1606 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



The California Voice says that President 

 Roosevelt said, in a recent address to the 

 people (mostly colored) of Bayou, Miss., "I 

 am glad you have not permitted a saloon in 

 the city limits." 



SWEET CLOVER; IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY 

 THAT IT MAY, UNDER SOME CIRCUM- 

 STANCES, BE JUSTLY CALLED BY THE 

 FARMER A NOXIOUS WEED? 



The following, clipped from the Ohio 

 Farmer, from C. B. Wing, a great authoiity 

 on alfalfa in Ohio, is quite important. First, 

 he tells us that sweet clover is valuable for 

 pasture when it happens to come up with 

 alfalfa or any other clover, and it will im- 

 prove its value fur seed; and if the seed 

 should accidentally get into alfalfa seed it 

 will be a benefit to the alfalfa rather than a 

 detriment. As sweet-clover seed is con- 

 stantly coming up in value, it very soon will 

 be, if it is not now, worth as much as alfalfa 

 seed; and as it excels alfalfa as a gatherer of 

 nitrogen, the alfalfa will do still better with 

 sweet clover mixed in with it. 



In buying Western alfalfa seed one is pretty apt to 

 get a small proportion of sweet clover along with it 

 (Me ilotus alba). It had not occurred to the writer to 

 mention tne presence of sweet clover in alfalfa seed: 

 but as he now recalls it he can not remember an 

 alfalfa-fleld established upon Woodland Farm within 

 recent years where sweet clover did not appear in 

 greater or less amounts the first year. Some of it 

 will even show the second year, but after that it is 

 seen no more. Sweet clover is a biennial, and can 

 not endure mowing off. If not allowed to mature seed 

 it is soon extinct. It is hardly right to classify sweet 

 clover with weeds, since it is a splendid soil-enricher, 

 one of the most energetic nitrogen-gatherers known, 

 and it carries the same nitrifying bacteria that alfalfa 

 does, and is thus a direct benefit to a young alfalfa 

 fi°ld, since it pioneers the way and makes the alfalfa 

 that succeeds it thrive all the better. However, one 

 should mow it off at least two or three times in a 

 year, and that will prevent its seeding and becoming 

 too plentiful. 



Sweet clover in the South is much used as a sheep 

 and pig pasture. It is greedily eaten there when it 

 comes up first in the spring. It makes a hay too 

 coarse and woody to be relished by most animals, and 

 has also an odor that seems too strong for Northern 

 stock. It is a splendid bee pasture, however. 



I mention these peculiarities about sweet clover so 

 that men getting a little of it in alfalfa seed may not 

 be frightened. They should go on as though they 

 had none of it. Their alfalfa meadows, in order to 

 succeed, will need to be cut at least three times a 

 year, and that will vanquish every bit of the sweet 

 clover. Charles B. Wing. 



Champaign Co., Ohio. 



SWEET CLOVER IN OHIO. 



The following, from the Rural New-York- 

 er, is of value, not only because it shows us 

 how to teach stock to eat sweet clover, but 

 because the author is one of the great agri- 

 cultural writers and teachers of our State: 



The following is suggested by reading Mr. Legg's 

 article, " Sweet Clover and Alfalfa." There are some 

 wrong impressions regarding the plant. Here it 

 grows very rank on the roadsides and in some fields. 

 I used to think, like Mr. Legg, that stock would not 

 eat it, for I often took care to notice when driving 

 along a road on the sides of which it grew as high as 

 a horse's back, whether the droves of stock, cattle 

 principally, fed on it, and never did I see that a plant 

 had been nipped. Later, in a field where a lot of big 

 steers were pasturing, the sweet clover grew in great 

 abundance, and the cattle, by feeding on it, had cut it 

 down to about knee high. It had made a large growth 

 before they began to feed on it; and, below the height 

 mentioned, it was too coarse and hard to be palatable. 



Seldom now do we see it in pasture-fields ; but on the 

 roadsides adjoining these fields it grows in abun- 

 dance, and would undoubtedly grow in the fields if the 

 stock let it alone. When driving lambs along the 

 highway I have noticed that they eat it as readily as 

 the grasses that grow with it — blue grass, etc. Men 

 owning horses in my nearest village I have known to 

 cut it from the roadsides and haul it to their stables 

 and feed it to their horses. At first they refused it, 

 but soon learned to relish it I know of a timothy 

 meadow being cut this year that had growing with it 

 an equal bulk of sweet clover. This was stored in 

 sheds, and will be fed out to cattle this winter. In 

 the same field in which this timothy grew last year, 

 after wheat, there came on five or six acres a very 

 rank growth of sweet clover. This year there grew a 

 very excellent crop of corn on t^e same land. Alfal- 

 fa grows on all th land about here without soil inoc- 

 ulation. But unless the land is well drained, natural- 

 ly or ariificially. it will winter-kill. As regards sweet 

 clover, I would gladly have morf of it grow on my 

 farm than the stock and cultivation will allow to 

 grow. John M. Jamison. 



Ross Co., O. 



POISONOUS PLANTS. 



About a year ago a sister of mine, Mrs. E. 

 J. Gray, was afflicted with something the 

 doctors first called erysipelas; but after being 

 treated for that malady, without getting any 

 relief, she called another physician who call- 

 ed it eczema. But still she kept getting 

 worse, until it, finally prevented her from us- 

 ing her eyes, to such an extent that she had 

 to give up reading. If I am correct she con- 

 sulted a third physician, and he said both 

 doctors were wrong. He said the trouble 

 was something else. Just about that time I 

 noticed one day that she had a beautiful spec- 

 imen of a house-plant that I had given her 

 some months before. It was what florists 

 call Primula ohconica. I began to remark 

 about its wonderful luxuriance and the quan- 

 tity of bloom that was all the while peeping 

 out from under the bright-green foliage. She 

 replied that, as she could not read, she had 

 spent a good deal of her time with that plant, 

 picking off the faded flowers, etc. All at 

 once it occurred to me that I had seen in the 

 florists' books and magazines statements to 

 the effect that this plant \s poisonous to some 

 people, and by my advice the plant was put 

 out of the room, and she never went near it 

 again. The erysipelas, eczema, or whatever 

 it was, disappeared almost immediately. 

 Her last doctor claimed it was his skill and 

 his medicine that performed the cure. Now, 

 I do not know how we can prove conclusive- 

 ly whether he was right or wrong in the mat- 

 ter; but I find in a recent number of the Flo- 

 rists'^ Review a discussion in regard to prim- 

 ula poison and the remedy; but, to be honest 

 about it, I have no more faith in the remedies 

 for poisonous plants than I have for those for 

 bee-stings. Get busy at something else, for- 

 get all about your stings, and nature will 

 perform the cure; and when you get poison- 

 ed, banish the poisonous plant as my sister 

 did, or keep away from it, and nature will 



