«a4 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



OOTOBKB, 1921 



pleasure to visit W. L. Crites, president and 

 manager of the DeGraff Food Co., DeGraff, 

 0. He is another of God's noblemen. He 

 is one of the few who, at the very begin- 

 ning, fully appreciated the possibilities of 

 Prof. Hughes' discovery of the new clover. 

 He was not long in getting in touch with 

 the Henry Field Seed Co., at Shenandoah, 

 Iowa, who had raised quite a quantity of 

 seed from a small package sent out by Prof. 

 Hughes. This company raised so much that 

 they were afraid they would not be able to 



W. L. Crites and A. I. Root standing beside a vig- 

 orous growth of Hubara elovi-r at DeGraff. 



sell all of it. Mr. Crites, having supreme 

 faith in the new acquisition, made arrange- 

 ments by which he bought half the seed at 

 a price that would stagger men of less 

 faith. When the Field Seed Co. disposed 

 of their half of the seed, before Christmas 

 he sold back to them a part of his stock 

 and sowed the rest. His company has now 

 nearly 400 acres in and around DeGraff, O., 

 under cultivation. While the crop did not 

 "pan out" quite as he expected, he and 

 his associates have some fields as pretty as 

 any I have seen anywhere. 



Early and late Hubam in rows side by side. Mr. 

 Crites has his right hand on the former and the left 

 on the latter. It will be observed that the late strain 

 has two or three times as much actual fodder w 

 humus as the early. The early variety matured so 

 quickly that it goes to seed with a growth on the 

 average of one-third of the late Hubam. This only 

 emphasizes the fact that for northern growers the 

 late variety is much to be preferred. 



Mr. Crites was originally a soil specialist. 

 He had some beautiful black lime land, and 

 was not slow in getting seed in the ground. 

 He put out about 500 acres in Ohio, about 



Hubam on each side with biennial white sweet 

 clover in the center — all planted at the same time. 

 It will be noted that the Hubam on the right i.s 

 hirger than the Hubam on the left, illustrating the 

 point that there is a variation between strains. Tlie 

 old liiennial is very much behind either. A. I. Hoot 

 is walking down the row. 



500 in North Dakota, and another hundred 

 in Texas. He has gone at this whole propo- 

 sition scientifically in that he lias one of the 

 most extensive seed-testing beds I have ever 

 seen. He secured seed from various sources, 

 and is now testing them in these beds. He 

 finds some very wide variations. Some se- 

 lections breed true to the characteristics of 

 the parent plants, while others do not. In 

 his opinion the Iowa strain, as discovered 

 by Prof. Hughes and which he is growing 

 in his large fields, is a better one for the 

 northern farmer than the majority of other 

 strains. It is medium late, bushy, and leafy, 

 making a much larger amount of humus or 



One of the cages that Mr. Crites has scattered in 

 the various fields of Hubam to test out the valic of 

 bees for pollinating the clover. It ia a little eaily 

 yet to determine just what is the gain from having 

 bees, but it Is evident that the Hubam under the 

 cage will not yield near a.s much seed as that on 

 which the bees can work. Most of the bloom under 

 the cage had not set seed, while that outside, of the 

 same age, had gone to seed. 



fodder than the early strains. Mr. Crites 

 showed me side by side an early annual 

 sweet clover and a late annual. The plants 

 of the latter were two or three times as 

 large. The trouble with the early strains 

 for the North, said Mr. Crites, is that it 

 matures so quickly and then goes to seed 

 before the plant can attain any size. 



He has wire-clotk cages scattered thru 

 the mammoth fields of the annual sweet 



