428 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



ious to get back to my Bradentown home in 

 the fall so that I can remodel my five acres 

 down there, in the way I have outlined 

 above, for my Runner ducks and Leghorn- 

 Buttercup laying hens. I have submitted 

 the whole plan to you thus early in the sea- 

 son so that you may be thinking it over. 

 What is the use of wearing out your slioes 



and yourself likewise, in traveling miles 

 in caring for your chickens, when the laying 

 hens will gladly do the traveling for you? 

 The hens are "young and sjary" — especially 

 the ones that lay the eggs. If they are not 

 young and spry it is because you are at 

 fault. Shall we not let them do the labo- 

 rious running? 



CdDODflop^^I 



miME (B^I^HraOK!]® 



ANOTHER GREAT BIG "DISCOVERY;" THE USE 



OF LIME FOR GETTING A STAND OF 



SWEET CLOVER. 



The convergent poultry-yard, described 

 elsewhere in this issue, I hope is destined 

 to produce a "revolution" in egg-farms — at 

 least friend Stoddard and I think it may. 

 But we are old men, and both of us some- 

 what given to riding hobbies. But you just 

 wait and see. Well, now, here is another 

 thing that seems likely to "revolutionise" 

 the great science of agriculture. It is not 

 my invention, however, for it comes from 

 our Ohio Experiment Station. Some years 

 ago Dr. C. C. Miller said if anybody could 

 tell him how to get a solid growth of sweet 

 clover in the fields, like that growing by 

 the roadside, he would be glad to know it. 

 That might have been twenty years ago. 

 Well, our Ohio Experiment Station has 

 been working for about twenty years, and 

 has only in this present year of 1912 got- 

 ten at the truth. For their experiments, 

 sometliing like twenty years ago they pur- 

 chased a farm in Northern Ohio — the jioor- 

 est worn-out farm to be found, perhai s, in 

 all of Oliio. Last Saturday, June 15, they 

 had a field meeting in order to demonstrate 

 what lime will do on poor clay soil, and later 

 I paid a visit to the Station ground at 

 Wooster. Not only sweet clover but alsike, 

 alfalfa, timothy, and red clovers were 

 tested in strips, and all these strips ran 

 across a field where one half was heavily 

 limed, and the other half had no lime. A 

 great variety of commercial fertilizers were 

 also tested across the limed and unlimed 

 land. The result was not only wonderful, 

 but really astounding. We saw beds of 

 sweet clover, both white and yellow, as high 

 as one's head, the latter in full bloom; 

 but when this strip ran on to the unlimed 

 portion of the field the result was almost 

 nothing but plantains, wild grasses, and 

 weeds. The results were practically the 

 same at the sub-station mentioned, as in 

 Wooster. The heavy applications of fer- 

 tilizer amounted to little or notloing with- 

 out the lime. When we came to a strip, 

 however, where 15 loads of barn manure 

 to the acre were applied, there was a par- 



tial stand of the clovers and timothy. The 

 barnyard manure was almost the only thing 

 that compensated for the lack of lime. 

 Some of you know the A. I. Root Co. have 

 been selling sweet-clover seed for twenty 

 years or more; and when the seed that 

 grew nicely here around my Medina home 

 did not do any thing to am.ount to much 

 elsewhere we have a good many times paid 

 the money back or furnished more seed at 

 a reduced price. Now the truth has just 

 come up. Where the seed was sown on 

 limestone soil it produced a crop. Where 

 fields have been farmed until the lime was 

 used up, sweet clover balked. Once more, 

 wherever stone roads have been constructed 

 through Ohio, and almost everywhere else, 

 especially if said roads were made of 

 crushed limestone, sweet clover came up 

 rank, thrifty, and luxuriant along both 

 sides of the road. I think you will find it 

 everywhere if you have your eyes open. 

 Well, this crushed limestone mixed with 

 soil by the agency of the iron wagon-tires, 

 in-oduces just tlie combination that the 

 clover wans. And these same wagon- 

 wheels distribute the seed for miles- along 

 the edges of the road. Another thing, soil 

 thrown up by ditches along the railway, or 

 thrown out bj^ the railway companies, con- 

 tains more or less Ume that has not been 

 used up by exhaustive farming, and there- 

 fore the sweet clover grows. 



A am sorry to note that the sweet-clover 

 bulletin from the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, that I have recently quoted from at 

 considerable length, contains scarcely any 

 mention of the fact that sweet clover must 

 have lime. It can not endure acid or sour 

 soils. Within 24 hours after I witnessed 

 these wonderful results I had five kinds of 

 sweet clover planted, each kind running 

 across a bed in the greenhouse, half limed 

 and half unlimed. 



In regard to the quantity of lime needed, 

 one of the tests at the Wooster station con- 

 tained six tons of ground limestone to the 

 acre. Another had 15 tons. There was not 

 very much difference in the results. My 

 impression is that a single ton will furnish 

 all that is needed. See Special Notices. 



