AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Januai 



the civil war, most of Pendleton 

 county was given over to tobacco 

 growing, with little live stock, and 

 not much rotation of crops. It was a 

 hill country and although it had a 

 fertile soil over a clay subsoil, the 

 heavy rains soon washed away the 

 shallow surface soil, and one farm 

 after another was abandoned. Hun- 

 dreds of farms were abandoned and 

 many of them were sold for taxes, 

 because no buyers could be found. 

 More than a third of the population 

 left the county, and the farmers who 

 remained had hard lines to make ends 

 meet. Sweet clover was stealthily 

 sowed, probably by beekeepers intent 

 on increasing the bee pasturage. At 

 first it was regarded with disfavor 

 and fought as a dangerous weed. 



Mr. Barton told me how he came 

 into possession of a farm somewhat 

 against his will because the owner 

 could not pay the mortgage. He tried 

 renting it, and the tenant was un- 

 able to make a living, much less pay 

 the rent. After it had been aban- 

 doned, he went to great trouble to 

 keep down the weeds, especially 

 sweet clover. Then came a year of 

 drouth, when there was very little 

 feed for the cattle and they were 

 turned into the roads to graze. Even 

 there, there was but little except the 

 sweet clover, which by this time was 

 rather common along the roadsides. 

 It was soon noticed that the cows 

 were eating the sweet clover with 

 relish and doing well. Then some- 

 body tried an experiment by sowing 

 it in a field. It thrived, the cows liked 

 it and the milk flow was increased. 

 Mr. Barton by this time was quite 

 ready to profit by the experience, 

 and within five years the farm which 

 would not grow grass, was producing 

 good crops. He bought more aban- 

 doned farms and sowed them to 

 sweet clover, and his neighbors be- 

 gan to do likewise. One by one the 

 farmers came back to their aban- 

 doned farms, new settlers came in, 

 and everybody began to grow sweet 

 clover. Now there are fifty thousand 

 acres of it in that county. Ask any 

 farmer you meet on the streets of 



A FIELD OF SWEET CLOVER JUST BEFORE BLOOM 



Falmouth what he thinks of sweet 

 clover, and he will tell you such tales 

 of rebuilt fortunes from a combina- 

 tion of dairy cows and sweet clover 

 as you never expect to hear. There 

 are now shipped from the county 

 about half a million pounds of seed 

 yearly, besides thousands of dollars' 

 worth of dairy products every week. 

 They find that an average of 300 to 

 600 pounds of hulled seed per acre 

 can be secured from the white variety 

 and 500 to 700 pounds of the yellow. 

 An average yield of from $40 to $100 

 per acre is the return from the sweet 

 clover, according to local reports 

 picked up on the street. Now one 

 finds evidences of prosperity on ev- 

 ery hand. The farmers have fine 

 homes, automobiles, and money in 

 the bank. 



Soil Requirements 

 There is no forage plant that will 

 succeed on such a wide range of soil 

 conditions as will sweet clover. It 

 will succeed under unfavorable con- 

 ditions on the heaviest clays and on 

 light sand. It will grow on hardpan 



in the foreground has just been grazed by stock which is no 

 turned into the field of sweet clover in the background. 



and on gravelly and stony land un- 

 suited for general cultivation. It I 

 does well on soils too wet for either 

 alfalfa or red clover and on soils so 

 dry that neither of these will sue- I 

 eeed. It will grow on land so poor j 

 and devoid of humus that no other j 

 clover or grass will grow. It is the j 

 greatest soil builder known, and now 

 that the public has finally accepted 

 the fact that it is not a noxious ! 

 weed, it will shortly be used to re- 

 deem untold thousands of otherwise 

 waste land. It grows all the way J 

 from sea level to the mountain sides, I 

 and is spreading in the semi-arid sec- 

 tions of Colorado and other western ] 

 States, wdiere the annual rainfall is 

 very light. 



In the October number of this Jour- i 

 nal has already been told the story 

 of the sweet clover region of Ala- 

 bama and Mississippi. In those 

 States sweet clover has spread over 

 thousands of acres of land, which had 

 been abandoned for agricultural pur- 

 poses; and it is not only furnishing 

 abundant pasturage to the bees, but 

 is restoring the fertility of these 

 \\orn out plantations. 



The growth of the plant, however, 

 is no longer confined to the roadsides 

 and worn out fields: but farmers are 

 growing it successfully and profitably 

 on lands worth $200 per acre in Iowa 

 and Illinois, because it pays them to 

 do so. In some cases, the railroad 

 companies have discovered that 

 sweet clover growing along the right 

 of way is the best possible insurance 

 against erosion of the roadbed. A 

 heavy growth of sweet clover pro- 

 tects the banks from the washing ol 

 heavy rains, as no other plant will do. 

 In places, one can see a continuous 

 strip of sweet clover for miles and 

 miles along the railroads. It would 

 seem the part of wisdom for the bee- 

 keepers' associations to bring this 

 fact to the attention of the men in 

 charge of keeping the lines in repair, 

 wherever possible. Once estab- 

 lished along the railroads, it is hound 

 t , spread more or less along the by- 

 roads and into the fields, thus in- 



