CLOVER SICKNESS. 343 



sional visits of honey bees to the flowers of red clover may be 

 accounted for by supposing they seek pollen, or they seek the 

 honey which has filled a considerable portion of the floral tube. 

 The upper portion of this honey can be reached even with the 

 tongue of the ordinary honey bee. 



Clover Sickness. — This is a term used in Great liritain to in- 

 dicate a failure of tlie plants to thrive after tliey liavo once 

 started. Many observations and experiments have been made 

 and much has been written on the topic in regard to the cause 

 and remedies. Except in a very few places in the older portions 

 of the United States, and even these are of questionable authority, 

 no trouble of this nature has appeared on this side of the Atlantic. 



Eecent investigations by Kutzleb show that clover sickness is 

 not due to parasites, to lack of nitrogen, to lack of water, or to 

 unfavorable physical properties of the soil, but to a deficiency of 

 easily soluble jiotash, especially in the subsoil. (H. P. Armsby 

 in Science, p. 14G, 1883.) 



It is not improbable as our country grows older that repeated 

 crops of clover may so deprive the subsoil of potash that clover 

 sickness may become common. One who suspects the presence 

 of this trouble should look carefully for insects or some fungus 

 before coming to a conclusion. 



To my inquiry in reference to the presence of clover sickness 

 in the State of Xew York, Professor Roberts replied through the 

 PMladelpliia Press as follows: "So far nothing like what is 

 known in Europe as 'clover sickness' is present. The clover 

 leaf beetle, Pliytonymus punctatus, has injured a few fields se- 

 riously, but its ravages have been confined to very small areas, 

 sometimes to a single acre or two in a township. The clover 

 seed midge, Cecidomyia legiiminicola, Avhich prevents the clover 

 from blossoming and destroys the seed, is found in most, if not 

 all, of the counties of western New York. The hay crop is in- 

 jured by them to only a slight extent. 



