198 
CLOVER 
veterinary profession since 1874—18 years 
in Ontario and since then in Maryland, and 
I have never seen a case of poisoning’ from 
alsike clover. I have been called to see 
many cases supposed to be the result of 
poisoning from alsike pasture fields, but- 
have had dozens of the same kind of cases 
on pastures that never had alsike clover on 
them. I have had many patients which, 
when'green food was cut for them, would 
eat the alsike clover first, showing that 
they preferred it to other kinds of grass. 
I find from my experience that alsike 
clover makes the best kind of pasture for 
all kinds of stock, and ranks next to al¬ 
falfa for bay.” 
RED CLOVER (Tri folium pratense L.). 
— Red clover is pollinated chiefly by bum¬ 
blebees, and is therefore called a bumblebee 
flower. This reciprocal relation will be 
made clear by a brief history of the intro¬ 
duction of red clover into New Zealand. 
There were neither bumblebees nor honey¬ 
bees in those islands at the time of their 
discovery; consequently, Avhen the,colonists 
attempted to grow this valuable fodder 
plant it failed to produce seed. To remedy 
this difficulty about 100 bumblebees, be¬ 
longing to three different species, were im¬ 
ported from Europe, and subsequently the 
red clover heads became fertile. It seems 
to have been supposed that any bumblebee 
would answer for this purpose, as one of 
the species brought from Europe was Bom- 
bus terrestris, which has too short a tongue, 
and has formed the habit of biting holes in 
the corolla tubes and robbing the flowers of 
their nectar without rendering any service 
in return. After the holes have once been 
made, other insects, which are themselves 
unable to puncture the corolla, use them to 
abstract the nectar. Thus, so far as the red 
clover is concerned, it would have been bet¬ 
ter if this bumblebee had never been 
brought to New Zealand. In the course of 
time this fact was learned by experience; 
and as recently as 1005 the New Zealand 
government wrote to an experiment station 
in Canada inquiring in regard to the bum¬ 
blebee useful in pollinating red clover in 
that country. As has been pointed out by 
Dr. Graenieher, two of the common and 
hardy bumblebees (Bombus americanorum 
and B. fervidus), which have tongues 14 
millimeters long, would be well adapted for 
this work. See Bumblebees. 
In a favorable season, when there is an 
abundant rainfall, and the flowers of the 
red clover are fully developed, a bee can 
not reach the nectar unless it has a tongue 
9 millimeters long. As the tongue of the 
Italian bee is only G 1 /^ millimeters in 
length, the nectar is then Avholly inacces¬ 
sible to it. This has been the cause of 
much regret among beekeepers, for these 
flowers not only secrete nectar very freely 
but the nectaries are much less influenced 
by weather conditions than those of many 
other plants. Repeated attempts have 
been made to develop a permanent strain 
of red clover bees; but all such attempts 
have proved unsuccessful. It is no easy 
matter to lengthen the tongue of the hon- 
Common red clover. 
eybee 2% millimeters. The production of 
a race of red clover with shorter corolla 
tubes has also received consideration. 
But the second crop of red clover usu¬ 
ally has shorter corolla tubes, and occasion¬ 
ally in very dry seasons the tubes are so 
short that large yields of honey are ob¬ 
tained. The late G. M. Doolittle said that 
two or three times in 30 years at Boro¬ 
dino, N. I ., red clover had been a very 
valuable source of honey; and that one 
year he obtained fully 60 pounds to the 
colony on the average. W. Z. Hutchinson 
stated that he remembered one year when 
his bees stored 500 pounds of pure red 
clover honey; as surplus, in the section 
honey-boxes. It was when the second crop 
