820 
SWEET CLOVER 
seeded for pasture on the poorest fields. 
Eroded and gullied lands with thin and 
much depleted soils can be reclaimed and 
built up by its use. It is often abundant by 
the roadsides, on canal banks, and in waste 
places. It is destined to be the most valu¬ 
able and most extensively cultivated legumi¬ 
nous crop in North America. 
SWEET CLOVER HONEY. 
White sweet clover honey is usually wa¬ 
ter-white, but in parts of the East and in 
California it is reported to have sometimes 
a greenish tinge; and, like alfalfa honey, 
under certain conditions the color may be 
light amber. The flavor is suggestive of 
vanilla; by many it is regarded as a little 
too strong, while others describe it as mild. 
When the nectar is secreted very freely the 
characteristic flavor is less pronounced; 
thus the flavor, like the color, is somewhat 
variable. Sweet clover honey in the West, 
is generally mixed with that from alfalfa, 
and in the central States with white clover 
honey, forming a blend that is superior to 
either honey alone. Honey-distributors 
prize it highly for mixing with other 
honeys. The body is medium. The honey 
from yellow sweet clover is essentially the 
same as that from the white species, but it 
blooms about two weeks earlier and in a 
few instances has been reported superior 
for bee pasturage. Sweet clover honey is 
now marketed by the carload, and the qual¬ 
ity is generally admitted to be excellent 
whether in the comb or extracted. It al¬ 
ways commands good prices. The present 
distribution and the future outlook of this 
honey plant deserve the careful considera¬ 
tion of every beekeeper. Its cultivation is 
receiving today more attention than that of 
any other fodder plant in North America. 
SWEET CLOVER AS A HONEY PLANT. 
Altho many experiments have been made, 
beekeepers have as yet failed to discover 
any honey plant which it is profitable to 
cultivate for honey -alone. Sweet clover is 
almost an exception, and thousands of 
pounds of the seed have been sown to ad¬ 
vantage along the roadsides, on railroad 
banks, in waste places, and in pastures. 
In no other way can the area of honey 
plants be so easily increased at so small a 
cost, and yet with advantage to all inter¬ 
ests. Sweet clover has already been a great 
benefit to bee culture in this country, and is; 
likely to exert a greater influence on its; 
future than any other honey plant. There 
are millions of acres of land, which will 
grow sweet clover, but are of little value 
for any other crop. Its present distribu¬ 
tion, therefore, deserves the most careful 
attention. In considering the regions in 
which it is of special benefit to beekeeping, 
it must be remembered that while it will 
grow to some extent on widely different 
soils this plant will not thrive except under 
proper conditions. It is not true that it 
will yield a profitable crop everywhere. 
To understand why there are sweet- 
clover regions and belts in various parts of 
the country and why in other sections it is 
of little value, the conditions to which it is 
well adapted must be briefly considered. 
Sweet clover will not grow well unless there 
is lime in the soil, hence it is abundant in 
limestone regions. On clay soils, which ap¬ 
parently contain little lime, it does not 
spread rapidly or produce a luxuriant 
growth; such soils, however, doubtless con¬ 
tain more or less lime due to the decompo¬ 
sition of the silicates. In Alabama and 
Mississippi the sweet clover belt is on a 
limestone soil, and where the clay soil be¬ 
gins the sweet clover ends so abruptly as 
to excite comment. It will not grow in the 
rice lands of the South or in land saturated 
with moisture, or in the desert regions of 
the Southwest. It requires a hard, com¬ 
pact seed bed. In a loose cultivated soil 
the seed does' not sprout readily, and the 
plants die out during a drouth, or north¬ 
ward freeze out in winter. But the area 
over which sweet clover succeeds is very 
large and its cultivation is yearly extend¬ 
ing. The regions in which it is of the 
greatest value to bee culture today are the 
north-central States (Ohio, Indiana, Illi¬ 
nois, Iowa, Wisconsin), Kentucky, the 
sweet clover belt of Alabama and Missis¬ 
sippi, the Great Plains region (Kansas, 
Nebraska, and the Dakotas), and the western 
highlands (Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming). 
It is also valuable in many other sections, 
but it is in these areas that it reaches its 
highest development and has largely in¬ 
creased (he prqductiqn qf honey. 
