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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 1 



for information long ago. Now I am able 

 to give you something reliable and definite 

 in regard to both sweet clover and alfalfa, 

 from my good friend Professor Rolfs. 



University of Florida, ) 



Agricultural Experiment Station, /■ 



Gainesville, Sept. 9, 1910. ) 



Mr. A. I. Root:— Sweet clover grows almost spon- 

 taneously all along the rocky portion of the east 

 coast of Florida; also to some extent in the interior; 

 but for the most part the interior is not supplied 

 with a sufficient amount of lime to make the best 

 growth of sweet clover. It will do pretty well if the 

 soil does not get too dry, and is at the same time 

 well supplied with carbonate of lime. There are 

 quite a number of other legumes belonging to the 

 clover class that do well under some conditions. 



Alfalfa has been tried a great many thousand 

 times In this State. The general experience is the' 

 same as that you had. It will grow well until the 

 summer rains come on, then it can not compete 

 with the weeds and native grasses. If we have a 

 rainy summer it is very likely to be drowned out, 

 or at least so badly injured that all sorts of root- 

 inhabiting fungi attack and destroy it. We inclose 

 you a copy of our press bulletin on alfalfa. The 

 conditions are about the same at the present time 

 as they were when the bulletin was written. I 

 have a patch of some fifteen or twenty varieties of 

 alfalfa that were planted out two years ago. While 

 the plants live and produce considerable forage, the 

 amount that they give us does not compare with 

 what cow-peas, beggarweed, or velvet beans give us. 



Please accept my thanks for your book on sweet 

 clover. P. H. Rolfs, Director. 



Here is the extract referred to: 



Press Bulletin No. 66, SejJt. 30, 1907. 



FLORIDA agricultural EXPERIMENT STATION. 

 (Alfalfa.) 



BY P. H ROLFS. 



The fact that Florida needs a winter forage-plant 

 is so well known to every one who has attempted to 

 keep live stock here that no arguments in this line 

 need be produced. We have an abundance of sum- 

 mer and fall forage, which stock may secure either 

 by grazing or by having it fed to them. The one 

 thing we lack, however, is a green forage or pasture 

 crop for the winter. Rye and oats have been used 

 for many years, but are expensive and more or less 

 uncertain. 



KIND OF land TO USE. 



Alfa, fa should be planted on land that is rated at 

 least as first-class farming land. The field should 

 be prepared as thoroughly as would be the case for 

 either grain or corn. The land should have perfect 

 drainage, but should not be of a loose sandy char- 

 acter. Alfalfa planted on sandy land underlaid 

 with clay has been most nearly successful. 



Stilt an E.rperiment.—llwndreAi of attempts have 

 been made to secure a good st.and of alfalfa, and to 

 make the field productive. In a number of cases 

 the experiment has been so nearly successful that 

 people have declared that they had reached the 

 successful point. Up to the present, however, no ' 

 field of alfalfa has succeei'ed in growing through 

 the second winter and producing a crop of hay dur- 

 ing the ensuing year. Numerous plots have been 

 sown, and have produced an abundant crop of fine 

 alfalfa hay; but these plots failed completely, either 

 during the late fall or early winter; so that we can 

 say that the experiment has reached the point 

 where it has been almost successful, but yet not 

 quite. Good fields cf alfalfa have been produced 

 near Dade City. Leesburg, Monticello, and DeFuni- 

 ak. Probably the most nearly successful field was 

 that grown by Mr. C. K. McQuarrie at DeFuniak. 

 From this field Mr. McQuarrie secured alfalfa hay 

 at the rate of several tons to the acre. 



SOWING ALFALFA. 



Mr. Coburn, in his book on alfalfa, states that 

 quantities all the way from six to sixty pounds per 

 acre are recommended. He calculates that, if fif- 

 teen pounds be used, and all the seed germinate, it 

 would give us forty-tour plants to the square foot. 

 This, of course, would be altogether too many plants. 

 As we would not expect every seed to make a 

 plant, it will probably be best to sow the seed fairly 

 thickly. 



Hoii' to Sou: — The most usual way of sowing alfal- 

 fa is to sow it broadcast. For experimental work 

 It would probably be better to sow It in drills, espe- 



cially if one were sowing only a fraction of an acre. 

 With drills it is a great deal easier to keep down 

 weeds that might come up to choke out the seed- 

 lings. Ordinarily there is very little trouble from 

 this source, however, and it will be found that 

 broadcast sowing does fairly well. 



Time to Sow.— The best time to sow alfalfa In Flor- 

 ida is during the fall of the year. Just what time 

 In the fall will depend upon climatic conditions. If 

 the soil is moist, and the heavy rains have ceased 

 to fall, any time during October and the early part 

 of November will be proper. This will give the 

 plants sufficient time to ma- e a considerable root 

 growth before the winter arrives. During the win- 

 ter the young plants will make only a small top 

 growth, but the roots will penetrate more deeply 

 Into the soil and produce a good system before 

 spring. When the early spring rains begin It will 

 be necessary to remove any large weeds or grass 

 coming up in the field, either by mowing them off 

 or by having them hoed out. 



Under favorable conditions two or three tons of 

 hay may be made from an acre. This hay, when 

 well cured, is worth at least 120.00 a ton. Consider- 

 ing the value of alfalfa hay, it will pay to sow fresh 

 seed every year, even if the plants should all die 

 out the second fall, as has been the case. 



REPORTS OF SUCCESS. 



Repeated reports of complete success with alfalfa 

 have been seen in the various papers of the State. 

 Officers of the experiment station have made it a 

 point to investigate all of these carefully. In some 

 cases it was found that these reports were circulat- 

 ed before the alfalfa-field was one year old. Success 

 up to this point is no unusual occurrence. 



Other reports of success have been Investigated, 

 and were found to be based on erroneous identifi- 

 cation. Frequently people have mistaken sweet 

 clover (MeWotus) for alfalfa. This crop, of course, 

 can be grown, and the plant occurs in many por- 

 tions of the State as a weed. It is, however, very 

 much inferior to alfalfa as a forage-plant and also 

 as a soil-renovator. 



SOIL INOCULATIONS. 



For a time It was thought that inoculating the 

 soil with the nitrogen-fixing organisms would over- 

 come the difficulty of alfalfa failures. A great many 

 experiments have been made with the commercial 

 cultures, with cultures from the Department of 

 Agriculture, and with soil taken from alfalfa-fields. 

 Most of the experiments with cultures have proven 

 complete failures; and where they have been suc- 

 cessful they have given results inferior to those ob- 

 tained by the use of soil from alfalfa-fields. 



A KIND WORD FROM ONE WHO HAS READ GLEAN- 

 INGS FOR NEALY 40 YEARS. 



Dear old Friend Boot: — We have never met, but I 

 have been intimate with your true self for years; 

 for as a man thinketh, so is he; and if you don't say 

 what you think, I know of no one who does. 



I write for a double purpose — first, to thank you 

 for the constant stream of wisdom and goodness 

 that has flowed from your heart through your pen 

 ever since I first read the pamphlet Gleanings 

 down in Mississippi, somewhere in the late '70's. 

 So here is a hope that you may continue to sow the 

 good seed for many coming years. 



SULPHUR FOR CHICKENS, ETC. 



Second, I wish to furnish the information you 

 seek about the power of sulphur, when taken inter- 

 nally, to permeate the tissues of the body. It can, 

 and will and does. Every doctor of experience will 

 agree that, if a patient takes liberal doses of sulphur 

 for two or three days, all the silver money in his 

 pockets or about his person will be blackened by 

 the fumes transfused through the skin, and you 

 can smell brimstone whenever he is near. 



A level teaspoonful of sulphur taken every morn- 

 ing for a few days acts as a harmless laxative. 



I have been much interested in the discussion as 

 to why bees are so terrified by smoke, and have lis- 

 tened in vain for some one to suggest that, because 

 of the peculiar nature of their breathing apparatus, 

 the little air-holes, being so very small. Is it not 

 possible that smoke causes in them a sense of im- 

 pending suffocation, so that all the fight is choked 

 out of them? 



This is merely a query, not a theory. 



Mobile, Ala. H. A. Moody. 



