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CHICAGO, ILL., FEBRUARY 21, 1895. No. 8. 



35th Year. 



Cot;)tributed /Vrticles^ 



On Important Apiarian Sub^eots- 



Sainfoin and Sacaline for Honey and Forage. 



BY CHAS. DADANT. 



Since my first article on extracted honey was published, I 

 have received so many letters of enquiry concerning sainfoin, 

 and where the seed could be obtained, that I will write what I 

 know about it. 



Sanfoin needs a porous soil ; It grows well in stony or 

 gravelly land, but cannot thrive in a compact clay soil, for its 

 roots want to penetrate deeply into the ground. It seems that 

 it has been tried in New Mexico, for I have received a letter 

 from Mr. Geo. H. Eversole, who lives in La Plata, in the 

 Northern part of New Mexico, from which I will quote the 

 following passages: 



"About three years ago, seeing an account of sainfoin in 

 the agricultural papers, and it being a leguminous plant and 

 highly recommended for forage, I was anxious to know some- 

 thing about it. In making enquiries concerning it, I found 



Tlie Sainfoin, or Esparcette, of France. 



out there was a small patch of it about 16 miles from here, 

 and that it bloomed the first of May, and, to use my inform- 

 ant's expression, the bees 'just roared on it all day.' 



" I sent to a seed house for four pounds of seed, and 

 waited patiently for it to come up, but nary a plant grew. In 

 the spring of 1893, a German friend gave me some seed, with 



the remark : 'Shorsh, you mussn't don't got der blues about 

 dot sainfoin. Here vos some more seed dot vos more petter as 

 good like dot you sowed last year.' Knowing a German had 

 more patience than I had, I sowed the seed on about a rod of 

 ground; it came up nicely — it did not grow up very tall, nor 

 did it bloom the first season, but laid flat on the ground. But 



Sacaline — A Russian Plaoit. 



last summer it acted altogether different ; it grew, up tall, 

 rather in bunches, and was looking very promising. The first 

 of May it was coming into bloom, but the prairie-dogs made a 

 raid upon it, and before I could exterminate them they''got 

 away with one-half of it. There was alfalfa growing close to 

 the sainfoin, but the prairie-dogs paid no attention to the alfalfa. 

 Then, to make matters worse, my mule got into it, and by the 

 time he got his fill there was but very little left above ground ; 

 but what little was left, my bees did a land-otifice business upon 

 it. The season was very dry, and the sainfoin had no mois- 

 ture from spring till Fall, yet it stayed green till Christmas. 



Geo. H. Eversole. " 



In the part of France where I was born, sainfoin was 

 sowed, like red clover, at the end of winter, and generally 

 with oats or barley ; for the rotation of crops there is usually 

 first wheat, then oats, or barley, with clover or sainfoin. 

 These leguminous forages are allowed to remain two seasons, 

 and in the second summer the second growth is turned under 

 in September by the plow before the sowing of wheat. I have 

 rarely seen sainfoin kept longer than two years, and I noticed 

 that, when it is kept several years, the crop is far poorer than 

 at first. When the farmers want a leguminous forage to last 



