1901 



GLKANIN(iS IN BEE CULTURE. 



993 



and .so\vin<f rye, and then lurninL;- the rye 

 under when it was in blossom. He thinks 

 the rj'e should have been turned under a 

 little sooner. The russets would then have 

 had more time to j^row before the frost, and 

 the straw would have been more thoroug'hly 

 deca3'ed. As it was, it bothered Holly 

 about digging- with a hook, as I have told 

 you. Better turn the rye under before it 

 gets to be hard and woody (say just as it is 

 heading outl, if you wish it to deca}^ thor- 

 oughly by the time the potatoes are dug. 

 On our Medina clay I have never found rye 

 straw to bother in digging, even though we 

 have sometimes waited until there were 

 small grains in the heads. Well, the pros- 

 pect now is that friend Hilbert will get to- 

 ward $1000 for the potatoes grown on that 

 piece of ground. But, mind j'ou, he can 

 not do it every year. A good many times 

 potatoes in the Traverse region bring only 

 20 cents; and they have sold for 18 cents — 

 yes, even i^, when the markets were glut- 

 ted. A good many are prophesying that 

 the price will be low next year because 

 everybody in that region is going to plant 

 his "whole farm" to potatoes. I am in- 

 clined to think, however, if business keeps 

 up generally as it is now, potatoes are not 

 likely to be away down as they wei-e four 

 or five years ago. 



SWEET CLOVER — IS IT A VALUABLE PLANT 



FOR HORSES AND CATTLE AFTER THEY 



LEARN TO EAT IT? 



My request for reports from experience 

 has brought out the following letters: 



Mr. Root .■— Having seen the statement by C. H. Zur- 

 burg. Bishop, 111., in regard to sweet clover, I would 

 simply say that is exactly the case in this vicinity. I 

 have never known a horse or cow to touch it, although 

 it grows abundantly along the roadside, stems as big 

 as a man's finger, five to six feet high ; but the bees 

 gather lots of honej; from it. Isaac Parker. 



Lansing, Mich., Sept. 27. 



Miss Nellie Adams writes me that, from her 20 colo- 

 nies, she has taken 2UX) pounds of section honey, and 

 that the colonies have the upper and lower stories 

 nearly all filled for winter She has sold all the crop 

 at good figures. ,She is the boss bee keeper, I think. 



Some time ago you spoke about sweet clover being a 

 good hay for stock. We are just overrun with it, and 

 it is called a nuisance. We are obliged by the trustees 

 to keep it mowed down along the road around each 

 farm ; and in all my travels I have found but one man 

 who said his stock would eat it. I have seen cattle 

 tied along my road fences, but the cows would not eat 

 a bit of it if there was a bit of other gra.ss that they 

 could possibly get. I really believe they would starve 

 before they would eat it. But it is a great honey- 

 plant. R. L- MCCOLLEY. 



Tontogany, O., Oct. 5. 



Mr. Root : — I indorse all C. H. Zurburg, of Bishop, 

 111., says on page 761. except the starving to death. 

 Stock or man w'ill eat anything before starving to 

 death, as I witnessed in 1S()2 to 'fi5. Sweet clover 

 abounds in Western Indiana and Eastern Illinois, 

 greatly to the detriment of the land-holders. We re- 

 member to our .sorrow the manv good things that were 

 said about it in bee-papers. All but the one that it is 



good for bees is untrue. I have pulled plants on a 

 four-acre lot for thirteen years, to lid the lot of the 

 stuff. I got only three plants in lllOl— son»e hopes. 

 We have the pure stufT, sold and described by bee-pa- 

 pers. Land-owners and tenants are much incensed at 

 those who sowed it and the bee-papers that recom- 

 mended it We have to cut it along the highway. 



You certainly have had enough evidence, such as 

 Mr. Zurburg's, to convince a jury or an honest man. 

 Why should we wish our stock to learn to eat it? You 

 seem to think we should take particular pains to teach 

 stock to eat it, which means starve them to it. That 

 trick of your horses you mention sounds as if you had 

 seed to .sell yet. Be honest with God and man. We 

 have had the severest drouth here in 1901 .since 1857, 

 yet cows and horses failed to eat sweet clover. 



Green Hill, Ind., Sept. 24. J. A. Johnston. 



Friend J., in the above three letters we 

 certainly have evidence enough, as you 

 say, to convince a jury — that is, if we did 

 not have any witnesses on the other side. 

 You say that the trick I mentioned about 

 our horses sounds as if I had seed to sell 

 yet. Yes, I have seed to sell, even at the 

 present time. We sell all kinds of clover 

 seed because the clovers are all honey- 

 plants, and valuable ones, and we think we 

 are doing good by ftnniishing sweet clover, 

 because we believe it is a valuable plant, 

 not only for horses and cattle, notwithstand- 

 ing the above letters, but because it will 

 bring up poor soil in localities where the 

 land is so poor (or so full of alkali) that no 

 other known plant will grow. I am trying 

 be to honest with God and man ; and if I had 

 the time I still think I could teach vour 

 horses and cattle to eat sweet clover. Now 

 please read the two following letters on the 

 other side of the question: 



Ml-. Root:— I noticed your comment on that sweet- 

 clover letter in Gleanings for .Sept. 15. and give you 

 my experience with sweet clover. 



There is a large irrigating-canal running through 

 m\- ranch, and for several years both b inks of it have 

 been a thicket of sweet clover all summer, a-; the canal 

 runs through cultivated fit- Ids. and no stock could get 

 at it while green. The clover finally became so thick 

 that it obstructed the water, and some of the ranch 

 men cut it with scythes on their places. I had heard 

 of sweet clover being good stock feed, and decided to 

 experiment, as I have nearly half a mile of that canal 

 on my place. I put a wire fence along each side of the 

 ditch, about 20 ft from the water, thus fencing in the 

 ditch its full length on my land, and left an opening 

 into the feed-corral, where I had two rows and from 

 two to three horses most of the time. The next morn- 

 ing after finishing th*- fence the two cows st^rted in 

 on that sweet clover, although the mangers were full 

 of good alfalfa hay, and the cows in fine condition. 

 The horses went at it that afternoon. The mangers 

 were kept full all the time, and the stock always had 

 access to them ; but you ought to see those ditch banks 

 now. They are as clean as if a mower had been used 

 on them. The cows and horses are fat. and I was 

 saved a job of running a scythe or arnisttong mower. 

 I have 50 stands of bees, but the clover hnd to go. 



P. WlLKAISKY. 



Farmington, N. M., Oct. 5, 1901. 



Mr. Root :^. see that C. H. Zurburg has sweet clover 

 that horses will not eat. My experience is different. 

 Last fall I sowed some five acres in timothy. Tlie 

 winter was hard, and, supposing I would have a light 

 catch in February, I sowed sweet clover, got a fair 

 stand, and more than half a stand of timothy. When 

 the timothy seed was ripe and had begun to fall, the 

 sweet clover was from 18 in. to 2 ft. high. I turned in 

 three horses which had never learned to eat .sweet 

 clover. After a few days I noticed they were eating the 

 clover and leaving the other grasses, of which the. e 

 was an abundance, not only timothy but bluegr.'ss 

 and Bermuda grass ; but they ate nothing but the clo- 

 ver until they got the last bit of it, and, owing to the 

 extreme drouth, I fear the sweet clover will be all 

 killed. My buggy horse ate sweet-clover hay greedily 

 the first time he ever saw any. 



