1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



837 



While my friend was driving me around the 

 colony there was a demonstration that the la- 

 dies here are of the energetic order. A young 

 blacksmith had fallen in love with one of the 

 fair maidens, and had induced her to leave the 

 parental roof. The mother was indignant, as 

 she had a right to be, and proceeded to the 

 shop, with a whip, and gave the young man a 

 sound thrashing. The irate woman supple- 

 mented her exercise by attending a revival 

 service which was in progress in the church, 

 and taking part in the proceedings. 



When I stopped with my friend I had an 

 idea of staying but one day; but two passed 

 before I could get away. The memory of 

 meeting an old friend, and the finding of an- 

 other bee-keeper's paradise, will linger long 

 in the chambers of the memory. 



ABOUT CLOVERS. 



Crimson Clover, Alsike Clover, Sweet Clover, Etc. 



BY THADDEUS SMITH. 



I have been familiar with growing red 

 clover from my youlh up. I have raised 

 alsike clover a 'lumber of jears, and found it 

 quite satisfactory, making a better hay, in my 

 opinion, than red clover, though not so much 

 per acre, and probably not of as great benefit 

 to the land. In sowing clover for hay now I 

 would always mix alsike with it. I have had 

 four years' experience in sowing crimson- 

 clover seed, and, as with hundreds of others, 

 it has been very unsatisfactory. The first 

 year's sowing was a failure to get a stand. 

 The second year was like the first. I sowed 

 at different times and under different circum- 

 stances, and yet in these two years I did not 

 see a dozen matured clover-plants. The third 

 year I got a partial stand — very scattering on 

 most of the ground. It was well protected 

 by snow in the winter, and came through all 

 right. When in bloom it was a very pretty 

 sight where thickest. I plowed some of it 

 xmder, saved some seed from the best, and let 

 the other go. The fourth sowing was made 

 last July in several difi"erent places, and as the 

 weather was very favorable I got a good stand. 

 It came through last winter fairly well, some 

 of it being killed where the snow was blown 

 off, and some where the ground was wet; but 

 none of it made any extra good growth. 



The puffs given crimson clover in the last 

 few years by newspapers and newspaper cor- 

 respondents of some of the Eastern States who 

 were raising crimson-clover seed for sale have 

 induced the farmers of the country to spend 

 thousands of dollars for seed that has never 

 brought them one dollar in return. I have a 

 friend in Kentucky — a large farmer in the 

 blue-grass region of that State — who sowed 50 

 acres at one time in his cornfields, and it was 

 a complete failure. A friend on a neighbor- 

 ing island — one of the most progressive and 

 successful fruit-growers in Ohio — was led to 

 expect great things to result from sowing 

 crimson clover in his orchards and vineyards. 

 He bought seed, and sowed for two or three 

 years ; but, failing every time, he gdve it up 



in disgust. Hundreds of others have had the 

 same experience. I have been more persever- 

 ing than many others, but it has been nothing 

 but an outlay. 



A. I. Root succeeds well with crimson 

 clover on his rich, highly manured, thorough- 

 ly underdraiued land, when it is sufficiently 

 covered with snow the coldest weather to 

 keep it from being killed ; and others who 

 have been succesful tell us about enriching 

 the land with fertilizers before sowing; and I 

 think that these facts give the key to the 

 principal cause of so many failures. Crimson 

 clover will not succeed on thin or moderately 

 poor land. We usually sow clover to improve 

 land — to restore its fertility. I have never 

 worked land that ever got too poor to raise a 

 fair crop of red clover, and that could not be 

 recuperated and brought back to fertility by 

 sowing red clover and a proper rotation of 

 crops, without manuring or using other fer- 

 tilizers. I now have land that produces bet- 

 ter crops than it did forty years ago, that has 

 never been manured. 



So far as I can see or learn, crimson clover 

 has no advantage over red or alsike clover as 

 a general farm crop. It is more difficult to 

 get a stand of it. It is more liable to be killed 

 in winter. It does not m.ake as good hay. 

 It is admitted that the hay has proven to be 

 injurious to horses — sometimes kills them. 

 It is no better as a nitrogen-collector or fer- 

 tilizer. Its main value is as a kind of catch 

 crop, to be sown after the removal of some 

 early crop, on the rich land of the intensive 

 cultivator or gardener, and plowed under the 

 next spring to give more humus and nitrogen 

 to the soil. But may not red clover be plowed 

 under with as good effect ? Who has tried 

 sowing red clover in July or August as a 

 catch crop? I sowed some last June, and it is 

 doing well. I know that it does not mature 

 or bloom as early as the crimson; but it may 

 make as much humus and nitrogen. Last 

 spring I had some crimson growing alongside 

 of a piece of red clover, and the crimson was 

 in bloom some ten days before the red, but at 

 the same time the red was from three to four 

 inches the taller, and it would have made a 

 much larger mass of tops and roots to plow 

 under at the time the crimson came into 

 bloom. The seed-sellers have been the only 

 ones who have made the growing of crimson 

 clover very profitable. 



Lately I have been watching and experi- 

 menting with sweet clover. It is found grow- 

 ing here along the lake shore in the rocks and 

 gravel, as well as upon good soil on the road- 

 sides; and when I read A. I. Root's statement 

 that, in all his travels through the country, 

 he had never seen where sweet clover had 

 spread from the roadsides into adjoining 

 fields and pastures, I was very much sur- 

 prised; for on a road along the lake shore, 

 only three miles from my house, I had often 

 seen where this clover had extended some 

 distance into a pasture. After reading A. I. 

 R.'s statement I made a special visit to this 

 neighbor to investigate. I found a pasture 

 covered with it for a distance of 100 yards 

 from the road, and it was nearly as tall as my 



