THE AMEKICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



113 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



WASHINGTON, DECEMBER, 1866. 



tM" The American Bee Journal is now pub- 

 lished mouthly, in the City of Washington, (D. 

 C.,) and all communications should be address- 

 ed to the Editor, at that place. 



Alsike Clover. 



We claim credit for having first brought to 

 notice, in this country, the Italian bee and the 

 Swedish, or Alsike Clover, and urged the in- 

 troduction of each as likely to prove a valuable 

 acquisition. The superiority of the Italian bee 

 is now universally conceded, and it is already 

 very generally diffused in every section of the 

 country. We have no doubt the Swedish 

 clover, when once properly tested, will likewise 

 rapidly win its way to public favor. Of course, 

 we do not mean that just anything sold or 

 fiOAvn under that name will commend itself to 

 the observant farmer, anymore than everything 

 sold under the name of an Italian bee is sure to 

 be more valuable than the common kind. Be 

 certain you have the genuine alsike clover seed, 

 and you may confidently look for satisfactory 

 results from the cultivation of it, provided the 

 soil you till is suited to the plant. Whether it 

 is equally satisfied with every kind of soil, or 

 on what kind it will best thrive, is not yet 

 ascertained here, but this we know, from our 

 own experience, that on limed slate land, where 

 the abundance of small stones still remaining 

 on the surface, prevents close mowing, an acre 

 of growing alsike is worth more for hay than 

 three acres of red clover on similar ground, and 

 is greatly superior to it in quality as feed for 

 cows. Objection has been made to this clover 

 ns not producing a second crop the same season. 

 But why should it, when its first crop is worth 

 more twice over, for hay and seed, than both 

 crops together of the red clover ? The seed is 

 obtained from the first crop; and the haulm, 

 after the threshing, will be preferred by cows 

 to any red clover hay we ever saw, and the 

 milk-pail will show that it does them somewhat 

 more good. C'ceteris paribus, we should suppose 

 the cows and the dairy-maid to be rather the 

 better judges of quality. The hay and the seed 

 are obtained at one mowing; and the latter can 

 be threshed out by the farmer on his own barn- 

 floor. No bawling rowan miles to a mill, and 

 then bawling the seed "bock agin" after being 

 cleaned and tolled, besides leaving the offal to 

 augment the miller's manure heap! Then, the 



fall pasturage furnished by the alsike till the 

 middle of November, in the Middle Shites, is 

 far beyond anything in that line to be got from 

 red clover. Moreover, a clover is wanted that 

 will ripen concurrently with timothy, and the 

 cutting of which need not be hurriedly forced; 

 which will not become slimy and semi-putres- 

 cent for six inches above the root, if allowed to 

 get a little over-ripe before mowing; which will 

 retain its leaves before and after it is put in the 

 mow, without any extra-scientific process of 

 curing; and which, above all, will not be 

 thrown out, root and branch, by frost in an open 

 winter. Such a clover is wanted by the farmer 

 for his ordinary purposes; and the bee-keeper 

 wants the farmer to have just such a clover as, 

 besides possessing all these good properties, 

 shall furnish to the bees a pasturage as abundant 

 in quantity, as choice in quality, and as pro- 

 tracted in duration, as that which the neglected 

 common white clover yields where (sorry it 

 should be so stigmatized) slovenly farming per- 

 mits it to '• come in." Such a clover, we are 

 persuaded, the alsike will be found to be, not, 

 perhaps, on all soils, but on a sufficient variety 

 of them to make it generally available in a 

 country so extensive and diversified as ours. 



The following account of the experience of 

 the Shaker family, near Albany, New York, in 

 the cultivation of this species of clover, was 

 furnished to the " Country Gentleman,''^ by 

 jMi\ Chauncey Miller, a member of that familj-, 

 aad will particularly interest bee-keepers : 



"We find the Alsike Clover a very superior 

 grass in the following points : 



1. For its value as a hay crop, on a great 

 variety of soils, being of a growth, in height, 

 varying according to quality of soil, from ten 

 inches to two-and-a-half feet, and yielding from 

 one-and-a-half to three tons per acre, according 

 to soil ; thus comparing with our best red 

 clovers, though, of course, not so high as the 

 great Western pea vine clover, but, with us, 

 one-third higher than the small Southern red 

 clover. 



2. For fineness of stalk or haulm. 



2. For its multitude of sweet flowers, bloom- 

 ing, perhaps, three r four times as much as 

 red clover, making, when in bloom, literally a 

 "sea of flowers." 



4. Its adaptation to heavy soils, clays, or 

 heavy clay loams, as well as sandy soils, not 

 being so liable to heave out by frosts in winter 

 and spring as red (Xlover, on account of the root 

 being more fibrous, jf^artaking somewhat of the 

 character of the whitic clover, (trii'olium repens, ) 

 being the product of a cross between the red 

 and white clovers, originated in Germany.* 



*Tlu8, we tliinl;, is a mistake, originating probably in tLe 

 botanical misnomer, trifolium liybridum, wliich the buper- 

 scientific folks have applied to it. The agricultural papers of 

 Germany call it a distinct species, and it is now regarded to 

 be saph, as fally as the red clover or tho vrhite. — [ED. B. J. 



