252 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



anyhow — at least I suppose not ; and with 

 our stock of thriftj' young- plants we can 

 give the plant a good test and decide 

 whether we want the seed another year or 

 not. 



GINSENG GROWING. 



We grew a small bed of ginseng through 1901, and 

 are so well satisfied there is money in it that last fall 

 we bought 50 pounds of green wild root, dug in this 

 vicinitj, for |i90, about 4000 roo's in all, of all sizes 

 from seedlings to 4-oz. roots. Thej' are s t in three 

 oX200-foot beds, .SXlO inches, and will be shaded by 

 lath screens on 8 foot pos s. Beds are on sandy land, 

 we 1 lertilized, originally in hardwood timber. We 

 have nothing for sale, as we expect to invest as much 

 more next fall in order to get stock for growing enough 

 sted for our own planting. 



Mr. Palmer, of Wisconsin, mentioned on page 29, 

 must be satisfied to wait a long time — as he says, 

 "Twelve or fifteen years." Bulletin No. 78, 1898, page 

 141. Kentucky Slate Ag Expeiment Station, says 

 roots nve years old (grown in rich beds, I suppose), 

 average 2^ oz The above is a good pamphlet. 



East Cous.able, N. Y., Jan. 7. H P. I,angdon. 



should be, any kind of stock will eat it, and not re- 

 quire to be starved to it either. Sweet clover is a great 

 fertilizer— no question about it. We have plenty of it 

 here, and I know what I am talking about 

 I^iberty Center, O , Dec. 29. S. A. Palmer. 



SWEET CLOVER AS A FODDER PLANT. 



Reading the reports on sweet clover I have been 

 greatly amused at the very opposite and extreme opin- 

 ions which your different obseivers express Is it not 

 funny huvv ditfereiuly different persons will see the 

 same thing? I have been noticing this sweet clover 

 for many ytars, and I'll tell you what I saw. Hcie in 

 Northwestern Illinois it is certainly not a bad weed. 

 Jt never spreads into cultivated fields. Two careful 

 inowings a season, for two successive years, will clean 

 it out easily. For pasture it is worth nothing (..altle 

 will nibble at it, t specially when it i-- young enough, 

 so as to txlerminatc it in short order, but won't graze 

 on it as tney will on blue grass, timothy, or the real 

 clover. The}' will pick at it as they will at ragweed, 

 dog fennel, buraock, and such todder plants. So tar 

 as bees are concerned 1 can't say much. On a few oc- 

 casions I have seen it sweiruiiug with them while 

 again 1 have passed it many times a uay fur weeks in 

 succession, and have seen only a few scattered bees 

 working at it, and that at a time when flowers were 

 very scarce. The honey from it is not liked at all 

 here. U m. S Fehr. 



L-akota, 111., Jan. 8. 



SWEET CLOVER FOR COWS AND HORSES IN KANSAS. 



I'riend Root : — It surely is strange why some write 

 that cows and horses will not eat sweet cl ver. and 

 others that they will. Are there not two kinds.' lean 

 not understand why it should be thought such a diffi- 

 cult task lo kill it. as it grows at our home in Kansas. 

 The second year it dies just like a cornsialk ; and in 

 order to gel it off the ground it is only necessary to 

 keep it fr^m seeding and .scattering the seed. I have 

 no seed to sell, al hough we have had pie ty go to 

 waste. We have gathered only what we wished to 

 sow Our stock eat it green. We nave never cut any 

 for them although I ihmk they prefer timothy and 

 cluver U hen we consider that different siages in the 

 growth of any plant change it, we should be careful 

 about hasty conclusions. J. T. 'VanII'etten. 



Pacific Grove, Cal., Jan. 20. 



SWEET CLOVER — WILL STOCK EAT IT? 



On page bOl friend Zurbnrg gives his experience with 

 s A eet clover. My .-teck eat it because they like it. In 

 fact, it huS been a great boon to me this d y season. 

 While my neighbors' stock were eating dry blue gra-s, 

 my own were enjoying themselves eaung s ^ eet clover. 

 To get best results for pasture, mow it off about six 

 inciie- high, just as it comraeuces to bloom. It will 

 then send out new shoots, and bloom uuiil severe fiost 

 com. s. Sweet clover yielded honey abundantly dur- 

 ing the severest part of the drouth. 



Fancy Prairie, 111., Dec. 14. P. J. England. 



SWEET CLOVER FOR COWS, HORSES, PIGS, CHICKENS, 

 KTC. 



I find here that all kinds of stock will eat sweet 

 clover. Cattle horses, hogs, and chickens eat it. 11 

 comes up early in the spring, the first giass that grows, 

 and the chickens pick it off and keep it close to the 

 ground till quite late. I,ast summer I hid some hogs 

 shut in a pen. I cut the clover when it was from a foot 

 to 18 inches high, and they ate it all up. l,ast fall we 

 let them run out, and they ate the young clover, and 

 dug afler the roots along the road, some p aces a foot 

 deep I did not have to teach them to eat it but I had 

 to shut them up becau e they wer going too deep int' > 

 thr ground afier it. I had a piece sown to sweet clo- 

 ver along my pasture fence, on a piece of waste ground 

 between my neighbor and me. The cattle would 

 reach through Ih fence, and they reached so far they 

 would break the wire, and sometimes break the po.sts 

 My neighbor came one day and found them through 

 the fence. He said, "Those catlle are reac ing for 

 that sweet clover. I am surpri^ed to see them eat il. 

 I did not .suppose tliat a y thing woild eat it." He 

 asked me if he could have some ol the seed. I t Id 

 him he could : and when he cut his grain he turned in 

 with the binder an. 1 lutaswath and b..und it. i he 

 cattle " ere not reaching lhrou«h the fenc because 

 they had no feed, fo-- the pasture was good inside. 

 Those who can't get stock to eat clover should turn 

 them out early in the spring, and they will eat it all 

 right. 



Our bees did well last summer. We got 1000 lbs. of 

 honey from 11 colonies, spring c. ■unt, and increased to 

 20 colonies Th y are in winter quarters, and seem to 

 be do ng all light R. Chinn. 



Wakefield, Neb., Jan. 28. 



MORE ABOUT SWEET CLOVER. 



Tell Mr. J. A. Johnson, of Greenhill, lud., that my 

 Ohio cows wi 1 eat sweet clover along the roadside, so 

 there isn t any need to mow it to keep it down ; and 

 tell him if cut when 'Zy^ feet high, and cured as other 

 hay, then salted when put into tne mow, as any hay 



THE NEW RUSSET (SCAB- PROOF) POTATO. 



I planted them the 10th of May on ground where I 

 raised the Freeman variety last year that were so scab- 

 by they were no' raarket-ible at all. They came up 

 well, and yielded me 12 bushels of very nice potatoes, 

 clean and smooth, I have not found a rough or scabby 

 potato in the entire lot. The volunteer Freeinans that 

 came up among them are so so bby they are fit only 

 for stock feed. The tubers aie .some wh .t poim. d at 

 the outer end, but not enough to injure the potato. 

 I distributed about two bushels of them among my 

 customers, to learn .something about them as a table 

 potato, and iieard only the most satisfactory reports 

 of them. They are reported lo be the m st solid and 

 white-t potato grown. The .samples created quite a 

 demand for them to the exclusion of other varieties 

 I shall give them a more extended trial next year. 

 Owing to the long hot dry summer and fall n South- 

 ern Illinois, our Iiish potatoes arenearlyall raised un- 

 der wheat straw, which is spread over them when 

 they are beginning to come through the ground. 

 This makes a very smooth and prettj tuber. 



Marissa, 111., Nov. 2.5. Wm. I,ittle. 



Thanks for your report, friend L. ; but I 

 am sorry to say we had some russet pota- 

 toes last year on some ground very badly 

 infested with scab that were either scabby 

 or affected with something that looks very 

 much like it. 



THE SOY OR SOJA BEAN. 



In 1900 I ordered soy bean seed from you. It grew 

 very tall, and mad*" the best protein hay we ever rais- 

 ed. I sowed it the 4th of June, and cut it about Sept. 

 15 for hay. This period covered 103 days. We let an 

 acre stand for seed till Oct 10, when frost stopped the 

 plants maturing perfect seed. This was 12s days. 

 Now, wi at I wish to ask you is this : Do you kno a^ an 

 earlier variety of this valuable plant? Is there a va- 

 riety that will mature seed in luOdays? I i.otice in 

 reading the F'armers' Bulletin, issued by Department 

 of Agriculture, Washington, that several varieties are 

 spoken of. It speaks of one variety maturing seed in 

 Ma.ssachusetts. I am looking for a variety that will 

 mature seed in this latitude— northern part of Holm s 

 Co. — from the time it is safe to plant in the spring. 

 The kind you sent me in U)00 mu.st have been a late 



