246 AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS 



sippi River and the Rocky Mountains. In the East, the surplus secured 

 from this plant has been disappointing, and eastern men insist that sweet 

 clover is overrated as a honey plant. However, those who have seen the 

 big flows that are frequent along the Missouri River and westward are 

 enthusiastic in its praise. In the region about Sioux City, Iowa, it is 

 grown extensively as a farm crop. In this section an average of 200 pounds 

 surplus per colony from sweet clover is not uncommon. On the limestone 

 soils of Alabama and Mississippi it also yields freely and large yields are 

 reported. In the irrigated regions of the West it is of great importance 

 and beekeepers who ship sweet clover honey in carlots are not uncommon. 

 The quality of the honey is excellent. It is light in color and mild in 

 flavor, although slightly peppery to the taste. It granulates more readily 

 than white clover, but is regarded as of number one quality in the prin- 

 cipal markets. 



Sweet Clover as a Farm Crop 



When our older readers were beginners in the beekeeping business it 

 was a popular thing for the beekeepers to buy sweet clover seed and 

 stealthily sow it along the roadsides. So general was this practiced that 

 whenever the plant appeared in a new locality it was generally charged up 

 to the beekeepers living nearby. So great was the prejudice against the 

 plant that much ill-feeling developed in some places because of it. It even 

 went so far that in some States it was placed on the list of noxious weeds 

 and its eradication required by law. When Frank Coverdale, well-known 

 Iowa farmer who did so much to popularize sweet clover, first sowed it in 

 his own fields, neighbors called on the county attorney to enquire whether 

 he could not be prosecuted for sowing weed seed. For a generation the 

 beekeepers kept up the fight, and constantly preached that sweet clover 

 was not a weed, but a valuable forage plant. It remained for men like 

 Coverdale, who were both beekeepers and farmers, to prove the assertion 

 and convince the unwilling public, by making as much profit rrom sweet 

 clover pasture for forage as the neighbors could make from other farm 

 crops. 



It was on poor lands which had been worn out by bad tillage, that 

 the plant made the best showing. When lands which had been lying idle, 

 because no other crop could be raised profitably, were made to produce 

 good yields of milk, butter and beef from sweet clover, the neighbors were 

 inclined to give it a trial on their own poor lands. The change in senti- 

 ment has been very marked during the past few years and now the de- 

 mand for sweet clover seed is greater than the supply, and will continue so 

 for several years, since the area where it is being grown is constantly be- 

 ing enlarged. There are large areas where sweet clover is grown generally 

 as a farm crop, in Kentucky, Nebraska and Kansas. The increased acreage 

 of this plant will double the possibilities of honey production in most any 

 locality, and in numerous instances will treble and quadruple it. In the 

 early years of his experience, Coverdale kept bees in several outapiaries, 

 so that much travel back and forth was necessary. Since sweet clover has 

 become so generally grown in his locality, he is al)le to keep three hundred 



