THOUSAND ANSWERS 
47 
mon growth. The most common sweet clover is melilotus alba. 
It is a biennial, coming from the seed one year, blossoming the 
next, and then dying, root and branch. Even if bees have all they 
can do on white clover, sweet clover is valuable, because while it 
begins to bloom later than white clover, it continues much later, 
even till frost. 
There is a yellow sweet clover (melilotus officinalis) which 
blooms two weeks earlier than the white. Sweet clover will 
grow where scarcely anything else will, as in a clay bank. It 
seems to flourish best, or at least to start from the seed best, on 
hard ground trodden by farm stock. 
Q. Last year - white sweet clover was everywhere ; this year 
there is scarcely any. Why did it not grow again this year, in- 
stead of the yellow? The bees worked on the white all the time, 
and seemed to be crazy over it, but they paid no attention to 
the yellow. 
A. Sweet clover is a biennial, growing the first year without 
blooming. Then after blooming and producing seed the second 
year it dies root and branch. So, if you sow seed one year and 
leave it to itself thereafter, the tendency would be to have bloom 
every other year. One yellow sweet clover (melilotus indica) 
blooms the first year. It is an annual. 
Q. How far north and south will sweet clover thrive and do 
well? 
A. I suppose if sweet clover may be considered as having any 
native place it is Bokhara, in Asia, about 40 degrees north of the 
equator. At any rate, it is called “Bokhara clover,” and years ago 
that was the chief name for it. According to that, one would 
suppose that it would be at its best on the parallel of 40, which 
runs centrally through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Utah and Nevada. 
But it does not seem to be very limited as to its habitat. I think 
it succeeds about as far north as bees are generally kept. 
Q. Is sweet clover tender, or hardy? Will it freeze as easily 
as does corn? 
A. Hardy — very hardy. Sweet clover would only laugh at a 
freeze that would kill corn. I think I’ve known it to be killed 
only in two ways. One year I prepared a piece of ground in fine 
shape, sowed sweet clover with oats, and it made a fine stand. 
Next spring there wasn’t a spear left. The ground was so nice 
and soft that it heaved and pulled up all the sweet clover by the 
roots. In the solid ground of the road-side I never knew it to 
winter-kill. Another year I had a piece mowed close to the 
