its capacity for quick and prolonged growth
throughout the growing season by any pasture plant, except alfalfa. For
a similar reason it stands high as a soiling food. No other variety of
clover grown in America will furnish as much of either pasture or
soiling food. For animals producing milk and for young animals, the
pasture is particularly excellent. It is also the standard pasture for
swine where it can be grown, and where alfalfa is not a staple crop.
When the hay is well cured, it makes a ration in even balance for cattle
and sheep, and for horses it is equally good. The prejudice which exists
in some quarters against feeding it to horses has arisen, in part, at
least, from feeding it when improperly harvested, when over-ripe, when
damaged by rain, or by overcuring in the sun, or when it may have been
stored so green as to induce molding. It may also be fed with much
advantage to brood sows and other swine in winter.

As a soil improver, medium red clover is probably without a rival,
unless it be in mammoth clover, and in one respect it exceeds the
mammoth variety; that is, in the more prolonged season, during which it
may be plowed under as a green manure. Its quick growth peculiarly
adapts it to soil enrichment. For this reason, it is more sown than any
of the other varieties in the spring of the year, along with the small
cereal grains to be plowed under in the late autumn or in the following
spring, after the clover has made a vigorous start, since it produces
two crops in one season, the first crop may be harvested and the second
plowed under after having made a full growth. This can be said of no
other variety of clover. More enrichment is also obtained from the
falling of the leaves when two crops are grown than from the other
varieties.

The influence of this plant on weed destruction when grown for hay is
greater than with the other varieties of clover. This is owing in part
to the shade resulting from its rapid growth and in part to the two
cuttings which are usually made of the crop. These two cuttings prevent
the maturing of the seeds in nearly all annual weeds, and to a very
great extent in all classes of biennials. The power of this crop to
smother out perennials is also considerable, and when this is linked
with the weakening caused by the two cuttings, it sometimes proves
effective in completely eradicating for the time being this class of
weeds.

[Illustration: Fig. 2. Medium Red Clover (_Trifo