CLOVER. 



92 



CLOVER. 



edge that a drouth may be so severe that the 

 clover may be killed and is killed. 



Some years ago a prominent writer made 

 the positive prediction that we could depend 

 on a crop of honey from clover if we only 

 liave deep snows in winter. Referring to 

 til is, one bee-keeper says, in the winter of 

 li)07 tliere was comparatively little snow, and 

 yet there was a bumper crop in the summer 

 of 1908; and then he adds, " As an actual 

 fact, the amount of clover honey is not meas- 

 ured by the quantity of bloom; for I have 

 seen the fields white with an abundance of 

 it, but only a fair crop. I can remember one 

 year when we had a great scarcity of bloom, 

 and yet we had a good crop of clover honey. 

 I have also seen fields white with clover, but 

 no honey." He then goes on to say that he 

 has seen the clover parched by drouth in 

 June— not a blossom in sight, and, at the 

 very time of year when there should be 

 bloom if ever. Then a series of soaking 

 rains came on, and, presto ! bloom and a 

 crop of honey. He winds up by saying, " In 

 the fall and latter part of the summer of 1897 

 or '8 we had a very dry time— not so dry as 

 last fall, but dry enough— so dry that it was 

 Slacken of as being remarkably so. . . I 

 had a bumper crop the following summer." 



Another writer, Mr. John McLauchlan, of 

 London, Canada, confirming the quotation 

 just made, says : 



'J'he fall of 1899 or 1900, I forg-et. which, was excep- 

 tionally dry in this district right through from Au- 

 gust 15 uutil winter set in. This was followed by a 

 very dry spring with very little grass of any kind 

 until the later part of May, when a sei'ies of warm 

 raius commenced which continued almost daily un- 

 til ahout the 20th of June. The effect was marvelous. 

 By the end of June the fields and roadsides were one 

 beautiful mass of white clover and alsike, and the 

 honey crop was the best my memory can recall. 

 John McLauchlan. 



London, Canada, Feb. 33. 



Mr. E. Lament, of New Dover, Ohio, says: 

 "Late summer and fall drouths, as a rule, 

 harm clovers but little. . . . I doubt if, 

 in the long rim, the conditions brought 

 about by last year's dry spell are a damage 

 to the bee-keepers of the white-clover dis- 

 tricts;" and then, implying that a wet fall is 

 too much of a good thing, he adds : " I am 

 satisfied that a rank growth of clover at any 

 time, except white clover, does not yield the 

 nectar that it otherwise would. This is 

 proven conclusively in the case of red and 

 alsike clovers that are cut for seed, as there 

 is never so much seed on the low ground, 

 where the growth is rankest." And then he 

 concludes by saying that he believes it is an 

 advantage, in point of nectar secretion, that 



clovers should have an occasional setback 

 by drouth. 



SWEET CLOVEB [Melilotus alba and 



officinalis). ^ 



Within the last few years this plant, com- 

 moidy denominated a weed by town councils 

 and by ignorant farmers, is finding its way 

 over the entire United States. We can re- 

 member a few years ago when a plant of 

 sweet clover was unknown around here. The 

 first few plants that we ever saw created 

 quite a sensation, both on the part of the bee- 

 keeper and of the general public, because, 

 during the time they were in bloom, they 

 were fairly covered with bees. So far from 

 being a noxious weed it is really a valuable 

 forage-plant in some localities : and while 

 white clover, for some unaccountable reason, 

 is not yielding as it did some years ago, sweet 

 clover, a wonderful honey-idant, seems de- 

 termined to make up for the loss by spread- 

 ing itself from one end of the country to the 

 other. It takes special delight in growing 

 on waste places, even on the hardest and 

 roughest clay, along common wagon-roads 

 and railroads. It is scattered over the for- 

 mer by being carried on the wheels of 

 wagons when the roads are muddy, and, 

 as a consequence, the plants may be 

 found along most of the highways of the 

 country. Over the steam roads the rap- 

 idly moving trains, by reason of the great 

 suction generated, gather up the seeds and 

 drop them along their journey, with the re- 

 sult that the seed is scattered by the cars 

 from one end of the country to the other : 

 but it never occupies any good arable fields 

 of the farmer, for it is very easily extermi- 

 nated. From the very fact tliat it will grow 

 in waste places where nothing else could 

 eke out a living, we can say that it is really 

 adding to the wealth of the country. In 

 some localities it aifords the only forage- 

 plant that will grow, and as such is very 

 valuable. In other localities where it grows 

 by the roadsides and along railway tracks, it 

 furnishes a little honey to the bees during 

 that time of the year when no nectar can be 

 obtained from any other source ; and if it 

 were growii in great patches instead of in 

 streaks a mile or a hundred miles long it 

 Avould be much more important as a honey- 

 plant ; because bees do not ordinarily fly 

 much more than one or two miles, the 

 amount of acreage of the plant within range 

 of their flight is very limited. 



There are two kinds of sweet clover, the 

 white and tlie yellow. The white is almost 



