North when sown in
the early autumn, providing snow covers the ground all the winter, but
should the snow fail to come the subsequent winter, or fail to lie when
it does come, the clover plants would perish. The element of hazard,
therefore, is too great in northerly areas to justify sowing the seed
thus. But on the bench lands of the mountain valleys there may be
instances in which the seed may be sown so late in the autumn that it
will not sprout before winter sets in, but lies in the soil ready to
utilize the moisture, so all important in those areas, as soon as the
earliest growth begins in the spring.

The seed may be sown with no little assurance of success in the late
summer. But this can only be done where moisture is reasonably plentiful
from the time of sowing onward, and where the winters are not really
severe. In some of the Central States this method of sowing may succeed
reasonably well. Clover and timothy sown thus without any nurse crop
will produce a full crop the next season. When the seed is sown thus, it
may, of course, be made to follow a crop grown on the land the same
season. It may also insure a crop the following season, when the clover
seed sown the spring previously may for some reason have failed.

While medium red clover is frequently sown in the South and in some
areas of the far West in the months of January and February on the snow,
in the North it is usually sown in the early spring. This also is in a
great majority of instances the best time for sowing. In many locations
it may be sown with safety as soon as the winter snows have gone. On the
whole, the earlier that it is sown in the spring the better, that the
young plants may have all the benefit possible from the moisture, which
is more abundant than later. But there are certain areas, as, for
instance, in the northerly limits of the Mississippi basin, in which
young clover plants perish by frost after they have germinated. This,
however, does not happen very frequently. When the seed is sown on the
snow, or while the ground is yet in a honeycombed condition from early
frost, it must of necessity be sown early. But where the hazard is
present that the young plants will be killed by frost, it will be safer
to defer sowing the seed until it can be covered with the harrow when
sown.

Whether it will be more advisable to sow the seed on bare ground earlier
than the season when growth begins, or to sow later and cover with the
harrow,