Skptkmukr, 1920 



Gl/EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



561 



•■\X<iri.l> 1!K WIl.l.l.NC Tl) \\A1.K TO AMKS. IOWA." 



Having: read in the R. N.-Y. that you have planted 

 the New Annual sweet clover in Florida with marked 

 sucress T take the liberty of asking you for more 

 information. I planted the old biennial sweet clo- 

 ver last fall and was surprised to find that here in 

 Florida it, too. is an annual. I planted about 0<t. 

 1. and it lilossonicd the last of May. It srew all 

 winter, but slowly, and on March 1 was barely 6 

 inches high. Red i-lover was nearly full grown by 

 llii' last of March, and crimson clover was then in 

 full lib)i.ni. The great value of growing tho clovers 

 in Florida is that they will grow in the winter time, 

 .•md it is possible to turn under crimson clover and 

 red clover in time to plant early corn: but the bien- 

 nici swecl clover dot\s not make much winter growth. 



The (lUf'stion in my mind is, "Will the Annual 

 make enough growth, say before March 1,5, to make 

 it a valuablei source of humus? for, as you know, 

 ilijit is the thing most difficult to obtain and the 

 nu)st necessary constituent to supply to all southern 

 soils. There are iilenty of suminergrowing legumes 

 to supply nitrogen, and crimson clover seems to me 

 to be the best leguminous cover crop. Both burr 

 clover and crimson clover make fine winter pas- 

 tures and Kudzu makes a better hay and a heavier 

 tonnage than sweet clover, and it is without ques- 

 tion the most valuable plant for permanent mea- 

 dows and pa.stures of any forage crop in the world. 



You say that the Annual grew six feet high in 

 98 days. If it will make such a growth as that 

 between Oct. 1 and Feb. 1.5 (about 1-10 days) here 

 in Jefferson County, North J'lorida, then I would 

 be willing to walk to Ames, Iowa, to get a few 

 seeds. "Cherokee Farms." 



Monticello, Fla., ,Tuly 31, 1920. 

 » * » 



THAT ANNUAL WHITK .SWEET CLOVEK. 



In New .Jersey. — AVe have a small quantity grow- 

 ing in good soil. If started four days after seeding. 

 and is now making a remarkable growth, although 

 it is not old enough yet to tell ,iust what it will 

 come to. Thus far it grows faster than any legume 

 wo have ever had experience with. Many readers 

 re))ort a similar growth. 



In the South. — .\. I. Root of Ohio has tried this 

 clover in Florida, and has madei a success of it 

 there. He wrote us on .July 1 tliat the clover was 

 six feet high when he last heard of it, and that 

 this growth of six feet had been made in 98 days 

 in tlie Florida climate. His plants in Ohio were 

 i:rowing at the rale of an inch and a half every 24 

 hours. It seems hard to believe .such statements, 

 but from the way our own crop has started it seems 

 fully probable to us. When we consider that such 

 a growth can be made in a short season, and when 

 we realize that sweet clover has about the same 

 analysis as alfalfa, we can imagine the po.ssibilifies 

 of such a crop in our Northern farming. If the an 

 nual clover proves as vigorous as the reports indi- 

 cate, it will be quite possible in the latitude of New 

 •lersey to grow an early farm crop and promptly fol 

 low it with this sweet clover and produce a crop 

 by October which will le equal in value to eight or 

 ten loads of manure to the acre. Such a crop could 

 be followed by rye. which could be plowed under the 

 following spring, or left on the ground as a cover 

 ■•rop. The possibilities of .siuh a tiuick growth in 

 the South are almost beyond calculation, and we 

 think that if after experiment this annual dovw 

 l»roves what is claimed for it. that it will be gener- 

 ally adopted and grf>atly change our northern system 

 of farming 



The Bietinial Form. — We have the old two-year 

 sweet clover growing in our apple orchard. There 

 was a light seeding several years ago and after this 

 crop was cut, a few scattering plants started. We 

 let the«-e form seed and then cut with the mower, 

 forking the cutting around the tre^p, Thjs 4's- 



trihuled the s<'cd. and this pliiii, followed .\enr after 

 year, has tliickened the seeding nwd made a heavy 

 crop, which makes a fine mulch for the treies. 



Growing Jjike a Weed. — In many places, sweet 

 clover is regarded as a weed, and farmers fight it 

 as they do ragweed. We have one case where a 

 farmer bought what he supposed was white sweet 

 clover to be used for hay or pasture. Now he claims 

 that the field is well spotted with the yellow sweet 

 clover, which the neighbors regard as a pest. They 

 insist that he must plow the whole thing right un- 

 der before it seeds. The growth, is so heavy that 

 it would nyiuire a tractor to put it all under, and 

 the farmer thinks the seedsman should pay for this 

 woi-k, because the seed was mixed. In our own 

 orcliard this mixture would make no difference. — 

 (From K'iir;il New-Yorker of .fuly 31.) 

 * * * 



TlIK WOMiKKFUL GROWTH OF Til K XKW 

 ANNUAL CLOVER. 



Kipe seeds from our Floi'ida sweet clover 

 were received and sown July 17. By the 

 way, scai'ified seeds in very rich soil with 

 just the right amount of moisture needed, 

 and just the right temperature, say some- 

 where about 70, w'ill sometimes germinate 

 in a little less than three days. The seeds 

 from Florida with tiie hulls on wei'e quite 

 a little longer in coming up than the above; 

 Imt today, Aug. 17, just one month, some of 

 the little plants are 5 to 6 inches high and 

 have been transplanted. The growth the 

 first month is not particularly rapid. After 

 the first two seed leaves, a little round leaf 

 shoots up on a little tliin spine — so thin, 

 indeed, that it seems almost invisible. Well, 

 this little round leaf faces the sun all day 

 long. It faces east in the morning and 

 faces west at night. If there does not 

 seem to be plenty of light this little plant 

 pushes away up, and tlie bright-green sin- 

 gle leaf seems almost suspended in the air. 

 After this leaf on the spine, grows another 

 stem with the three leaves characteristic of 

 all clovers. The very fii'st thing the little 

 plant does is to push down a slender tap- 

 root, and this little root goes straight down 

 about as fast as or faster than the top goes 

 up into the air. After the plants are from 

 six inches to a foot high, when the taproot 

 has gone down as far, or a little further, 

 then the growth is vei-y rapid. On one 

 field of five acres where the biennial now 

 stands from one to two feet high, on one 

 side of the field is a single row of the new 

 annual; and these new annual plants are 

 five feet tall and full of bloom and bees, 

 altho the seed was jdanted olmost a month 

 later. Somebody suggested a spell ago that 

 wood ashes are even better than lime when 

 preparing ground foi- sweet clover, or, in 

 fact, any of the clovers. Well, this one row 

 spoken of above, that has made such a 

 splendid growth, had. about a year ago, 

 a heavy dressing of coal ashes containing 

 also some wood ashes. 



