Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 651 



Death of Wm. R. PsmcE. 

 The Chairman. — There are on my table two letters from an old 

 attendant of the club ; they offer considerable quantities of flower 

 seeds for gratuitous distribution. Beside them, I find this note, with 

 a broad black margin, announcing that the donor of these seeds, Mr. 

 William E. Prince, is dead, and we are invited to attend his funeral 

 at Flushing. So near to us all is the mighty change ! So swift comes 

 the messenger that calls us away from these talks of soils and seeds 

 and grasses to render up our body to the earth from which we were 

 taken to the earth that will bloom in flowers above us ages after we 

 have ceased to plant and water them ! Few have been more active 

 than Mr. Prince in scattering widely over the land the means for 

 adorning the homes of the people. Xow that he sleeps, are not those 

 who never said a word against him glad of that graceful charity ? ISTo 

 detraction, and, alas, no praise of ours, can reach him now. 



• Adjourned. 



April 6, 1869. 



Mr. Nathan C. Ely, in the chair; Mr. John W. Chambers, Secretary. 



Alsike Clovee. 



Mr. William Jackson, of Westmoreland, Oneida county, K. Y., 

 inquires: "What is the difference between Alsike clover and red 

 clover? Will it make better hay? Will it make better pasture? 

 Will it yield more to the acre ? Will it ripen earlier ? Can it be 

 cut twice in one season ? Will it do better on wet or dry land ? " 



Mr. S. Edwards Todd. — The Alsike clover, botanically, is the 

 trifoUum hylridum. The common red clover is known as the 

 trifolium pretense. There is probably as much difference between 

 these two varieties as there is between two varieties of Indian corn, 

 or wheat, or oats. The Alsike clover will make a little better hay 

 than the common red ; and from all the reports that we have had, it 

 is" going to be a very valuable A^ariety, as it is said to stand the cold 

 of winter, and not freeze out so easily as the common red clover. 

 Those farmers who have raised it say it is from ten to thirteen or 

 fourteen days earlier. I do not know as to the pasture, and, indeed, 

 it has not been tested sufticiently as yet to enable us to conclude as to 

 every point whether it will or will not make better pasture than the 

 small kind of red clover. AYhen it is said to be earlier tlian the red 

 clover, I think that it can only be said that it is earlier than the large 



