MELILOTIIS (Melilotus alba.) Lcguminosie. (Sweet, Bokhara, Stone and Large White Clover, and White Melilot.) Fig. 692.
Melilotus is a genus of leguminous plants, usually biennial, occurring commonly as weeds. One form, Mclilotus alba, is of value as a green-manure, forage and bee plant.
Plants of the genus Melilotus are erect herbs with three-foliate leaves, dentate leaflets, and mostly white or yellow flowers in slender racemes. The most important species are AL alba, Desv., and 11. °Sicilians, Lam. Both are generally regarded as weeds except in the prairie region of Alabama and Mississippi, where the former serves a useful purpose for forage and for soil renovation. Menia 1 u s macrostachys is promising by reason of its being less bitter than most other spe cies. H. Indica, All., is an introduced weed in the western part of the United States. Its yellow flowers are smaller than those of 11. officinalis. At the Arizona Experiment Station, 31. Indica, lo cally known as "sour clover," proved to be a most satisfactory win ter cover-crop for or chards, seed sown in October affording an immense mass of green material to be plowed under in April. Brit ton states that there are about twenty spe cies of Melilotus, na tives of Europe, Africa and Asia. A number of species have been tested at the Cali fornia Experiment / Station, some of them affording large yields of green material of untried feeding value. In Cali fornia, H. officinalis is a pest in grain-fields because it imparts its odor to threshed grain and to the flour made therefrom, which is very objectionable to bakers. The price of such "clover scented" grain is reduced by buyers.
Mclilotus alba is an erect, branching plant, three to nine feet tall, bearing small white flowers in racemes. It is biennial, rarely blooming the first year. Like other members of the genus, it has a bitter taste and a characteristic pleasant odor when bruised. The chief need for improvement in the plant is to decrease this bitter principle. In gen eral appearance this plant bears a close resem blance to alfalfa, up to the time of the appearance of blooms, but the stems of the former are coarser and less leafy.
This plant is widely distributed over the United States and Canada, growing freely along roadsides, in vacant city lots, and in other waste places. It is hardy, holding its own against weeds and even against Johnson-grass, with which it is sometimes sown. It is recognized as a weed throughout the greater part of its habitat and is especially liable to give trouble in alfalfa-fields in the first year or two after the first sowing of alfalfa. To prepare land that has been in melilotus for alfalfa, it should be devoted for at least one year to some hoed crop, preferably cotton, or the melilotus plants should be completely plowed under with a disk-plow before seed has formed. Large sharp plows are required to cut the tough roots of the sweet clover.
Composition.
The following analyses of .1.lelilotus alba, show great variation in composition dependent on stage of maturity : gating one and one-half to three tons per acre. The second year, growth from the old roots begins early in March, and the first cutting is made about May 1, and a second and sometimes a third cutting is made the second year, the total yield aggregating two to five tons of hay. The crop is cut when it is about eighteen inches high.
Uses.
As a green-nuznure.—Through the loosening effect of its large and deeply penetrating roots and the decay of the roots and above-ground parts, sweet clover serves as a fertilizer for succeeding crops, often doubling the usual yield.
The average of analyses made at the Mississippi Experiment Station show that the composition of the dry matter of the above-ground part of the plant is protein, 20.93 per cent ; fat, etc., 3.09 per cent ; nitrogen-free extract, 42.46 per cent ; crude fiber, 25.21 per cent ; ash, 8.87 per cent. At the Massachusetts State Experiment Station, the air dry, above-ground part contained 7.43 per cent moisture, 1.95 per cent nitrogen, 1.832 per cent potash, 0.558 per cent phosphoric acid.