1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



87 



The gallberry (our holly) blooms, by actual 

 tabulation, from the 23d of April (the earliest 

 noted) to the 11th of May, the average being 

 the 5th of May or thereabout. It is too late 

 to come into our orange crop, as we extract 

 as soon as the last orange-blossoms are gone. 

 That leaves but the sweet gum in the list 

 named by Mr. Hart. If our bees worked on 

 it here it would be a source, I admit. But I 

 have never, in all my observations, seen any 

 bees on sweet gum in our section. Whether 

 it does not yield honey, and whether climate 

 and soil can be accountable, are questions I 

 have not yet been able to determine. I have 

 sent another sample of this year's orange- 

 blossom honey to Mr. Younge, of Washing- 

 ton, and await his verdict on tne pollen-grains 

 with deep interest. By the way, I sent him 

 a sample of California orange honey (so call- 

 ed), and was not surprised to hear that there 

 were no clear-cut grains of orange-blossom 

 pollen in it, for I had already made up my 

 mind that it had very little if any of the real 

 orange. It did not have the taste nor color 

 nor odor; and the pollen grains only con- 

 firmed the other attributes. As I wrote Mr. 

 Hornor, of Jenkintown, it is probable that 

 much light-colored well-flavored honey from 

 CaUfornia is sold under the name of "orange 

 honey "for the sake of the suggestiveness 

 of the term, just as much tupelo honey from 

 Florida is sold by that name in New York 

 and other cities, as I happen to know from 

 talking with large dealers there ; at least this 

 was so before the passage of the pure-food 

 act. How it may be now, I do not know; 

 but this sample of honey from California was 

 surely masquerading under the title of a hon- 

 ey that it did not deserve. Large shippers 

 of East Coast oranges from Florida tell me 

 that much fruit from that section is sold as 

 "Indian River Oranges "just because that 

 particular region happens to produce the 

 linest fruit grown. May it not be so with 

 some of the honeys from California? If so, 

 ought not the pure-food act to have a word 

 to say in the matter? 



Deland, Fla. 



SWEET CLOVER. 



Profit in Growing, Sowing, and Cultivating 



it, and How to Make it a Most 



Valuable Crop. 



BY R. L. SNODGRASS. 



To produce'the first crop of sweet clover, 

 sow 20 lbs. of the seed per acre any time be- 

 tween Dec. 1 and Feb. 1, as the seed always 

 germinates best if it freezes a few times in 

 the ground. About the first of September 

 it is well to turn stock on the clover, and 

 pasture it until the first of December, as it 

 will keep green until this time, and even 

 later. 



The following spring one may pasture it 

 for two or three weeKs; and if it is not 

 grazed too long it will give a good crop of 



bloom and seed; if it is pastured too long it 

 will not grow so tall, and the blooming and 

 seed crop may be cut a little short. 



As soon as the seed crop is cut, plow the 

 ground and sow to buckwheat or millet; and 

 as soon as either of these is harvested the 



f round is in fine condition to disc to wheat, 

 do not consider it advisable to sow more 

 than half a bushel to three pecks of wheat 

 per acre if a good stand of sweet clover is 

 desired the following spring, as too heavy 

 seeding of wheat tends to smother out the 

 clover. If the wheat is not too thick the 

 sweet clover will come up in the wheat from 

 the seed, and the following year another 

 good bloom and seed crop can be produced. 

 One can again go through the same routine 

 as before. I have the best stand of sweet 

 clover that I ever had, that I managed in 

 just this way. 



It always pays to plow up a field after a 

 seed crop has been cut, for a good stand is 

 never secured after a seed crop has matur- 

 ed, as the old plants smother out the young 

 ones. Hence I recommend plowing it up; 

 in fact, the clover does better if a field is 

 plowed up every two years. 



Any one managing a field in the way I 

 have described can well afford to pay $5.00 

 per acre, cash rent. 



There is no other clover that is such a soil- 

 renovater as sweet clover. I have been pas- 

 turing my clover ever since one month after 

 I cut the wheat. When I turned my cows 

 on it they doubled the flow of milk, and it is 

 still green as it can be at this writing, Dec. 

 5, and my cows are still grazing on it— the 

 white clover. I have also a fifteen-acre field 

 of the yellow variety on rented ground that 

 is about one foot high, and just as green as 

 in mid-summer. I haven't turned the stock 

 on this yet, but expect ^.o do so soon. I pre- 

 fer the yellow variety to the white, as it is 

 an earlier bloomer and makes more pasture, 

 as it will stand closer grazing. The hay is 

 also much finer, and cures more quickly, and 

 therefore is ready to stack much sooner than 

 the white; and I believe, too, that the stock 

 eat it more readily. 



Now, the most important feature of it all 

 is that it is an earlier bloomer by two or 

 three weeks than the white or alfalfa either, 

 and consequently it puts the bees in good 

 condition for the alfalfa honey- flow; and if 

 the first crop of alfalfa fails to bloom, as is 

 usual in Kansas, the yellow sweet clover 

 lasts until the second crop of alfalfa is in full 

 bloom. I had 100 colonies last season that 

 had only eight or ten acres of the yellow va- 

 riety to work on, and my colony on scales 

 gained about 2 lbs. per day for 30 diys, on 

 the yellow variety of sweet clover, between 

 the first and second blooming of alfalfa. 

 Now, if this will not put all colonies in 

 shape for the second blooming of alfalfa I 

 don't know what will unless it is heavy feed- 

 ing, and that is rather expensive and not so 

 easy. And in addition to the benefit my 

 bees and stock derived from it I secured 

 about 2000 lbs. of cleaned hulled seed. 



Augusta, Kan. 



