches. I see occasional stray plants of sweet

clover (the white-blossomed) growing in the alfalfa on both hard and

sandy soil. I read in an Eastern bee journal that sweet clover can be

s
wed on hard uncultivated land with success. Could I grow it on the

hard vacant spots that occur in the alfalfa fields?



You can sow these leguminous plants all along during the earlier part of

the rainy season (September to December) except that they will not make

a good start in cold ground which does not seem to bother rye much. But

on sand you are not likely to get cold, waterlogged soil, so you can put

in there whenever you like - the earlier the better, however, if you

have moisture enough in the soil to sustain the growth as well as start

it. We should sow rye and common vetch. Sweet clover will grow anywhere,

from a river sandbar to an uncovered upland hardpan, but it will not do

much if your vacant spots are caused by alkali.



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