Feb. 15, 1912 



poultry business this objection does not ap- 

 ply, for chickens require perhaps the least 

 attention when bees require the ino'st. 



He is an extensive bee-keeper indeed, in 

 the Northern States at least, who can keep 

 his time profitably spent during the winter. 

 It is true that some bottle and sell their 

 crop through the winter months, but so 

 few producers have the time to make a spe- 

 cialty of selling that we do not find more 

 than perhaps one bee-keeper in a hundred 

 who utilize their winters in this way. A 

 certain amount of work is required, it is 

 true, in preparing supers, repairing, and, in 

 short, getting ready for the next season; 

 but this should not take all of the time by 

 any means. 



A poultry-man, along in January, is usu- 

 ally very busy starting incubators, getting 

 brooders ready, etc. Later in the season, as 

 the chickens become older, it is possible to 

 have more and more of the work done by 

 an assistant, so that the bees may receive 

 their share of attention. Thus the two lines 

 do not interfere with each other — a fact 

 which is i)roven by the constantly increas- 

 ing number of producers of "honey and 

 eggs." 



WHY THE CLOVERS DO NOT YIELD HONEY AS 

 THEY I 'ID IN YE OLDEN TIMES", CLOVER- 

 SICK SOIL ; LIME THE SOLUTION. 



In our last issue, under the general head- 

 ing of statistics relating to bee-keeping in 

 the United States, we said we would have 

 something further to say on the subject of 

 cl ivers, and why they do not yield honey as 

 formerly. We have heard a great deal con- 

 cerning clover-sick soils ; of land that will 

 not grow red clover, but will grow alsike. 



Many farmers who do not read the up-to- 

 date farm papers have allowed their farms 

 (as well as themselves) to become poorer and 

 l)oorer until they have had to sell at a fear- 

 ful sacrifice. For some reason, they do not 

 know why, their farms have all "rundown." 

 Farms that used to yield their fathers and 

 grandfathers big crops of clover, now yield 

 sparingly. Something is wrong. "The 

 land is clover-sick— no good; might as well 

 sell out and get a job in town." 



Later on, some up-to-date young farmer 

 who has been to an agricultural school, or 

 who thinks it pays to read progressive farm 

 papers, comes along and buys one of these 

 old farms that, through lack of knowledge, 

 lias all run down. Mark the change. In 

 two or three years this "book farmer" 

 (whom his neighbors ridiculed, perhaps) 

 makes it as productive as when the country 

 was new, or perhajjs, in some cases, even 

 more productive. How does this all come 

 about? First of all, he begins to study 

 the soil. He discover.^ ii has been robbed, 

 year in and yiar out, of some of the essen- 

 tial elements ihat make i)lant life grow. 

 While stable manure has been ajiplied, it 

 does not supply every thing needed. In 

 many cases these young farmers have found 

 that the continued cropping of clover, year 

 in and year out, has robbed the land of" the 



lime naturally in the soil until it has be- 

 come too acid to grow clover as it should. 

 In other cases, some other elements had 

 been taken out. 



It is getting to be the practice now among 

 up-to-date farmers to send a sample of soil 

 to the nearest experiment station in order 

 to have it analyzed. In many cases the re- 

 port shows a deficiency of lime; and when 

 a farmer can not grow clover on his land in 

 rotation with other crops he is in a bad 

 way. Land that will grow alsike better 

 than red clover shows a deficiency of lime ; 

 for alsike will grow on a more acid soil than 

 red clover. The deflciency of lime in many 

 soils has enormously increased the growing 

 of alsike ; and this has been of no small 

 benefit to the bee-keepers. In some ways 

 it may be better to let the farmer be in ig- 

 norance of the cause; but at this rate the 

 soil will become too acid for even alsike. 



Nearly all of Northeastern Ohio and the 

 major part of Pennsylvania show a deficien- 

 cy in lime. The same deficiency has been 

 found in other States; Massachusetts, for ex- 

 ample, doesn't yield any clover honey to 

 speak of. The progressive farmers find they 

 are able to remedy this condition by put- 

 ting in lime; and when we can grow clover 

 as we did in the days of our granddads, we 

 shall have clover honey as they did. Un- 

 intelligent farming on the part of the don't- 

 read-impers tillers of the soil has ruined 

 many farms in the country. Their owners 

 are badly in debt, and complaining of hard 

 times. If there ever was a time when a 

 farmer ought to be prosperous, it is right 

 now; and any farmer who does not read a 

 good farm paper is losing the great oppor- 

 tunity of his life to pay off those old debts 

 and put aside a comfortable sum to take 

 care of old age. 



This sounds a good deal like an editorial 

 for farmer^; but the facts are, it is written 

 for the farmer bee-keepers — not because 

 they need the information, but because 

 they need to get after their neighbors who 

 are not reading papers. By so doing they 

 can very greatly increase their clover pas- 

 turage, and clover pasturage means honey. 

 In the mean time, we invite every bee-keep- 

 er, or any one else who reads these pages, to 

 send to his nearest experiment station for 

 bulletins on clover-growing and liming the 

 soil. While it is not contended that lime is 

 the only thing lacking (because clover will 

 generally continue to grow some in spite of 

 acid soil), it is contended that lime, where 

 the soil is acid, will make it vastly more 

 friendly to the clovers. 



The editor had the pleasure of listening 

 to Alva Agee at College Station, Pa., at a 

 farmers' institute recently; and if there is a 

 man in the United States who seems to un- 

 derstand this problem of making clover 

 grow, through the use of lime, Mr. Agee is 

 the man. .Joseph AVing is another great 

 authority. In later issues we hope to pre- 

 sent something more from these men, par- 

 ticularly on how to lime the soil and what 

 kind of lime to use. 



