ABSTRACT

Other early agricultural descriptions of clover come from Brabant, the Netherlands (Dodoens 1566), and Brescia, Italy (Gallo 1565) (Blomeyer 1889; Merkenschlager 1934a, 1934b; Zeven 1991). In Brabant, Rembert Dodoens describes the cultivation of pure stands of clover (gemeyne claveren) (Zeven 1991). Dodoens describes clover cultivation as an established practice indicating it had already existed for some time before the mid 1500s

(Blomeyer 1889). It is likely that the seed for cultivating red clover in Brabant originally came from Spain since cultivated red clover was called “Spanish clover”. This Spanish clover in turn probably originated from the Near East and was brought to Spain around 1300 by the Moors ruling Spain in the Middle Age (Zeven and de Wet 1982). According to Freudenthaler et al. (1998), Dodoens (1566) mentions that red clover was cultivated on arable fi elds in Brabant “grows much vigorously and taller than the red clover on the meadows”. In the late medieval period, Flanders was known for its advanced agricultural system and, although earlier descriptions of red clover exist, it was in Flanders that deliberate improvement/cultivation of pastures became prevalent (Lane 1980; Hopcroft 2003). Evidence of intensifi cation started appearing in the 1300s in Flanders as records of complex agricultural rotations appear (Hopcroft 2003). From Flanders, clover cultivation spread to England and Central Europe in the mid-1600s (Michell 1974; Lane 1980), although cultivation of clover in Europe was mentioned in English herbal manuscripts as early as the late 1500s (Gerard 1597). The arrival of red clover in the New World may have occurred as early as 1625 when ships from Holland landed in North America. Clover (clover-grass) cultivation is described in the mid-1600s in North American records (Fergus and Hallowell 1960). In the 1780s J.C. Schubart popularized red clover cultivation in Germany, for which he was elevated to nobility by the emperor (Merkenschlager 1934a and 1934b). Russian farms started using red clover in the 1790s (Merkenschlager 1934a; Semerikov et al. 2002). By the 1800s almost all temperate agricultural regions in the world used red clover as an integral part of cropping rotations to improve soil and provide fodder.