1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



689 



to the second cross-road; turn east three- 

 fourths of a mile, then north half a mile." 



When we finall3'got ag^oing- again we did 

 this, and in about fifteen minutes were at 

 friend Wilbur's bee-yard. In the shade of 

 an apple-tree Huber declared the machine 

 would have to come apart until we could re- 

 pack the cylinder head. This took about 

 one day. 



Mr. Wilbur has about 80 colonies of bees, 

 and about 140 laying Plymouth Rock hens. 

 He has a fine crop of honey, and gets about 

 100 eggs a day from his fowls. In working 

 for comb honey he saj's he would rather 

 have a few pounds less, and ha.ve/! /ied sec- 

 tions, than to have so many partly filled 

 sections to carry over. The latter never 

 make first-class honey when finished the 

 year after. 



The auto makes lots of fun, and calls 

 forth many jokes. A boy called to us in 

 one of the towns, and we slowed up to see 

 what was wrong. He just wanted to say, 

 " Say, mister, your zc/tip just dropped out 

 of 3'our buggy;" and for the first time I 

 was reminded that whips and the manner 

 of using them are to be a " lost art " in the 

 great and near future. 



WaNTER OR SAND VETCH; ANOTHER OF MY 

 HAPPY SURPRISES. 

 When I first visited Traverse Bay region 

 I was attracted by a plant that grew wild 

 in the fields, that the people called " wild 

 sweet pea." The great quantity of purple 

 blossoms in long clusters, like the blossoms 

 of the locust-tree, first attracted my eye; 

 and then the great quantity of pods con- 

 taining little bits of peas afterward con- 

 vinced me it must be a valuable legumi- 

 nous plant. I thought several times it 

 might be valuable to grow for stock or to 

 plow under; and last fall, in digging pota- 

 toes, I was once more greatly pleased to 

 see a greater quantity of nitrogen nodules 

 on the roots than I ever saw on any other 

 plant. Last fall, after digging potatoes I 

 tried the experiment of sowing Mammoth 

 and Medium clover in the fall. After my 

 first early potatoes, crimson clover was a 

 big success, as I have told you. About 

 half an acre of Mammoth clover, put in aft- 

 er Early Trumbull potatoes, produced a 

 magnificent stand, and was knee-high and 

 full of blossoms when plowed under the 

 last of June. Medium clover, put in after 

 an acre of Early Michigan potatoes, looked 

 fairly well. But where I sowed clover as 

 late as the middle of October it did not 

 amount to very much, especially as the 

 wild weeds got ahead of it. Now, mind 

 you, after the potatoes were dug in October 

 the ground was thoroughly harrowed with 



a spring-tooth harrow. I think all the 

 weeds were thoroughly cut up and killed. 

 This present summer, about the last of 

 June, when I decided to plow up a six-acre 

 field where I dug these late potatoes in Oc- 

 tober, I found this new leguminous plant 

 growing with wonderful luxuriance. In 

 fact, there were single plants, a perfect 

 mass of purple bloom, large enough to make 

 a pretty good wheelbarrow-load. The re- 

 markable thing is that this immense plant 

 must have made this growth after the 

 ground was so thoroughly harrowed in Oc- 

 tober. If it came up in the fall it wintered 

 very safely; and then it pushed ahead be- 

 yond any thing I ever saw before in the 

 way of clovers or any other legume. The 

 roots did not seem to be very large, but 

 great branches put out like a squashvine in 

 every direction. The blossoms stood up 2 

 ft. high. The boys tore it to pieces, and 

 offered it to the horses that were plowing, 

 and they ate it with great avidity. I at 

 once mailed some of the blossoms, foliage, 

 and roots, containing the nodules, to our 

 Ohio Experiment Station; but before doing 

 so I noticed that the plant bore a strong re- 

 semblance to a picture in the seed catalogs, 

 under the name of hairy or sand vetch, 

 also called winter vetch. Here is what Pe- 

 ter Henderson says in regard to it: 



SAND OR WINTER VETCH (VICIA VILLOSA) 



is perfectly hardy throughout the United States, re- 

 maining green all winter, and should be sown during 

 August and September, mixed with rye, which serves 

 as a support for the plants, or in spring with oats or 

 barley. 



It grows to a height of 4 to 5 feet, and is the earliest 

 crop for cutting, being nearly a month earlier than 

 scarlet clover, and a full crop can be taken ofiE the 

 land in time for spring crops. Being much hardier 

 than .scarlet clover, this is the forage plant to .sow in 

 the Northern States, where scarlet clover winter-kills, 

 though it is equally valuable in the South. 



It is exceedingly nutritious, much more so than clo- 

 ver; is eaten with relish, and may be fed with safety 

 to all kinds of stock. 



Sow one bushel per acre with one-half bushel of 

 rye or wheat. 



I believe all of our seed catalogs recom- 

 mend it very highlj-. 



Now, I am going to purchase seed of dif- 

 ferent seedsmen, and plant the different 

 kinds side by side with seeds also of the 

 plant growing wild in Michigan. If it 

 grows every season, in other localities, as 

 it grows on my ground, single plants aver- 

 aging four feet apart each way, planted 

 after digging potatoes, it would cover the 

 ground with an immense lot of fertilizing 

 material in time to be plowed under for a«- 

 ot/ier crop of potatoes; and my impression 

 is it is worth as much as clover for feed or 

 for turning under. 



The particular point that recommends it 

 to me is that it is now growing wild on the 

 borders of the woods and waste places in 

 Northern Michigan. But the thing I can 

 not understand is, whj' such a rank-grow- 

 ing leguminous plant should be allowed to 

 pass all this time unnoticed — that is, up in 

 that locality. Can any of the readers of 

 Gleanings tell us more about it? I think 

 it is offered by several seedsmen in 100-lb. 

 lots at about 10 cts. per lb. 



