iBLF.
THE
SHIM
LIBRARY ©F APICULTURE
The Truth
ut
Sweet Clover
Its Value for Honey, for
Plowing Under, as Fer-
tilizer of the Soil, and
Food for Horses, Cat-
tle, Swine, Sheep, etc.;
and last, but not least,
as a Valuable Plant for
Introduction of Nitro-
gen-gathering Bacteria.
THE A. I. ROOT COMPANY
MEDINA, OHIO
Contents.
4lf alht ."gr&fr a- «r Jtn • s wtet .closer . . 91
:&'itfa8ae >nfls; swaet Mo^r on . 5, 51
Alkaline soils' of California «rfad Colorado 39
Ancients, sweet clover known to 76
Australia, sweet clover In 29
Bare spots filled with sweet clover 74
Bloating, remedy for 80, 83, 84
Calves and cattle, for 11, 25, 36, 38, 46
Cattle, fattening on sweet clover.. 11, 55, 57, 58, 67, 70, 78,
80, 84, 91
Cattle feeding on sweet clover 66
Coverdale, Frank's experiments 65
Drainage canal, sweet clover on banks of 18, 21
Rry regions, for 37
Enriching ground with sweet clover 54
Feed, 10 Ibs., per square yard 73
Fertilizer, value of for 88
Forage plant in Alabama 28
Forerunner of alfalfa 67, 83
Germany, sweet clover In 50
Gravel-pit, sweet clover in 44
Ground from the bottom of a well produces sweet clover. .
26, 27
Ground, fitting for corn 70, T4
Ground, making fertile with sweet clover 23
Ground, preparing for alfalfa 76
Ground, preparing it for seed 38
Guillies and washouts, to fill 63, 82, 89
Hay, for 6, 7, 25, 34, 35, 56, 58, 64
Hay, when to cut 87, 90
Hogs, fattening on sweet clover 70
Honey from sweet .clover 5, 9, 39
Honey produced from 88
Horses and colts, for 6, 13, 22
Humus, furnishing ground with 70
Inoculating land for alfalfa 53
"John the Baptist" of alfalfa 94
King Island, sweet clover in 29, 30
King Island, transforming 3
Land likely to be overflowed 26
Land, making it productive 40
Land, sweet clover for 81
Land, value for 86
Lime for sweet clover 87
Milk and butter, sweet clover for 22
Miller, Dr. C. C., notes from 46
Mulch for strawberries 56
Nitrogen bacteria 10
Nitrogen nodules 60
Oats sown sweet clover with 95
Origin of 45
Peas sown with sweet clover 2
Pigs, for 23, 24, 38, 93
Plowing under to grow potatoes 11, 43
(Continued on page three of cover.)
The Truth About Sweet
Clover
Its Value for Honey, for Plowing Under,
as a Fertilizer of the Soil, and Food for
Horses, Cattle, Swine, Sheep, etc.;
and last, but not least, as a Val-
uable Plant for the Intro-
duction of Nitrogen-
gathering Bacteria.
A Compilation of Articles that have Appeared
in Gleanings in Bee Culture from 1905 to 1910;
also Clippings from Various Agricultural Peri-
odicals Scattered all orer Our Land.
THE A. I. BOOT COMPANY.
MEDINA, OHIO
1910
A
INTRODUCTORY.
There has been so much discussion in regard to
. .-sweet clover for years past that I have thought best
,><H*to present in this booklet some testimonials from
bee-keepers and others from many widely separated
localities. There are certain people who will have
it that sweet clover is a noxious weed, and that its
spread should be restrained by law; in fact, there
have been laws and ordinances passed requiring farm-
ers and others to mow it down along the roadsides;
but at the present time I believe our best agricultur-
ists regard it as no more a weed than many of the
other clovers; and it is just as easy to eradicate it
by plowing it under. Our Ohio Experiment Station
has at different times expressed its opinion in regard
to it; and below is a statement recently furnished us
from the present able director, Professor Thorne:
SWEET CLOVER, MAY IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BE
CLASSED AS A NOXIOUS WEED?
OHIO AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION,
WOOSTER, OHIO, Feb. 23, 1905.
Mr. Root : — When you get out a new circular I wish you
would cut out the statement that this station has ever
classed sweet clover as a noxious weed. Away back in
1877-78, I called attention, through Farm and Fireside, in
an article which was copied generally in the agricultural
press, to the fact that this plant grows only where noth-
ing else will grow, and appears to be designed as a reno-
vator of exhausted soils. I have never permitted it to be
classed as a noxious weed while in control of this station.
CHAS. E. THORNE, Director.
Just at present sweet clover is coming out more
prominently than ever before, because it is found to
be one of the best of the legumes for introducing the
nitrogen bacteria that have the little nodules on the
roots of the plants. We have not space in this circu-
497822
lar to g?/ i^to; t#6 :matter/.of "tfce "nitro culture;" but
as We go % to 'pr^sVit "promises .feo be one of the greatest
achievements in the way of modern agriculture; in
fact, it has been termed, in a vein of pleasantry, "a
process by which the up-to-date farmer may carry his
fertilizer in his vest pocket." Our experiment sta-
tions have for many years decided that sweet clover is
one of the best clovers to plow under for the pur-
pose of enriching unfertile or worn-out soils.
As an indication of the change in public opinion
in regard to sweet clover, I may say that, for some
time past, the price of sweet- clover seed has been
steadily advancing. At the present time the call is
greater than ever before; in fact, we are sold out
of seed as we go to press, and have advertised north,
south, east and -west for a new supply if it can be
had anywhere in the United States.
May 1, 1910. A. I. ROOT.
IMPORTED SWEET-CLOVER SEED. .
Since the above was put in type I am informed that a large
part of the sweet-clover seed now on the market is imported
from foreign countries; and in order to test this seed I have
taken some samples from sacks holding several hundred
pounds, and sowed them in our little greenhouse. I am glad to
tell you that not only does almost every seed germinate, but the
plants are up so as to be visible in just three days from the time
of sowing. These imported seeds all have the hulls removed;
and what I have been enabled to get hold of is remarkably
clean, and free from weed seeds of any sort, which can hardly
be said of most of the seeds produced in the United States, and
sold with the hulls on. And, by the way, seeds sown with the
• hulls on are much slower in germinating. At the present writ-
ing it is my impression that we should, as far as possible, use
seeds with the hulls taken off. The cost is three to five cents
more per pound; but as you get many more seeds in a pound it
will probably be as cheap, or cheaper, in the end.
June 1, 1910.
Testimonials from all over the World in
Regard to the Value of the
Sweet-clover Plant.
SWEET CLOVER WILL FARM STOCK EAT IT?
Dear Sir: — I have sown sweet clover in a small
way several times, but my sheep (about 100) always
eat it so close that it dies. I will try to keep the
sheep off.
Dutch, Va., July 3. W. C. JACKSON.
SOWING THE SEED WITH OATS.
I have three acres of sweet clover, the white
variety, which I sowed last year with oats. It is a
fine growth, and has been blooming, and the bees
have been literally swarming on it for several weeks,
li is seeding very heavy, and is free from any thing
else. HENRY STEWART.
Prophetstown. 111.
SWEET CLOVER IN ILLINOIS
Sweet clover is one of the best honey-plants that
I have. I am glad that some people don't know how
to kill it. I have no trouble in killing it where I
don't want it to grow. Stock eat it here. When
pastures are short the stock are herded on the road,
and they eat it as quickly as anything else.
Sheffield, 111. A. L. KILDOW.
SWEET CLOVER FOR BEES AND FARM STOCK.
I should like to say a few words for sweet clover.
I finished extracting on the 15th. I got 2500 Ibs. of
sweet-clover honey from 60 hives. There is but little
ii. any white-clover honey mixed with it. I have
tnirty acres of this sweet clover on my place. It is
good cattle pasture in the early spring and late fall.
S. R. FLETCHER.
Onawa, la., Aug. 16, 1906.
SWEET CLOVER FOR ALKALI SOILS.
We have nothing so valuable here as sweet clover
to enrich alkali lands. Wherever it has grown for
5
two or- ;mota ? ears J£ h&s, left a rich spot. I will
sow it on all my aikafi land this spring that I can
get water on, as it needs irrigation here the same
as alfalfa.
A. A. BROWN.
Gazelle, Cal., Jan. 30, 1899.
SWEET CLOVER FOR COWS.
What kind of cattle does Mr. Sawyer have, any-
how? If I had a cow that would not eat sweet clover
aiter I had kept her six months I would certainly
dispose of her. I have sweet clover growing in my
pasture, but I have as yet to see it bloom. The cat-
tle keep it eaten down all the time.
JAS. PRATT.
Cumminsville, Neb., Dec. 31, 1899.
PREFERRED TO ALFALFA BY A HORSE.
I cut a crop of sweet clover this year, threshing it
for seed, and giving some of the straw to the horse,
i found it would pick out the old harsh sweet-clover
straw in preference to good alfalfa hay. Of course,
the leaves were all threshed off, leaving just the
stems; but the horse was very eager for it, while
cows would not touch it. The hay was not cut
until the plants were dead and yellow.
D. E. ROSE.
Douglas, Kan., Sept. 15, 1903.
THE VALUE OF SWEET CLOVER AND OATS FOR HAY.
I have a correspondent in Alabama who owns a
farm of 640 acres, who grows 160 acres per year of
oats and sweet clover, and cuts the combination crop
expressly for hay. He has blooded stock (cattle) and
keeps no bees. He says the hay when baled and mar-
keted in Birmingham, Ala., sells readily at $15 per
ton. M. M. BALDRIDGE.
! St. Charles, 111., Aug. 10, 1906.
SWEET CLOVER — WHAT THE ILLINOIS EXPERIMENT STA-
TION SAYS OF IT., ETC.
I send herewith circular No. 116, Illinois Experi-
ment Station, which refers to sweet clover as one of
the most useful legumes for green manuring.
6
I have six acres of sweet clover which was sown
in 1907 with oats. It stands knee high now, and the
growth would be about all a plow would want to turn
under. On a portion of the piece I cut a ton per*
acre off from it last fall, and put it up for hay.
HENRY STEWART. ;
Prophetstown, 111., July 1, 1908.
SWEET CLOVER DOES IT WINTER KILL?
The seed you sent me I sowed on clay land last
spring, 1906. It made a good stand last summer. It,
is almost 3 ft. high now, and looks fine, but it winter-
killed in spots, making it uneven. I think it would
be a fine clover for the South; but I fear it winter-
kills too badly for the North. CLARENCE NEAL.
Lanesboro, Ind., Aug. 15, '07.
We have never had any trouble with winter-killing
when the seed was sown tolerably early — say before
July. When sown in the fall it has sometimes failed
to winter over. But the seed that drops off and sows
itself always makes a stand with us, especially along
the railroad tracks where the hard clay subsoil is
piled up in heaps. These heaps are covered with a
dense rank growth of sweet clover year after year,
where it is not molested, and where cows and other
stock can not get a chance to eat it off.
SWEET CLOVER WINTER-KILLING, ETC.
Perhaps only one-fifth of the area that I have int
sweet clover was killed by the frost. While there are
but very few fields of red clover here in Grant Co.
but were entirely destroyed by the severe winter of
1906, I think it safe to say that sweet clover can
stand more heaving of frost than either red, alfalfa,
or alsike clover. Yes, my sweet clover grew this sum-:
mer from 3 feet high to — well, the tallest plant was
8 feet high, and that on pure clay ground. There
were large flies, wasps, hornets, and numerous other
insects on the fragrant bloom, and among them the
bees with their merry labor-song. C. A. NEAL.
Jonesboro, Ind., Nov. 15, 1$07.
SWEET CLOVER; CAN IT BE SOWN AMONG CORN WHEN
CULTIVATING THE LAST TIME?
Mr. Root: — Replying to your query, June 15, I
would say I sowed sweet clover and crimson clover in
corn about July 28 last year. It was not a fair test,
as a terrific storm washed much soil and seed away
shortly after sowing. The rest sprouted; but drouth
prevented summer and fall growth. The first heavy
frost cut down sweet clover; but crimson clover was
not hurt, and grew somewhat, and stayed green prac-
tically all winter, but plants were very small. Its
several roots prevented heaving killing, and it did
well this spring. Large quantity of sweet clover
heaved and died, except where roots were over 8
inches. When the tip remained in the ground it
soon caught up with crimson clover in spring. It
seemed that seed where pressed into soil sprouted
best. GENESIS FARM.
Greencastle, Ind., June 25.
SWEET CLOVER; WHY IT WON'T GROW ON CULTIVATED
GROUND.
I notice, page 1048, the failure which Dr. Miller
and A. I. Root had in getting a good stand of sweet
clover on cultivated ground. I think I can tell you
where they failed.
Sweet clover does not grow on cultivated ground,
for two reasons. First, because in such ground the
soil is so loose that it freezes out and drowns out.
I saw this proven by some cultivated land which
had lain idle for three years. The first and second
year the sweet clover took hold, but always died out.
The third year it wintered fairly well, and will
probably do better in 1907.
The second reason is that the original stalk lives
two years; hence if it is not allowed to go to seed
it will be gone at the end of two years.
RAY McQuiSTON.
Independence, Kan., April 1, 1907.
IMPROVING OUR BEE PASTURES.
On a visit to Mr. Salisbury, who resides right in
the city of Syracuse, N. y., he showed me two hives
8
from which he has taken 532 pounds of surplus the
past season, and surely his location would naturally
be much poorer than almost any spot outside of a
city. But looking over the ground there, what do we
find? Vacant lots and parks all around that city are
covered with a rank growth of sweet clover which
commences to bloom in June, and keeps at it until
frost. Whether this came about by accident or
design I can not say; but certain it is that it is an
enviable position for any bee-keeper, and one which
might easily be imitated; for when once started this
plant readily seeds itself and spreads with great
rapidity, and we can scarcely imagine a locality
where there are not many vacant strips and corners
which might as well be growing sweet clover as
other weeds which are not honey-producers.
May 1st, 1909.
AMOUNT OF SWEET-CLOVEE SEED TO SOW TO THE ACRE.
Mr. Root: — I believe you are advising wrongly
when you suggest sowing 4 Ibs. of hulled or 8 to 10
of unhulled sweet-clover seed per acre, for the reason
that, at any time of the year you may sow it, there
is only a part of it that will germinate the same
season it is sown, the rest not starting till the next
season. I have sown at least 25 or 30 acres, and put
on not less than 8 to 10 Ibs. of unhulled seed and
sowed it early in the spring too, and I have never
been able to get a good stand the same spring, and
the next spring the rest of the seed would come up,
and for another year I would still have only a partial
stand, so you see that leaves me until the third year
before I can have a perfect stand, as the seeding the
second year seeds itself.
I believe we should sow not less than 20 Ibs. of
unhulled seed, or 12 to 15 of the hulled per acre; then
you may rest assured you will get a stand.
I have sown several thousand acres of alfalfa, and
the ones that are successful in getting a stand are
those that are not afraid to put on at least 15 to 20
Ibs. per acre, and then your ground needs to be in
perfect order. I sowed about three acres last spring,
9
and put on about 20 Ibs. of the unhulled seed, and
I got a fine stand. Enough will come up from the
seed again this spring to give me a good stand next
spring. R. L. SNODGRASS.
Augusta, Kan., Feb 9, 1909.
SWEET CLOVER AS A FOOD FOR STOCK.
I
Last week, seeing in the cornfield sweet clover
over two feet high in bloom I thought of a writer
who said it would not grow in cultivated fields. The
large plant which I send in a separate inclosure has
grown from seed which has germinated since July 29,
when the corn was last cultivated. I also send two
young plants which have grown from seed since our
first rain, Oct. 14. The whole field was plowed late
last spring, and that part which is now covered with
a dense growth of young clover, being above the irri-
gation line, was not planted. This part of the field
was free from clover last year, and the seed must
have lain dormant two years. I consider it a good
plow-under crop. Today I counted over 100 nodules
on one plant. This coming season I hope to save
enough seed to plant ten acres, and the following
spring plow it under for corn-planting. Last week I
gave some sweet clover to a pen of young fatting
hogs which had never eaten any. They were all very
fond of it. Some horses and cattle do not relish it
ht first, but, like human beings, have to acquire an
appetite for some foods. I well remember my first
attempt to eat an olive. Now you can scarcely feed
me too many. If you have a pet Jersey cow you
Wish to have love you, and give you a good quality
of rich milk, give her a good feed of sweet clover
at milking time; but too heavy feeding with it will
give the milk a peculiar flavor.
Descanso, Cal., Dec. 5, 1908. E. P. ST. JOHN.
SWEET CLOVER.
, For several days I have been staking our cow out
in the alfalfa pasture in order to give her a little
green food. It would hardly be safe, you know, to let
her run loose and eat her fill. Yesterday I tied her
10
to the fence. There is a sprinkling of sweet clover
all along this edge of the field. What did the mis-
guided creature do but pick out and devour every
stalk of sweet clover within reach before she would
touch any of the alfalfa! Surely she ought to have
known better! Those who hold that sweet clover
is not a fit food for stock are invited to labor with
her and convince her of the error of her ways.
where it was unmolested. j. A. GREEN.
Grand Junction, Col., June 1, 1906.
SWEET CLOVER; ITS VALUE AS A FERTILIZER.
I have about six acres of sweet clover, not as thick
as I wish, but I hope to see it better in the future,
and I cut the sweet clover along the road by my
place.
There may be States in which sweet clover is
classed as a noxious weed, and so that it would be
unlawful to raise it, even on our own land. If this
is the case, it would not look well to advise raising
it there. I have found that sweet clover is worth
more for enriching the soil than it is for honey.
I dug a few potatoes yesterday where there was
sweet clover last year, and found double the yield
out of the same number of hills on the same soil.
Where the sweet clover grew, there was no manure
last year; and where the sweet clover was not, I had
a coat of manure last season. Along the railroad
and highways sweet clover does not last more than
a few years. It will grow where no plant will, and
then other plants take its place. I have in mind a
spot where the soil was removed for an embankment
— 3 or 4 feet of top soil, some one sowed sweet clover
there, and after a few years of sweet clover other
grasses have taken its place. The sweet clover pro-
duces the humus to bring about the result, and this
spoils the soil for its own growth.
A. CHAS. ARMSTRONG.
Warner, N. Y., Aug. 17, 1907.
Score another for sweet clover. The honey yield
was very light here in the fore part of the season;
but in August the sweet clover began to give down,
11
and since then some localities have secured a very
good crop, a few a really exceptional crop of nice
honey from that source. At this date, Sept. 13, the
flow still continues good.
Dr. Miller is right in saying that sweet clover is
not a desirable lawn grass, and the editor is probably
right in the belief that it could hardly get started on
a lawn that was properly cared for. It is re-
markable, though, what a dwarf can be made of the
plant by close pruning. I have seen places where
the roadside cattle had kept it closely nipped, where
the ground was covered with a close mat of it not
over two or three inches high, yet blooming pro-
fusely. A lawn of it kept in that condition would be
really pretty. But one would hardly recognize it as
a relation of the six or eight foot stuff that grew
where it was unmolested. j. A. GREEN.
Grand Junction, Colo., Oct. 15, '06.
THE EXPERIENCE OF A FARMER WHO GROWS IT FOR HIS
STOCK; HIS CATTLE WILL TAKE IT IN PREFERENCE
TO OTHER CLOVERS.
It is a common thing to hear people say that noth-
ing will eat sweet clover. Such people are either
drawing on their imagination or their experience is
limited. Now, I do not say that stock will eat sweet
clover when there is plenty of grass, but my calves
did that very thing this summer, and kept it eaten
down all fall. To try sweet clover further as a
forage-plant I turned my calves into a ten-acre
field of sweet clover with two acres of English clover
on one side of the field. I fully believe they liked
the sweet clover as well as the English.
There is no use for any one to say that nothing
will eat sweet clover, for I have seen my calves
eating it; and when I turned them into that ten-
acre field they quit coming up for their feed. It is
now Nov. 19. My sweet clover is still green, and we
have had freezing weather here. The ground had
been frozen hard.
There are three times in a year when sweet clover
is a good forage-plant^-early spring, before grass
comes on; midsummer after grass dries up, and late
12
fall. I am not sowing sweet clover alone for bees,
but am sowing for both bees and stock; and I can
say from experience that they both do well on it.
After this I expect to sow my thinnest land to sweet
clover, as I believe it to be a great land-builder.
There is one thing more that I wish to mention
about sweet clover. I fully believe that the bark
on second-year's sweet clover will make the best of
ropes.
Velpen, Ind., Nov. 19. BY W. T. DAVI^ON.
[The following, which tells how sweet clover be-
haves in Montour Co., Pa., from the American Agri-
culturist, is along the same line:]
I have been reading several articles in American Agricul-
turist on the value of sweet clover, Melilotus alba. Some
writers say it is not eaten by stock. Others say it makes
good hay when cut and stored in layers between layers of
other hay. We have it growing in every by-place along the
roadside, on stone piles and in cultivated fields. It will
grow where no other plant can live. On poor, barren land
it grows 3 to 6 feet high.
I selected one stalk having 13 branches measuring 4 to 8
feet long, grown from a single seed. The root of this stalk
was 3 feet 4 inches long with large nodules. It starts to
grow in the spring earlier than any of th^ other forage
plants. By April 10 to 15 it is from 4 to 8 inches high,
and eaten with relish by cattle and colts. Our cattle eat it
all summer ; but when allowed to grow it soon becomes
woody. The cattle then eat only the blossom ends of the
branches It is not easily cured for hay. It is very sappy ;
and, before it cures, the leaves all drop off, leaving only the
stem.
I have a piece of sweet-corn and pumpkins growing now
in an old peach orchard. The ground was very poor, and for
three years it has been covered with sweet clover. I re-
moved the old stalks that grew the preceding year, and
plowed it May 16. The clover was then 15 inches high,
and three horses could scarcely turn it. It lay until June
21, when I marked and planted it. The sod rotted com-
pletely, and the corn proved the best I ever grew.
M. S. BOND.
Articles by Mr. and Mrs. Amos.
INCREASING THE PASTURAGE BY SOWING
SWEET CLOVER.
THE WHITE AND YELLOW VARIETIES.
Last October there appeared in GLEANINGS an illus-
trated article by John Bodenschatz telling how much
13
he had increased his honey yield by scattering sweet
clover seed on waste land in his vicinity. GLEANINGS
called for a show of hands from those who could give
testimony along that line. My own experience is
similar to his, in a smaller way, as I have fewer
bees. My yield of honey is much greater, and the
quality of the honey is very much improved since
sweet clover has become an appreciable factor in .the
honey crop.
Mr..B. did not say what kind of sweet clover he
had; but it is not difficult to infer that his is the
white kind, since he spoke of its following white
clover. That is the kind to have for those who want
it to follow white clover. There is so little white
clover here that it cuts no figure in honey production,
so I have been busy every spring increasing my
acreage of the yellow kind. I grow that instead of
white clover. The first few blossoms usually open
near the end of May, and it yields freely all through
June. It slackens up in its blooming then; but after
maturing a big crop of seed it begins to bloom again.
Putting the time a month later, one might say the
same of the white as I have said of the yellow.
The bee-keeffer here who has abundance of these two
clovers is practically independent of any other honey
flora, since they supplement each other, and together
yield honey until killed off late by freezing weather.
The honey obtained here from sweet clover is
line, and I have no trouble at all in selling it at top
prices, both comb and extracted. I have these clo-
vers growing on my own farm here around the
orchard, and wherever there is a piece of ground
available. And I have also some flourishing patches
along the roadsides.
Sweet clover bears transplanting well if taken in
early spring. I like to start out armed with a spade
and a pailful of plants as well as seed when I try
to establish it in new places. I have spent hours that
way, and thought the time well spent.
Comstock, Neb., July 1, 1906. MRS. A. L. AMOS.
[Our own observation corroborates the above, to
the effect that yellow sweet clover is three or four
weeks earlier than the white. Right under our office
window are some thrifty sweet-clover plants two or
three feet high. While the white shows no blossom-
buds at all a stock of yellow is in full bloom — A. I.
R.]
SWEET CLOVER.
WHY IS NOT THE YELLOW VARIETY MOKE WIDELY KNOWN?
The little I have written in GLEANINGS started a
small avalanche of letters of inquiry to which I have
been trying to do justice. Some of these letters were
quite interesting. For instance, I got one from Cali-
fornia, in which the writer said:
Some 25 years ago I was engaged in the hardware and
seed business at Paola, Kan., and for some customer I wrote
to an eastern seed-house for a little each of the white and
yellow Bokhara clover. They were identical in habit, but
I thought the yellow contained more nectar, as the bees
were almost crazy for it, and it bloomed from early till
late. I now conclude that this is the same as sweet clover
referred to. Do you know?
I wonder what became of that yellow sweet clover
started so long ago near Paola, Kan. I wonder how
it comes that the white sweet clover is known all
over and the yellow is not.
Its great merit was recognized in some quarters
years ago.
A very interesting letter from the late Mrs. L.
Harrison was read by Mr. York at the Illinois State
Bee-Keepers' convention, held in Chicago in 1896.
She said of Melilotus ojficinalis, "This is well known,
and gaining in reputation as a forage-plant and for
bee-pasture."
When D. A. Jones, of Canada, attended the sessions
of the North American Bee-kepers' Association he
advocated the merits of what he called Bokhara clo-
ver, first, last, and all the time. Prof. Cook took a
plant in his hand that Mr. Jones brought with him,
and, standing up smilingly, said, "Look at its root.
Its only sweet clover/* So it was: but it was
Melilotus officinalis — the yellow variety. See Ameri-
can Bee Journal, 1897, page 34. Ten years ago!
15
Why has it not made greater headway to recognition?
That's what puzzles me.
I have looked in many "bee-books," manuals of
bee-keeping, to find among the honeyplants Melilotus
alba alone, instead of being accompanied by its twin-
sister, Melilotus ojficinalis. It is mentioned in the
ABC but hardly gets justice. I confidently believe
the next edition will have more to say.
I want to see merit find recognition. My experience
with the yellow sweet clover is that it is far ahead
of the white as a forage-plant. The white does not
hold its own when stock feed on it, but the yellow
does. Dr. Gandy, of Richardson Co., this State, has
had yellow sweet clover for many years, and at-
tributes to it much of his success as a honey-pro-
ducer. Mrs. Lambrigger, of Knox Co., Neb., wrote of
it with enthusiasm some ten years ago.
Comstock, Neb., May 1, 1907. MRS. A. L. AMOS.
HARVESTING SWEET-CLOVER SEED.
When, in my enthusiasm, I commenced to write of
yellow sweet clover as a honey-plant it was without
the slightest intention of going into the seed busi-
ness; but so many inquiries came to hand asking if
I could supply seed or tell where it might be ob-
tained, that I began to study whether I could not do
something toward supplying the demand. I hit upon
a plan of harvesting the seed in a small way, which
may be of interest to those who would do likewise.
I have the clover cut with a mowing-machine when
the seed has partly ripened. I have this cutting done
after a rain, or in the morning when the dew is on it,
as the seed does not shake off so ^easily when wet.
It is allowed to lie for a few days to finish ripening,
when the girls and I "go for it" as shown in the pic-
ture.
We spread the buggy canvas on the ground, and
pile on the clover. We do this in the morning when
it is wet, and allow it to lie till late afternoon, when
it is thoroughly dry and yields readily to the feet
and sticks of the young harvesters. After a vigorous
pounding and tramping we find from ten to twenty
17
pounds of seed on our canvas. We sift it twice and
put it in a sack. Our work with the clover stretches
over a week or more, and we have no very large
quantity then, but enough to supply many bee-
keepers who want only a little to try it.
Jf one wants a clover-field to be good year after
year as I do, I consider it very important to remove
the greater part of the seed. If this is not done it
sows itself too thickly. In harvesting as we do, there
is always enough left to seed the ground nicely for
another year.
Comstock, Neb., Nov. 15, 1907. MBS. A. L. AMOS.
SWEET CLOVER.
HOW THIS HONEY-PRODUCING PLANT GROWS ON THE
BANKS OF THE CHICAGO DRAINAGE CANAL.
Sweet clover, of the white variety, is found grow-
ing in such profusion on the towering banks of the
Chicago drainage canal, between Chicago and Joliet,
that apiarists are much encouraged in their at-
tempts to produce honey in paying quantities.
Before this great sanitary canal was built, a large
amount of wild clover grew in the Des Plaines Valley.
It all but covered the right of way of the railroads
traversing the region, and spread out to a wide ex-
panse of prairie land. When the constructing gangs
with their ponderous machinery of all kinds moved
down the valley, digging out the earth and stone, and
piling it mountain high on one side or the other,
much of the clover growth was dug out or covered
up.
Within the last few years, however, it has been
noticed that the clover began appearing on the rough
banks until at this time there are hundreds of acres
of it. When the bloom comes, the bees get busy, and,
as may be conjectured, they lay in a rich store of as
fine a product as may be found in any milk-and-honey
land in the world.
The accompanying pictures were made at Romeo,
Lxinois, and near the home of John J. Keig, a poultry-
honey man. He breeds and raises Buff Plymouth
20
Rocks, and also owns ten colonies of bees, from the
work of which he recently sold 500 pounds of honey.
Other property owners in the valley keep bees that
nnd the rich bloom on the canal banks and in the ad-
jacent territory. Quite recently the drainage board
had its attention called to the increase in the clover
acreage within the sanitary district, which by this
time embraces 260 square miles of territory, and no
one at this time was able to say that the great cor-
poration may not turn to producing honey within a
bailiwick in which by this time it has expended $53,-
000,000. J. L. GRAFF.
Ravenswood, 111., August 1, 1908.
On my return from California in the fall of 1903,
I was greatly impressed with the piece of engineering
as planned and carried out for that great canal.
"Vvell, there are places where the soil, stones, and
gravel are piled up, to get it out of the way, in heaps
that almost rival in size the mountains of California.
At the time of my trip, railroads were constructed
for the purpose of carrying this refuse material
wherever it was wanted for filling in for railroading
and other work. But I suppose it will be many years
before these "hills and mountains" are entirely re-
moved out of the way. The fact that sweet clover
will take root and grow, and get sustenance from the
air on such miscellaneous soils as those taken out at
a great depth in the ground, is an additional proof
of the great worth that it may have in making the
most unpromising soil productive. This reminds me
that the growth of sweet clover in the suburbs of To-
ledo is this year just wonderful. When the farming
community all get to understand the way in which
this plant does "missionary work" in restoring poor
soils, we shall recognize what a wonderful gift to
agriculture is this luxuriant sweet clover that has
been so many times called by thoughtless people a
"noxious weed." A. I. ROOT.
August 1, 1908-
21
SWEET CLOVER BUTTER, ETC.
I have fed sweet clover and sweet clover hay at
various times and for various periods during the past
ten years or more, and I never noticed any injurious
effects from it whatever. In fact, at one time when
we fed our three Jerseys for several weeks on nothing
but sweet-clover hay and bran, we decided, according
to my recollection, that it made a little nicer butter
than anything else. At any rate, private customers
gladly took it at the highest market price. The idea
of adding it to other varieties of hay is doubtless
good; but it should be done at the time the hay is
made and stacked away. I wish some of those who
are skeptical about the value of sweet-clover hay
could have watched my horses several weeks ago.
We had cut a small quantity of sweet clover for hay,
and put it into the barn alongside of the old alfalfa
hay in which the horses had been living all winter.
A few days later the young man who had been doing
the feeding came to me and said: "That sweet clover
makes fine hay. The horses like it better than
alfalfa. I have been trying to get them to use up the
old nay by mixing the new hay with it, but they will
hunt out every bit of the sweet clover before they
will eat any of the old hay."
J. A. GREEN.
Boulder, Col., July 15, 1907.
SWEET CLOVER; THE RESULTS OF SOME EXPERIMENTS IN
GROWING IT ON LOOSE AND HARD SOIL.
I noticed on p. 1048, of last year, that some one
thinks sweet clover will grow on cultivated ground
the same as anywhere else. Last spring I purchased
75 Ibs. of white unhulled sweet-clover seed, prepared
my ground (about five acres) and sowed early in
spring. It came up nicely, and it seemed as if there
would be a fine stand; but as the summer went by,
the clover gradually disappeared; and by fall there
was scarcely a stalk to be found. I think that, on
account of the ground being loose, it perished; for
during the time there was very little rain.
During a very wet spring and summer it might
22
do all right on loose ground; but in a dry time I
thinK it would be a complete failure.
I now have several hives of bees, and I wanted
tue clover for my bees, and also while it was for bees
it was for my ground also. As a soiler it has no
equal. The roots penetrate very deeply; and as it is
a biennial it dies every two years and leaves the
roots to decay in the ground, making it very fertile.
Curing the same year I sowed some on hard clay
ground, where nothing else would grow, and, to my
surprise, have a good stand.
I find that, as soon as it takes on poor clay soil,
it soon makes it fertile, and other grass soon crowds
it out, as the young plants can easily be smothered
out.
As a forage-plant it is very good. My horses and
cows are very fond of it in the spring. I sowed a
small patch a few years ago for my bees, thinking
nothing would eat it; but my cows kept it close to the
ground, a"hd not a stalk was allowed to bloom.
E. S. HUDSON.
Bedford, Ky., June 1, 1907.
SWEET CLOVER IN THE SAN LUIS VALLEY, COLORADO.
The pasture problem (for pigs) has been solved. Sweet
clover, the common roadside and ditchside pest, makes a
fine hog-pasture. When it is small and innocent, hogs like
it. As it gets older, like some folks, its nature gets tough
and bitter, and nothing likes it. Therefore, plant it for your
hogs; and as soon as it is six inches high, cut it down. with
a mower close to the ground. It will keep more hogs to the
acre than anything else ; grows anywhere, in rocks, swamps,
wet ground, dry ground, alkali ground, cinders, or anything,
and is the greatest ground-enrichener of all the legumes.
C. A. LYMAN, in The Breeders' Gazette.
SWEET CLOVER FOR PIGS AND LAMBS.
[The evidences of the value of sweet clover for
many purposes continue to accumulate. The latest
pronouncement in its favor is by the editor of The
Farm Press who has recently paid a visit to the
celebrated San Luis Valley in Colorado where are
raised the finest hogs and lambs in the United States.
What he saw is calculated to cause the people who
23
class sweet clover as a "weed" to sit up and take
notice. Please note carefully what he says.]
Alfalfa has an altitude limit which interferes with its
cultivation in some places, as it does not succeed well above
6000 feet ; but alfalfa has a fm t cousin known all over the
United States by the name of sweet clover, and these high-
altitude farmers have found out that sweet clover doesn't
discriminate between different altitudes. One man declared
that sweet clover will grow way up to the timber-line and it
will make good feed too, if properly managed.
Sweet clover gets very woody when old, but these men
pasture it down, and when it gets the start on the hogs
they put the mowing machines on with the finger-board
tilted up and cut it back to three or four inches high. This
gives it a fresh start, and the pigs fatten on the young and
tender growth. The San Luis Valley seems to have taken
the lead in lamb feeding. Seven years ago an experiment
was tried in feeding 600 ; the experiment was successful,
and the next year about 1200 were fed. These were in-
creased the third year to 12,000, and every year there-
after until 1905, when the number was estimated at 540,-
000 ; but this proved too many, at least the market at that
time was not sufficient to absorb such a great quantity at
paying prices and some of the feeders who didn't understand
the business made a failure of it. The past season about
320,000 were fed and marketed with success.
The combination of alfalfa or sweet clover with peas
works well with breeding hogs, because the little pigs, as
soon as they are able to eat, get the kind of feed that is
best for them.
SWEET CLOVER FOR PIGS — MORE ABOUT IT.
We clip the following from the Kansas Farmer of
August 22, 1907:
I should like information on sweet clover. Will it do
well if sown in September in Oklahoma? Where can I get
the seed? My land will not raise alfalfa, and I desire to
get a good plant for hog pasture. WM. QUEEN.
Woodward Co., Oklahoma.
Sweet clover can be sown in the same manner as alfalfa,
about the last week in August or the first week in Septem-
ber, and the seed-bed should be prepared as you would pre-
pare a seed-bed for alfalfa, by thoroughly disking wheat
or oats ground which is comparatively free from weeds.
The disking should be done as soon after Harvest as possi-
ble, and the land disked or harrowed at frequent intervals,
or after each rain, to conserve soil moisture and to prepare
a mellow, firm seed-bed.
Many farmers who have not been successful with alfalfa
have grown sweet clover for hog pasture, keeping the clover
clipped off so that it does not become hard and woody,
24
with the exception of one crop each year, which is allowed
to grow up and seed to furnish plants for the next year's
crop. When grown in this manner sweet clover has proven
fairly satisfactory ; but it should never be grown for hog-
pasture where alfalfa does well. Any reliable seed-house
in Kansas or Oklahoma can furnish you sweet-clover seed.
G. E. CALL.
SWEET CLOVER; LET THE BEE-KEEPERS GET BUSY AND
SHOW THAT IT IS NOT A NOXIOUS WEED.
I am feeding our horse on sweet-clover hay that,
witn permission of section foreman, I gathered off
from a railroad right-of-way week before last, after
the track men had cut it down several days before.
When I hauled it into the barn the horse would not
eat it; but after it lay in the barn a week he took
readily to it. I saved a quarter to half a ton and
wish I had saved more. I have saved sweet-clover
hay for years for horse. I think that if bee-keepers
would take more pains to use it as it is cut down
along the railroads and highways they would find it
well worth saving and sweet clover soon would be
more popular with the farmers. If bee-keepers would
experiment more in curing and using it more farmers
would be planting it. In one instance a former road-
master took lots of pains to dig up and destroy a
little of it along the street at the same time saying
lots against it. I circulated word among his neigh-
bors that I would give the first one ten dollars who
would show me an instance where it damaged a
farmer any and no one came after the money. The
plant is condemned through ignorance and through
tnoughtlessness. Considerable good but coarse hay is
left to waste that would save some one some money
as a feed for horses and cows. Every bee-keeper who
is a farmer can experiment.
ED HAINES.
Bedford, Ohio, Sept. 15, 1906.
MOKE ABOUT SWEET CLOVER; ITS VALUE TO FARMERS, ETC.
About 20 years ago I became interested in bees
through an advertisement of A. I. Root in the Farm
Journal. I got the A B C of Bee Culture, and that
25
is the first I knew of sweet clover. I found at that
time in an orchard on our own farm, about 80 rods
from home, a nice patch, probably planted there by
an old settler. I now live just across the road from
that orchard, and that patch is there yet. The land
is farmed all around that orchard, but not a plant of
that sweet clover can I find in the field ten steps
away, without any pains whatever to eradicate it
except to till the land as usual.
A few years ago many of my neighbors were afraid
of it, but now they know better. One of them asked
me if I could sell him half a bushel of the seed last
fall, as he wished to seed a little patch of bottom
erovmd where the river had washed away the soil.
Several of my neighbors have begun to sow sweet
clover on low ground where the river washes badly.
About two miles from here there is lots of sweet
clover along the roadside. Near that place are 12
acres of bottom land that was made almost worthless
by high water sweeping the soil off. An enterprising
young farmer bought this land at about half price,
he having noticed that the rains had washed the
sweet-clover seed from along the road above, down
across this field, and it had become thickly set to
sweet clover. This field had lain idle for one year
then; and as the high water came down again the
next spring this sweet clover caught lots of the
sediment, and sweet clover and all was plowed un-
der. That land is now good for 60 to 75 bushels of
corn every favorable year. That one transaction
did more to gain friends for sweet clover than ever
so many arguments.
About eight years ago I lived in Henry Co., 111., and
I cut and put up a small stack of first year's growth
of sweet clover, and in thg winter the cows seemed
to relish it as well as red clover, and much better
than timothy.
This spring I tried a little experiment. I had dug
a well 57 feet deep. The last dirt was dumped in
one pile. This was blue clay and soapstone. I then
went and dug up a plant of sweet clover and trans-
planted on this pile. That plant grew as thrifty as
26
any, and blossomed, and bore an abundance of seed.
Bees were seen on the blossoms for several weeks.
This proves that sweet clover is one of the most
wonderful nitrogen-gathering plants in existence. 1
should like to ask if sand vetch will grow on such
soil. Some time ago I saw an account where a jar
of soil was analyzed, and then a soy bean planted in
it. After the bean had made its growth it was re-
moved, and the soil was again analyzed, and the jar
of soil found to contain more nitrogen than before
the bean had grown in it; so the soy bean not only
got all its nitrogen from the air, but even stored
some from the air into the soil. The soy bean is
considered a good nitrogen-gatherer, but I doubt
whether it would grow well on soil taken 50 feet
below the surface. Of course, sweet clover must
have also potash and phosphorus, but I think my
experience shows that these elements are at a con-
siderable depth in the earth. The sweet clover would
not only gather nitrogen from the air and store it in
the soil, but it would, with its long roots, gather
the other elements from quite a depth and bring
them near the surface. Many worthless farms could
be made very valuable with this sweet clover, as
no high hill or poor steep side-hill is too poor for
sweet clover to grow on.
The wheels, etc., that move the seed from place to
place along a public highway also move the nitrogen-
gathering germs there, for it grows so well along the
highway even in barren clay banks.
Much has been said discouraging the planting of
anything for honey alone; but when we plant sweet
clover on poor soil the enriching of that soil is well
worth the trouble and expense, saying nothing about
honey. The value of sweet clover is just beginning
to be known. It deserves much more credit than it
has ever received from either the farmer or bee-
keeper. J. B. JOHNSON.
Williamsfield, 111.
27
SWEET CLOVER AS A FORAGE-PLANT IN ALABAMA/ AS A
LAND-RESTORER IT HAS NO EQUAL.
We grow a great deal of sweet clover here; and
after reading what has been said in GLEANINGS 1
inclose a few facts concerning it in this section.
They may not be worth publishing, yet they may
show forth some of the good points of sweet clover,
which have been doubted by so many.
After reading the articles on pages 1120 and 1121
concerning sweet clover I have come to the conclu-
sion that those people who speak against it haven't
tested far enough to learn the many redeeming
qualities of sweet clover outside of a remarkable
honey-plant.
As a whole this section of country grows a large
quantity of sweet clover, or melilotus, as we call it.
In the first place it was sown on waste places to re-
deem the land. As a land restorer or enricher it
has no equal here. Then the cattle-men began to see
and learn of its value for pasture. There is no
grass or clover here that fattens cattle so fast as
sweet clover does. A cattle-raiser informed me the
other day that people had told him that it wasn't
sweet clover, but Johnson grass, that fattened his
cattle. "But," said he, "I noted that my cattle didn't
gain so rapidly after the sweet clover had gone."
It makes good feed when cut at the proper time,
and the stock relish it very much, leaving their
other hay to seek out every spear of sweet clover,
and eating even the coarse stalks.
But right here, in my best judgment, is where the
good qualities of sweet clover have been overlooked,
sometimes, if not quite often, when stock have not
been raised on sweet clover they have to learn to
like it; but after once learning they never cease to
make use of an opportunity to help themselves to the
once distasteful stuff. I have known of horses that,
when first brought to this section, wouldn't eat sweet
clover at all; yet in a short time they had learned
to like it so well that, if turned out to graze, you
would see them leave all other grasses and seek out
28
a green plot of sweet clover, there to feed on their
choice of the field.
I can not speak for other sections of our country;
for no doubt soil, climate, etc., make a great differ-
ence; but here in our lime land sweet clover is fully
appreciated and much valued as a feed, pasture, and
land-enricher.
Sybil, Ala., Nov. 14. A. B. BROWN.
SWEET CLOVEE IN AUSTRALIA.
The Australian journals are having a good deal
to say at present anent the subject of yellow sweet
clover. This is due to the remarkable success at-
tained by its use on King Island, which lies a little
to the south of Australia, and which forms a part
ot Tasmania. A Mr. W. C. Macdougall, of Sydney,
has succeeded in interesting the agricultural depart-
ment with a view to the more extended trial of the
sweet clover. He says in the Journal of Agriculture
for West Australia that the seed was sown in raw
white sand, and in five or six years this was changed
to an almost dark rich loam capable of maintaining
one steer to the acre from September to January — 5
months. He further says the growth is similar to
alfalfa, and that, when cut while it is in flower, it
yields nearly two tons of excellent hay, which horses,
cattle and sheep are very fond of. The ensilage made
from it is also excellent, and yields from 5 to 7 tons
per acre of green material. For fattening and dairy-
ing purposes he says it is excellent, and that 75 per
cent of the fodder on the island is from this source,
and that both the beef and butter command the
highest market prices. Fed exclusively, it taints
the butter slightly, but not enough to injure the sale
in any way. Instead of cutting it close with a
mower, as is done in Kansas and Colorado, the King
Islanders burn it off their pastures every year, and
they think this has something to do with the rapid
improvement of the land.
In this way weeds are kept down, and a fresh
start made each year. They harrow first and sow
after, the rain and wind being sufficient to cover the
29
seed. Ten to twenty pounds of seeds are allowed to
the acre. He says the animals acquire a taste for it,
and, after being used to it, like it very much. It is
claimed that millions of acres of similar land on the
continent of Australia can be reclaimed in the same
manner by the yellow sweet clover. What is pecu-
liarly interesting about all this is that both the
soil and climate of King Island correspond almost
exactly to Florida, and, furthermore, that cattle-rais-
ing is the prominent industry as it is also in Florida.
If the experience of the Australians can be dupli-
cated in Florida we may yet live to see the "Land of
Flowers" become the leading bee State of the Union.
One thing in favor of this view is that yellow sweet
clover grows admirably in Bermuda — a milder cli-
mate than that of Florida. W. K. M.
Medina, O., Nov. 1, 1907.
SWEET CLOVER; WHAT IT HAS DONE FOB KING ISLAND.
We take the following (in addition to the above)
from a newspaper clipping furnished us by Mr. Her-
bert J. Rumsey, of Boronia, New South Wales, Aus-
tralia. If there are any farmers or other people
left who insist that sweet clover is a noxious weed
they had better read and ponder.
Many years ago, it appears, a Dutch ship was wrecked off
the island coast, and some of the sailors' mattresses were
washed ahore. These mattresses were stuffed with what is
locally known now as melilot grass, and this grass contained
a fair amount of seed, which, falling on the sandy beaches,
threw up a few tufts and in the course of years gradually
spread unt^l it now covers nearly the whole of the coastal
sandy areas.
Strictly speaking, it is not a grass at all. It is a yellow-
flowered clover, known botanically as Melilotus officinalis,
and a half-brother of Melilotus alba, commonly called Bok-
hara clover. Furthermore, being a leguminous plant it ab-
sorbs a certain amount of nitrogen from the atmosphere and
transfers it to the soil. This remark may appear slightly
superfluous to many readers, but it strikes the keynote of
Mr. Macdougall's remarks on the subject. He said in effect :
The fertilizing power of this grass is simply wonderful.
It has transformed King Island from an island of useless
sanddunes into one of the best grazing districts of the com-
30
monwealth. This wonderful grass, sown on raw white
beach sand, has in the course of five years changed the char-
acter of it until at the end of that time it has become a
dark-brown color, in some places almost black ; and its
value as soil has increased 100 per cent. Every year it is
improving the value of the land and gives increasing quan-
tities of feed. Now the export trade of King Island consists
of fat cattle, dairy produce, horses, etc., and by far the most
extensively used grass is melilot. The King Island fat cat-
tle always realize the best prices in the Tasmanian markets,
to which the first shipments are made in August, and con-
tinue till February and March in each year, over 1300 head
of fat cattle being sent away this last season. The King
Island Co-operative Butter Factory turns out butter of the
highest standard, a good quantity of which is exported to
England, and is always among those brands that realize the
highest prices. And this butter is madi- from cows whose
principal food is melilot. Sheep and horses also do re-
markably well on it. Sheep have been killed weighing up to
120 Ibs., and the two-year-old horses of King Island are as
big as the three-year-olds of Tasmania.
Melilot is very similar to lucerne in appearance, and grows
to an average height of 3 leet. It has often grown to 8 feet
high on heavy ash, in the better class of soil in the interior
of the island. The average crop of hay is two tons to the
acre, often running as high as three tons when Algerian oats
are sown with it. Cattle, horses, and, in fact, all kinds of
stock, are very fond of the hay, which has a beautiful
aroma. When cut green for ensilage it yields about five
ions per acre.
I do not wish to boom this as the best grass there is, be-
cause I know well enough it is not so. For instance, I
certainly would not advise one to discard clover, etc., for
melilot ; but what I do claim is that for any one who has
poor sandy country lying idle, this is the grass ; for it not
only gives you a large quantity of good feed, but is each
year improving the quality of the soil until it is sufficiently
rich to allow it to grow something better. For instance,
there are paddocks of lucerne growing on King Island which
would not be there now if the melilot had not improved the
ground sufficiently to allow it to do well.
Another good point is the ease with which this grass is
grown. The best way is to burn off the paddock. If scrub,
it should be fallen about six weeks or two months before,
and immediately after the fire sow the seed at the rate of
about 10 to 15 Ibs. per acre. The sooner after the fire the
better. It likes to be sown in hot ashes. The fire germinates
the seed more quickly than when unburnt. Melilot starts to
spring from March to May, and keeps green right through to
February, when it dies off, and is burned off again. It
should be burned off every year until well established. It is
an abundant seeder, and cattle and horses rapidly spread the
seed in manure. It requires seeding only once, of course.
The grazing capacity of melilot from September to January
(five months) is a beast to the acre. It is somewhat of an
acquired taste ; but when cattle get used to it they become
31
very fond of it — especially so when made into hay. This
melilot grass is indeed a wonderful plant ; and if given a
decent show it would make a lot of what is at present use-
less sand become useful grazing country ; and the seed, not
being expensive, might easily be given a trial. Dr. Cherry,
of the Victorian Agricultural Department, speaks very highly
of this grass, and it is also strongly recommended by the
Tasmanian agricultural experts £or green manuring.
King Island is this year earlier with grass than any of
the districts I saw when traveling through Gippsland and
the western districts of Victoria ; also South Australia as
far as Adelaide, and also New South Wales. At the end of
March we had 4 inches of young grass, and at present it is
about 10 inches. Drouths are unknown, and seasons fairly
regular. I feel quite sure that, if given a show, a lot of
raw sandy patches on the coast of New South Wales could
be made far more profitable than at present.
A REVELATION IN ROAD-MAKING.
We all know how desirable it is to have good roads,
and now miserably we generally fail in getting them.
The colossal ignorance of the average "highwayman"
is astonishing; but he seems to plod along, year after
year, in the same old way.
Usually, as soon as the roads become dry and rea-
sonably good in early summer, he commences with
plow and scraper, and soon has a lot of "soft stuff"
in the center, to be ground up into dust or mud as the
weather may determine. Perhaps in October he will
repeat the operation, with the same result, and will,
perhaps, congratulate himself on work well done.
Oh, yes! If there is any sweet clover growing in
the fence-corners it must be carefully cut down, al-
though the jimsons, rag-weeds, and thistles may go to
seed. Perhaps he will do a good deal of swearing at
the bee-men, who, he imagines, walk around nights
sowing the seed for his especial benefit. Likely
enough the farmers will do the swearing the rest of
the year about the bad roads.
Last July, while driving in a distant township I
struck a piece of road that was a pleasant surprise
and a revelation to me. Evidently some bee-keeper
must be road commissioner, or else he had learned
something. Here, as in so many places in Illinois,
the sweet clover was growing luxuriantly on both
sides of the road. By running a mower up and down
the road -several times during the summer it had
been kept from encroaching on the driveway. Not
only that, but the cut clover had been thrown into
the middle of the road; and how springy and delight-
ful it all was! There was no dust, and the pleasant
perfume of sweet clover filled the air. Some cattle
in an adjacent pasture were reaching through the
wire fence and feeding on the clover within reach;
and the bees were on hand by thousands, carrying
away the nectar and filling the air with their content-
ed hum. Soon I passed into another township; and,
though the sweet clover had extended for miles fur-
ther, it had all been cut and burned in the road,
leaving a scene of desolation; and, oh how dusty it
was!
Again I passed over this road in October. I had
been wallowing through the mud, and was weary
enough, when I again experienced the pleasant sen-
sation of my sweet-clover road. Instead of mud there
was that springy roadbed, without mud or dust.
Upon further investigation I found the sweet clover
had all been cut when about done blooming, and care-
fully piled in the road where the sun had soon wilted
it, and the wagon-wheels had crushed and mixed it
with the soil. Though this road ran through a level
mucky country it was the best road there was any-
where. The millions of decaying roots in the ground
on either side seemed to provide a sort of natural
drainage that seemed to carry off all surplus water.
It appeared that no work with plow or grader had
been done on it for several years, and only the intelli-
gent care of the clover had done the business.
Now, is it not possible that, aside from bee-keeping,
as so often happens, we have been making war on our
best friend? Surely the suggestions I have men-
tioned .are worth investigating. Sweet clover has
come to stay; and, whether we are bee-keepers or
not, had we not better turn it to some account?
C. H. DIBBERN.
Milan, 111., July 1, 1899.
33
CUTTING SWEET CLOVER FOE HAY.
Sweet clover cut after a large proportion of the
blossoms have appeared will still make very fair hay.
Back in LaSalle Co., 111., the roadsides in many places
are lined for miles with sweet clover. The law re-
quires the road commissioners to cut this. The time
they generally do this is when the sweet clover is in
full bloom. Of course, I did not enjoy seeing the
mower start on the roadside just when the bees were
doing so nicely, but there was no use in objecting.
Last season, though, I thought I would see if I could
not make some use of the clover after it was cut. It
had been cut after it had been in bloom for about
two weeks, and the plant was quite mature. So I
raked up a lot of this clover along tne highway and
put it into the barn. It was just then a very busy
season of year for me, and I could not give much time
to haying, so that several loads were left out a great
deal longer than they ought to have bee'n. It was so
dry that the leaves would all drop off if any attempt
was made to handle it after the dew was off in the
morning. Some of it was rained on, and none of it
had less than two days of hot sun, most of it several
days. Yet in spite of this bad treatment my stock,
both horse and cattle, liked it and throve on it. It
looked more like hazel brush than hay, and the cattle
would not eat all of the coarse woody stalks, though
the horse would eat most of it up clean. I have seen
the horse come in from a good blue-grass pasture and
pitch into that sweet-clover hay like a small boy into
a watermelon.
The proper way to cut sweet clover for hay, though,
is to cut it before it comes into bloom, being careful
not to cut it too close to the ground. In this way it
will grow again, branching out freely and giving a
good crop of honey after the ordinary growth is past
its prime. I cut a small patch of sweet clover this
way this season. It made excellent hay, and 'I think
the second crop yielded more honey than if it had
been cut.
The browsing of stock, if not carried too far, is
often beneficial in the same way. If given free access
to it they will sometimes keep it eaten so close that
it will have no chance to bloom, though it is not
easily discouraged. I have seen the ground quite
white with sweet-clover blossoms on plants not over
two inches high.
Another way to get a crop of hay from sweet clover
without affecting the honey crop is to cut the clover
the first season, cutting it very late. I have never
tried this more than once, but the experiment was
very successful. A fair crop of very good hay was
the result, and the clover was not damaged at all.
1 intended to try this on a larger scale, but my re-
moval here upset my plans.
Some of the Utah bee-keepers that I met at the
Denver convention told me that, in their part of the
State, sweet clover was extensively raised for hay.
I have also been told that in some of the Southern
States it is raised largely as a forage plant. It might
be a profitable thing to get some of these men to tell
us how it is done on a commercial scale. I am con-
vinced that there are still undeveloped possibilities
in sweet clover. J. A. GREEN.
Grand Junction, Col., Nov. 26, 1899.
HEAVIER TESTIMONY STILL IN REGARD TO SWEET CLOVER
AS A FORAGE PLANT.
Mr. Root. — I have been reading in GLEANINGS for
and against sweet clover. Well, I have had a good
deal of experience with it myself, and consider it a
valuable plant as a forage for cattle and horses. If
cut and allowed to wilt, cows eat it readily and thrive
upon it, giving finely flavored milk and butter. Many
acres of it are grown here around the shores of Utah
Lake, upon land so heavily charged with mineral
(alkali) that other crops will not grow at all, just
for the purpose of reclaiming the land. After the
clover crop, good crops of grain will grow. In addi-
tion to the value of the tops, the roots are also (/con-
sider) more valuable, being one of the best root crops
grown for cattle. Why, cows are just crazy for them.
How I found this out was, I plowed up a five-acre
piece of sweet-clover land in the fall of the year, seven
35
years ago, after the crops had been gathered and the
cattle turned into the fields. Imagine my surprise
on seeing them all gather upon this piece of plowed
land and eat those clover roots down. The cows al-
most doubled their flow of milk. This lasted for
weeks until the land was tramped so solid that they
could not get another root out of it, and the plowing,
I think, didn't do much good. In addition to these
values the plant is valuable as a fiber-producing plant.
A number of years ago, at one of our county fairs I
saw some fine towels made of the fiber of sweet clover.
They looked much like linen, and were very strong.
too much for sweet clover. I have no seed to sell.
ELIAS JOHNSON.
Provo City, Utah, Feb. 17.
SWEET CLOVER IN DAKOTA.
Mr. D. Danielson, of this vicinity, is a wide-awake
farmer and bee-keeper. He raises melilotus right
along, and cuts it when in bloom, for hay. He con-
siders it excellent food for horses, as well as a good
bee plant, and does not deem it a noxious weed in
this fertile soil. Mr. C. Jantz, of Marion, a farmer and
Dee-keeper, has been raising sweet clover for several
years. He tells me that he tried to get a stand in
his pasture, hoping the cows would leave enough so
as to reseed it; but they, instead, hunted it and kept
it cropped down close to the ground. He also says
that the milk and butter from sweet clover have a
most delicious flavor.
I saw a patch of it at Mr. Jantz's last summer that
was, without stretching it an inch, ten feet high. I
have tried to make it choke out unseemly patches of
sunflower and rag weed, but this, I think, it can't
ao in this country. The great leaves of these plants
cover the ground so completely that nothing else can
come through. Though we have some nice fields of
alfalfa hereabouts, I fear it is a little dry for this
kind of clover; and I think that, when sweet clover
shall become better known, it will prove an excellent
plant for this region. S. J. HARMELING.
Marion, S. D., Dec. 27, 1899.
36
SWEET CLOVER FOR BEES AND STOCK IN ILLINOIS.
This clover is one that yields a large amount of
honey. It begins to bloom in this latitude in the early
part of July, usually; some seasons a little earlier,
others a little later. By the time white and alsike
clover and basswood are going out of bloom, sweet-
clover is well out in bloom; and where abundant a
continuous bloom will be had for securing surplus
honey of two months or more. When a part of this
clover is pastured or mown for hay, such will bloom
the second time, and continue in bloom until after
hard frosts. I have seen bees working on this bloom
in October, when all other honey-yielding plants were
killed with one exception, that being giant white-
spiral mignonette, which is sometimes grown in
flower-gardens.
Sweet clover stands drouth well, but gives a better
yield of honey and pasture with frequent showers.
The honey is light in color, but, to my taste, not of
as fine a flavor as that from white or alsike clovers
or basswood. In the dry regions of the West, sweet
clover and alfalfa have proved valuable plants for
bees and stock. The hay is largely fed to stock.
Here cattle pasture on it freely, and the hay has
seemed to give good satisfaction, as stock soon learn
to like it.
This plant should be grown in all waste places, and
thus take the place of the noxious weeds which grow
there.
For hay this clover should be cut while stalks and
leaves are a bright green, and before any seed-stalks
appear. A large amount is grown on an acre when
a good stand is secured.
The plant is not so hard to get rid of when de-
sired as some suppose. When the land is broken up
and cultivated the plant is gone, and no further
trouble need be feared any more than from other
clovers. Pasturing the field so no seeds mature has
the same effect if kept up one or two summers. Some
farmers in this State are growing large fields of this
clover for feeding to stock in pasture and hay, so f
am credibly informed.
37
In sowing the seed the ground should be made fine
and rather firm, as better results are so secured than
when the ground is left loose to quite a depth. It
blooms the next year after sowing the seed.
Milledgeville, 111., Aug., 1899. F. A. SNELL.
HOW TO GET KID OF IT, ETC.
Mr. E. Smith's advice to L. A. Sawyer in regard to
getting rid of sweet clover is sound. It is just what
they do here, and (I am sorry to say) they succeed,
bweet clover is termed a noxious weed in this locality.
Street commissioners, road supervisors, and railroad-
section foremen have strict instructions to cut it be-
fore it blooms. In this, however, they do not always
succeed; but they do as a rule get at least the most of
it cut before it can ripen its seeds.
As I saw this wholesale destruction I remonstrated
vigorously, and I used A. I. Root's well-known phrase,
* ic will never trespass on cultivated soil, or any pas-
ture;" but there I got my foot in it. I was shown
nlaces where it had got a rod or more into a pasture
field and also in meadow.
Will cattle not eat it? Yes, they do; but not as
long as they have plenty of June grass; and by the
time June grass is scarce the clover is too big. If
the farmers would cut it only once, then the cattle
would take care of it after the June grass is gone.
A year ago last August my bees were storing honey
fast, and it all came from the sweet clover. We had
had some rain, which had started the clover anew.
One day I went to Plasterhead, about three miles dis-
tant, and along the roads I saw a sight of beauty—-
the fresh green of sweet clover, and only 6 or 8 inches
high, loaded with bloom, and my bees were fairly
swarming on it. A flock of half-starving cattle and
pigs tried in vain to get their heads through the fence
and get a bite of it; but as I returned, three men
were at work, cutting down the "noxious weed" that
the starving cattle were not allowed to get a bite of;
and next day my bees began robbing. I had 62 colo-
nies, and might have got many pounds of honey had
it been left; but it is a "noxious weed," and must go.
Port Clinton, O., Feb. 7, 1899. JULIUS JOHANNSEN.
QUALITY OF THE HONEY.
I see so many running down Melilotus alba that I
feel like saying something in its behalf. It is the
first of our forage-plants to come in the spring, and
the last to be killed down in the fall. Stock eat it
readily until it becomes rather woody, and even then
eat the smaller shoots. We grow it for pasture, for
- ay, and as a honey-plant. We have no trouble what-
ever in getting rid of it here. Our greatest trouble is
in keeping it set where stock is allowed to run on it.
Melilotus being a biennial, we either have to keep
stock off or resow every two years. It makes a rather
thrifty growth on our thinnest soil, and even where
the soil is washed, leaving the white limestone ex-
posed, you will find our melilotus there by itself. We
keep from 40 to 50 colonies of bees, and almost our
entire crop of honey is from this plant. Our extracted
is almost transparent (that is, almost water-white),
and of a splendid mild flavor.
My uncle (a nurseryman), from Southern Illinois,
was with us during the holidays just past. He pro-
nounced our melilotus. honey as good as the best. We
usually sell all we get here at home, and have none
for sale now. Hence it can not be said that we have
an ax to grind because we praise it, but because we
think we have a valuable forage and honey-plant in
melilotus. L. H. GOULD.
Crawford, Mass., Feb. 1, 1899.
SWEET CLOVER IN COLORADO.
It is remarkable that sweet clover can be made to
grow where nothing else will take root. I have seen
it on the alkali lands of Colorado and California —
lands where nothing could exist, except, perhaps, a
kind of alkali weed that is absolutely useless to
either man or beast; and yet we hear how sweet
clover is regarded as a noxious weed by State legis-
latures and township trustees. Even in this State,
mayors are ordered to cut down along municipal
roadsides all weeds, including sweet clover, and yet
tLere is nothing so good as a soil-binder for loose
39
lands as sweet clover. I should not be surprised if
it were worth millions of dollars to railroad com-
panies to prevent the washing away of embankments,
for that is where it does best, on hard yellow clay 01
other soil where nothing else can grow and take root.
There are big dumps near Cleveland where refuse,
cinders, and slag of e'very sort are thrown; but I
have noticed how sweet clover seems to find its way
along the edges of these dumps, and it seems to be
creeping all over, making the waste land productive
of at least some good. A. I. ROOT.
September, 1903.
SHEEP EATING SWEET CLOVER.
I see in last GLEANINGS that Mr. Sawyer is giving
you a pretty hard going-over about sweet clover. Tell
him we have had it growing in our place for 16 or 18
years, and it only just about keeps going, and we
have favored it to keep it growing, in black prairie
soil at that. If Mr. Sawyer will spend his $50.00 in a
small flock of sheep, and let them tend his sweet
clover, I do not think it will hurt his land or the
sheep either. Ours eat it greedily.
H. C. SEARS.
Thornburg, Iowa, Dec. 8, 1899.
IS SWEET CLOVER A NOXIOUS WEED?
Mr. William Stolley, of Nebraska, gives a remark-
auiy interesting talk on sweet clover — how to raise it,
use it, and control its growth. Among many good
points he makes, I note the following: "In Nebraska
it will furnish most excellent bee-pasture up to the
time when frost kills all vegetation, and sweet clover
is the very last to succumb. For early spring pas-
turing of cattle, particularly milch cows, there is
nothing better than sweet clover." "It runs out all
noxious weeds, perfumes the air, and feeds the bees.'
"A public road, well and evenly seeded with melilot
but the growth of it properly checked at the proper
time, is a thing of great beauty, and there is nothing
bad about it, but, instead, it furnishes a bee-rancb
hard to beat."
YELLOW SWEET CLOVER.
I have demonstrated that yellow sweet clover is not
an annual, as some writers have claimed, but a bi-
ennial, the same as the white variety. I have now
a small plot of the yellow in my garden, which is
two feet in height, and will soon be in bloom. It
blooms from two to three weeks earlier than the
white, which is a desirable feature. It grows a finer
stalk, but not so tall as the white. My plot of the
yellow was all destroyed, except one root, in Feb.,
1899, by the hard freeze; but whether it is less hardy
than the white I can not say at present. I can say
this, however, that it would be a difficult thing in
this locality to cnke the average farmer believe that
the white variety ever winter-kills.
M. M. BALDBIDGE.
St. Charles, 111., May 23, 1900.
SWEET CLOVER IN TEXAS; IS IT A "BAD WEED" ON
THE FARM?
I had about 30 acres or my larm in sweet clover
in 1898, and it paid me over $3.00 per acre, which is a
good rent for average land here. I have about 28
acres this year, and I would continue it on my farm
if it were not for my neighbors' bees, which get as
much honey as I do, or more. About the last days
of May, 1898, the bees were without stores, very little
brood, and quite weak; yet the crop of honey taken
that year paid me over $100, besides keeping it on
the table all the time for six or eight in family, and
tne principal part of the crop was from sweet clover.
It makes good pasture in early spring, and, if turned
under after blooming, it will tell on a wheat crop.
Last summer, while breaking the clover land, I
fastened a piece of domestic cloth on and above my
disk plow, and caught quite a lot of the flying seed
while plowing. I have been sowing the seed all
around the fences on the farm. I prefer raising hon-
ey instead of weeds and bushes. J. H. RODERICK.
Dodd City, Tex., Feb, 28, 1900.
41
AN ARGUMENT FOR THOSE WHO INSIST THAT IT IS A BAD
WEED.
When I began keeping bees, 15 or 16 years ago,
there was an abundance of sweet clover growing
along the railroad near where I lived; and although
I knew very little about bees I took from 75 to 150
Ibs. of honey per colony. A law was passed com-
pelling the railroads to cut all bushes, weeds, etc.,
along their tracks, and they soon destroyed the sweet
clover. Then my honey-yields shrunk to from 25
to 50 Ibs. per colony, notwithstanding my increased
knowledge of the business. Since coming here (three
years this coming spring) I have sown 140 Ibs. of
sweet clover, and have very little to show for it. I
have about 20 acres on my farm that will raise fair
crops of rye, corn, buckwheat, etc., and I am willing
to pay $100 to have it well seeded to sweet clover.
Here is a chance for Mr. Lewis A. Sawyer, or some
other sweet-clover kicker. H. J. NORTHRUP.
Jonesville, N. Y., Jan. 5, 1899.
ITS VALUE FOR BRINGING UP POOR GROUND AND UNPRO-
DUCTIVE CLAY.
Right adjoining our premises is a bank of earth
thrown out of a railroad cut. This soil came out
01 the cut from a depth of ten or twelve feet. Some
years ago I got permission of the railway company
to use it by way of experiment. Of course, nothing
would grow on it — that is, nothing but sweet clover,
which is already along the railroad. We let it grow
up and scatter seed until last spring, when I saw
there was a dense growth of thick, succulent stalks,
aoout two feet high. When we were plowing under
the clover in the field adjoining, I directed our
folks to turn under the sweet clover, and said
we would try it with Carman potatoes. The potatoes
came up rank and strong, to my great surprise, and
we have just been digging them, and I was sur-
prised again to find some of the handsomest, cleanest
potatoes on that hard, unproductive clay bank that
I ever raised anywhere. There was not a particle
42
of scab, no work of wire worms or grubs; and the
crop that we got was at the rate of at least 100
bushels per acre. From this experiment I infer that
sweet clover is not only worth as much to turn under
as any of the common clovers, but I should say even
more. — GLEANINGS, Nov. 1, 1900.
AN ESTIMATE OF ITS VALUE PER ACRE AS A HONEY-PLANT.
Bees have done very poorly for me this season
on account of cold wet weather in June, losing a few
hives by actual starvation before I was really aware
of it; and if it had not been for a three-acre field
of white sweet clover I should have lost more as
this patch kept about fifty hives in fair condition.
In fact, they went far ahead of the out-apiaries. I
have sown this season five acres more, and next
spring I intend to put out about forty acres more,
as I can rent land for this purpose at $1.50 per
acre. I intend to put out mostly the yellow variety,
as it comes in just at a time when there is nothing
else, and the blooming-period is longer; but the three
acres of white, I am satisfied, was worth to me this
season $30.00, and I also have considerable seed
from it. R. L. SNODGRASS.
Gordon, Kan., Oct. 2, 1903.
SWEET CLOVER AT THE OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION.
Below is the decision of the Ohio Experiment Sta-
tion, sent out in the form of a newspaper bulletin
in 1898:
Many portions of Ohio have the roadsides and other sod-
den or "out of tilth" lands occupied by the white sweet-
clover plant (Melilotus alba, L.). Since it has been regard-
ed as a noxious weed the former Ohio Statute placed it in
the same list of proscribed plants with Canada thistle, com-
mon thistle, oxeye daisy, wild parsnip, wild carrot, teasel,
burdock, and cockle-burs.
Under the operation of this statute, private lands might
be entered upon to destroy the melilotus growing for any
purpose, as for bee-pastures. The destruction of bee-pastures
in this manner actually occurred near Delaware.
Rightly, then, it may be asked, "How shall we rank sweet
clover?" To answer this we must consider where sweet
clover grows and what is its character. Sweet clover grows
spontaneously along tramped roadsides, even to the wheel-
ruts in abandoned roadways, and in tramped or sodden land
43
anywhere. When found in meadow lands it appears not to
occur except when the ground has been tramped by stock
when wet. It grows by preference in old brick-yards. It
may be grown in fields by proper tillage.
The character of sweet clover may be now determined.
Viewing it in no other light we thus see that sweet clover
grows luxuriantly in places where few or no other plants
flourish. But it belongs to the great class of leguminous
plants, which are capable, by the aid of other organisms, of
fixing atmospheric nitrogen and storing it in the plant-
tissues. It belongs with the clovers, and it may thus be used
to improve the land upon which it grows, and this appears
to be its mission. It occupies lands that have become un-
fitted for good growth of other forage-plants. Its ranks,
then, is as a useful plant, capable of increasing fertility of
land.
How shall sweet clover be treated?
The character determined, the treatment to be accorded
this clover-plant is really settled. The plant is the
farmer's friend, to be utilized and not to be outlawed. The
plant grows and spreads rapidly. So do red clover, white
clover, timothy, blue grass, and other forage-plants ; but
sweet clover grows where they do not ; it indicates lack of
condition for the others. Viewed in this way it is to be
treated as preparing unfitted lands for other crops.
It may be mown a short time before coming into bloom ,
and cured for hay. Stock will thrive upon it if confined to
it until accustomed to it. The roadsides, if taken when free
from dust, may be made almost as profitable as any other
area in clover by cutting the sweet clover and *uring for hay.
If this is regularly attended to while stock is kept from
other lands that it invades, sweet clover will be found doing
always the good work for which it is adapted.
ITS HABIT OF GROWING ON POOR SOILS.
Several years ago the B. & 0. R. R. opened a gravel-pit
at Belpre, O., for ballasting the track and constructing fills.
Sweet clover first made its appearance in this region, so far
as my observation goes, on the fill forming the approach to
the Parkersburg bridge. This fill was made of gravel taken
from the Belpre gravel-pit.
Last week as I passed by this pit, now thirty feet deep,
I noticed sweet clover growing as thick as it could stand in
the bottom. This gravel deposit is of combined glacial and
alluvial origin with an occasional true boulder, brought down
by the river from the glaciated part of the State. Was the
seed deposited with the gravel ? Dana, in his geology, speaks
of plants growing from sand taken from the bottom of a
well dug a few miles from the seacoast. There were no
plants of the variety growing near the well, but they were
found growing on the seashore. No doubt the well had
tapped soil which at one time had formed the sea-beach.
[The above was sent us May 1, 1902, in the shape
of a newspaper clipping, so we can not tell what
paper it was taken from. It emphasizes the fact
made by Professor Thorne, of our experiment sta-
tion, that sweet clover, as a rule, occupies ground
where no other plant would grow; but after the
sweet clover has got a start, and has been plowed
under, various farm crops may be grown success-
fully._Ea]
SWEET CLOVER CONTRASTED WITH ALFALFA.
The following paragraph by Mr. W. A. Varian, of
Dublin, in regard to sweet clover, seems so pertinent
and well written that I copy it just as it is.
Sweet clover, or Bokhara clover, as it is variously named
in the United States, is a biennial. When grown from seed
in the spring, it makes a fine growth for hay, or green feed
for cattle in the late summer ; but it does not flower in its
first season after sowing. The second-year growth starts
earlier than alfalfa (lucerne), so there is a good "bite" for
stock before the latter shows. In fields where both are
growing, these young plants look very much alike. The
melilotus, however, will endure as much drouth as alfalfa,
while it will do well on a much wetter soil than the latter.
It cares nothing for the hard winters of the Western United
States. I believe it was introduced into the States from
Tartary as a dry-weather forage-plant for stock, but was not
taken kindly to by the ranchmen, and has since spread as a
weed all over the West, from Michigan to Colorado, during
the past twenty-eight years. This result comes about be-
cause it sprouts in spite of the small attempts of the care-
less, slovenly farmer, and grows wild along the sides of
roads, railways, and irrigation ditches. It also spreads over
neglected corners and commons, apparently not caring how
hard or poor the soil is, where the climate suits, for I
have seen it growing as high as 5 feet when in flower. The
plant bears a great number of insignificant-looking bunches
of little white flowers which give out a strong smell of honey,
quite perceptible some distance away. — GLEANINGS, JAN.
1, 1901.
HULLED SWEET-CLOVER SEED SETS AS QUICKLY AS AL-
FALFA, ALSIKE, ETC.; THE HULLED
REQUIRES SIX MONTHS.
The articles in GLEANINGS on the subject of sweet
clover are very interesting. I bought a few pounds
of The A. I. Root Co. in the fall of 1909. The
yellow was hulled, the white was unhulled. I sowed
both varieties in September. The yellow hulled seed
45
came up in ten days, but the white showed no life.
On page 828, June 15, 1907, J. A. Green says the white
hulled seed came up very promptly, while the yellow
unhulled came up best the following spring. 1
think our combined experience shows that hulled
sweet clover seed of either variety will germinate
just as quickly as alfalfa, alsike, or any of the clover
family, while the unhulled seed requires six months,
or time to rot the hull before it comes up, thereby
removing the bar that has been following sweet clover
— that is, that it invariably takes six months to
germinate.
As clover honey granulates quite readily the
apiarist is fortunate if he lives where gallberry
(holly), mountain sage, or snowdrop grows. The
snowdrop grows on the open hills or in dense forest
growth in my locality. It is a fine-growing shrub,
never over four feet high, with a small pink bell-
shaped flower that produces an abundance of water-
white honey in June. The seed is produced in white
berries that hang on all winter. I have a bottle
of this honey mixed with clover three years old that
has frozen repeatedly, and has just commenced to
granulate. P. F. GEORGE.
Eraser, Idaho, Feb. 16, 1910.
Sweet-clover Notes from Dr. C. C. Miller,
Marengo, 111.
Last summer our cow-pasture was, perhaps, one-
fourth covered with sweet clover. It grew rank, but
the cow didn't seem to care for it. Still, there was
so much of it that it would hardly be noticed if she
ate quite a bit. But the grass was also luxuriant
and abundant, and she evidently preferred that. By
and by there came a dry time, a very dry time, and
pastures were brown. Then it was that the sweet
clover showed its value. It remained cheerfully green
while the grass about it was dry and parched. It
had, however, run up to six feet and more in height;
46
I
Fig. 2— Luxuriant growth of sweet clover at Dr. Miller's.
and if you stop and look meditatively at a solid
mass of sweet clover six feet high you'll realize that
there's a lot of feed in it. Gradually it was reduced
in height (although, of course, the cow didn't eat
from the top down) until finally it was reduced to a
height of two feet or so, as you will see by Fig. 1
from a photo taken Sept. 3, 1906. Compare this with
48
The Purity of the
SWEET-CLOVER SEED
Sold by The A. I. Root Co. is Attested to by the
U. S. Government
READ THIS LETTER:
Brooks^ille, Ky., March 13, 1911.
The A. 1. Root Co., Medina, Ohio.
Gentli-ruen: — Borne lime agx» I sent to you for a
samrle of your white and yellow sweet-c'o^tr seed.
After receiving the samples I sent them to Washing-
ton, D. C. The yellow hullM tested 99.71 per cent of
pure s?eed; the pnhulled white tested 99.11 per cent of
pure seed. I think that is fine. 1 inclose you the sam-
ple that you sent me. and want you to send me 80 Ibs.
of the same lot that this sample is out of, or some
equally good. Send the s^ed by freight.
Yours truly, H. A. JBTT.
We have a booklet, published for free distribu-
tion, which tells THE TRUTH ABOUT
SWEET CLOVER. Ask for your copy.
PRICES
In lots of— 1 ib.
Hulled Yellow Annual
(Melilotus Indica) , Ib. 17c
Hulled YellowBiennial
(MelilQtu* officinalis) .
Hulled White
Unhulled White (M ell-
lotus alb") per Ib
The prices are all subject to market changes.
As to the comparative value of the different
varieties, we will say that the white, or Meli-
lotuft alba, is most common, and therefore the
best known. The yellow is desirable because
it begins blooming usually from two to four
weeks earlier than the white. As to the two
varieties of yellow, one of the experiment
stations has said there was a distinction with-
out a difference.
The A. I. Root Company, Medina, O.
10 Ib. 25 Ib. 100 Ib.
15C 14c 13C
20c
25c
18c
22c
17c
21c
16c
20c
17c 15c 14c ISc
MAY 6, 191 1
3h was
is not
id that
mding,
elected
lid the
I held
From
I may
that's
r than
throw-
5 eaten
tender
:s it of
>wth is
present
d have
t.
us the
h you;
/hy the
single
a yard
te only
,ommis-
>uld be
t some
cucum-
L honey
i stored
> down
m that
) much
u how.
,he bees
would go through till clover harvest without any
feeding. But at the opening of the harvest there
would be a good deal of empty space in the brood-
49
•
Fig. 2— L
and if yo
mass of s~v
there's a L
in height
from the tujj uu»»u; uiuu iiiiany it was "reduced to a
height of two feet or so, as you will see by Fig 1
from a photo taken Sept. 3, 1906. Compare this with
48
the height of the single stalk in Fig: 2, which was
taken the same day. But the comparison is not
entirely fair, for No. 2 grew on rich low ground that
had the wash from the elevated ground surrounding,
and this stalk growing alone was especially selected
on account of its unusual height. I was afraid the
slender top might not show in the picture, so I held
a dried weed beside it at the same height. From
the ground to the top was just nine feet. I may
have seen taller sweet clover, but I'm sure that's
the tallest I ever measured.
That the cow does not eat it down lower than
shown is a good thing, for each plant is bushy, throw-
ing out fresh growth on all sides as fast as eaten
off, thus furnishing a constant supply of tender
growtn until freezing weather. It also makes it of
greater value for the bees, for the fresh growth is
always blossom growth, and if you had been present
at the time the picture was taken it would have
reminded you of bees working on buckwheat.
Some one will say: "But I thought you told us the
honey crop of 1906 was an entire failure with you;
and if the bees were so busy on sweet clover why the
failure?" My dear sir, a pasture-field for a single
cow is not a very large field of operation for a yard
full of bees. To be sure, that was not the only
sweet clover within reach, but the road commis-
sioners took care that not much of it should be
allowed to blossom on the highways. Yet some
credit should be given to sweet clover and cucum-
bers, for, besides having the hives heavy with honey
for winter, I had some combs filled that I have stored
away for next spring. Just wait till I go down
cellar, and I'll tell you how many there are. . . .
There are 248, most of them full, and from that
down to half full.
I count those combs much the same as so much
white-clover honey in sections. I'll tell you how.
The hives are, I think, heavy enough so that the bees
would go through till clover harvest without any
feeding. But at the opening of the harvest there
would be a good deal of empty space in the brood-
49
chamber, and that space would have to be filled be-
fore the bees would devote much attention to the
supers. Now, if I take away combs that are empty,
or nearly so, replacing them with these reserve combs,
don't you see that every pound of such honey thus
given means another pound of white-clover honey in
ti,.e sections? Besides, it's a "dreadful* comfortable
feeling to know that you are fully provided against
any contingency if any colony in spring should be
snort of stores.
I have always thought I didn't care for yellow swt t
clover, because it comes two to four weeks in r i-
vance of the white, right when white clover is doi.ig
its best. But last season made me change my
mind; for white clover didn't do its best, although
blooming abundantly; and if the yellow is an un-
failing yielder the same as white sweet clover .(and
I suppose it is), then the yellow would come in very
handy.
In the eyes of the general public, sweet clover is
a very noxious weed whose first encroachment must
be carefully watched, lest it get a foothold and
spread persistently and promiscuously. The great
objection in the eyes of the bee-keeper is that it is
so hard to get a stand of it. I have tried several
times to get a solid field of it, but have not yet suc-
ceeded. This cow-pasture comes the nearest to a suc-
cess of anything I've »had, and I did not try to get
a stand there.
I'd like to have a solid field of it so I could have
some hay that was nothing but sweet clover. My
stock care more for it dried than green, and I suppose
tnat is the general experience. The horses care
more for it than the cow, but other cows may care
more for it than ours.
SWEET CLOVER IN GERMANY.
Friend A. I., I send you a picture out of Centralblatt
to show you how sweet clover grows in the German
language. It was windy when the picture was taken,
so the plants don't show as well as they might; but
Herr Reepen says the average height of the stalks
50
back of the man and boy is 9 feet 10 inches, and the
one stalk that Herr Wegener is holding in his hand
is 10 feet 8 inches high.
But what I wanted you more particularly to notice
is the growth of the potatoes this side of the man and
boy. Those in the foreground, as you see, have
made a poor growth, while the three rows next the
sweet clover have grown most luxuriantly. And yet
they were planted with the same seed and at the
same time. Herr Reepen thinks the difference must
come from the nitrogen gathered by the sweet clover
It seems as if there must have been some other dif-
ierence, perhaps accidental, but still it may be worth
while to make some experiment to see whether any-
thing like the same difference might be made in this
country. I commend the case to your consideration.
C. C. MILLER.
Marengo, 111., April 15, 1899.
[I should be exceedingly glad to submit to our read-
ers the picture sent us. It looks to me as though the
ranker and stronger growth of the potatoes close up to
the sweet clover may be accounted for partly by the
shade. If the soil was sandy or gravelly, the sun was
likely too hot for them in the open field; and this
great mass of sweet clover would not only shade the
potatoes, but if there were an abundance of rain it
might also help to keep them damp longer than those
standing out in the full blaze of the sun. I wish our
German people would tell us through Dr. Miller, or in
some other way, how much sweet clover is worth for
feeding stock in the "Fatherland."]
Farmers' Bulletin No. 18 says of sweet clover: "As
a restorative crop for yellow loam and white lime
lands this plant has no superior; and for black prairie
soils it has no equal." [In some parts of the great
West there are what are called "alkali lands." Irri-
gation for a series of years has forced the alkali
out of the soil to the surface, with the result that
•j kills everything except pear trees, salt weeds and
sweet clover. I know a spot in Western Colorado
— perhaps the finest location in the world — where
there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of acres
of alkali land covered with nothing but sweet
clover, for nothing else will grow. A bee-keeper
wuom I know located in that vicinity struck a bo-
nanza, for no ranchman or farmer will invade his
territory — at least not till all the other available
land is taken up. The time may come, when land
is scarce, when the ranchman will be called on to
use the alkali land and grow sweet clover for a
hay crop. Then, perhaps, the world will wake
up and discover that it is not an enemy but a
friend. — ED.]
DR. C. C. MILLER in GLEANINGS.
Clippings from The Rural New-Yorker.
There has been a great development in public opin-
ion regarding the value of sweet clover. Up to this
season most farmers who ever saw it growing have
regarded it as a weed. Many have seen it growing
along the line of railroads and classed it with burdock
or ragweed. It now appears that sweet clover is one
of the hardiest of the legumes, that it will grow in
poor soils where other clovers die, and that it is
one of the best crops to introduce alfalfa. The sweet
clover is winning its way to a fair place among the
plants to be tested. — March 19, 1909.
Sweet clover is a wayside weed. Most people
think it a pest. We are beginning to see that it has
noble qualities. An orphan asylum in an Ohio city
refuses to tell people adopting children from it any-
thing about the parentage of the orphans. Whether
sprung from wayside weeds or from the budded plants
of hereditary culture, no one about the child knows.
The results seem to show that most of our common
human weeds are precious plants so long as no one
can call them weeds and prove it. To have wasted
the melilotus for so long is a blunder, perhaps; but
how much greater the tragedy when we recklessly
52
tag a human being as bad and thus make him so.
And are we not doing this all the time?
Perhaps in the last analysis there are no really
noxious plants — nor bad people.
SWEET CLOVER IN ILLINOIS.
Last year, in an article headed "Sweet Clover," I.
A. Thayer suggests that land might be inoculated for
alfalfa by the previous production of a crop of sweet
clover, because of the fact that the sweet clover bac-
teria appear to be identical with the alfalfa bacteria.
I beg to call attention to the fact that land which
needs to be inoculated for alfalfa also needs to be
inoculated for sweet clover. On the ordinary prairie
soil in Illinois we have more than doubled the yield
of sweet clover by proper inoculation, and the inocu-
lated crop is also very much richer in nitrogen than
that grown without inoculation. It should be re-
membered that the natural means by which sweet
clover becomes disseminated will commonly provide
for the dissemination of infected soil as well as for
the dissemination of the seed. Thus, if sweet clover
is growing along the roadside and some seeds are
picked up by a wagon wheel and dropped off a mile
or two farther on, the infected soil is likely to be
carried with the seed. If the seed is carried by
running water from one place to another, of course,
the bacteria are likely to be carried with it.
University of Illinois. CYEIL G. HOPKINS.
SWEET CLOVER, MELILOTUS ALBA.
This plant has interested me for several years. In
this vicinity are large patches of it, and I have
been studying it in its growth, its nitrogen content,
and its bacteria. In places along railroad fills of slag
cinder, banks of gravel, dumping-grounds around
lime-stone quarries, and in excavations where it would
be thought there could be no fertility, and in almost
any place where seed had lodged, except on sour clay,
I have seen it growing as thriftily as any other plant
on the most favorable soil; and in many of these
places the ground was so poor that not another green
53
thing appeared. In most of these places the growtn
was very heavy, much of it six feet tall. I would
guess that in such places it would yield three or four
tons per acre of the dried plant. In nitrogen con-
tent I find that it stands with alfalfa and the vetches.
I discover that it not only furnishes a rich field
for bees, but that horses are fond of its leaves and
branches. I have wondered why we could not make
a green-manure crop of it. Doubtless we would be
compelled to plow it in long before it reached its full
growth. It seems to me that there are great possi-
bilities in it.
in the summer of 1905 I made this test: Taking the
hint from Prof. Hopkins, after sowing my fourth field
01 alfalfa I sowed a strip a rod wide across the center
of the field with soil taken from a sweet-clover patch,
at the rate of 400 or 500 pounds per acre. This strip
was a fair sample of the rest of the field, which was
not inoculated. Last summer I cut more than twice
the hay from this strip that came from a similar area
on either side of it, and far more nodules were found
on the roots. It looks very much as though its
bacteria were identical with those of alfalfa, as Prof.
Hopkins claims. If that be a fact, then a good prepa-
ration for an alfalfa crop would be the production
of a sweet-clover crop, plowing it in during the fall
and sowing alfalfa the next spring. If any have ex-
perimented with this plant there are a whole lot of
us wno would like to hear from them. And if you
have not, why don't you? I. A. THAYEB.
Pennsylvania, April 20, 1907.
SWEET-CLOVER NOTE.
On page 338 there is inquiry about sweet clover.
It is considered a weed here, taking possession of the
roads, but it is very little trouble in cultivated fields,
as it is nearly as easy to exterminate by cultivation
as red clover, unless you have some low-lying land
where the seed is washed on from higher ground
not cultivated. It is a very prolific seeder, more so
than any other clover I know of, and I should not
wonder if, under favorable conditions, it would yield
54
20 bushels of seed to the acre. Last year I made some
hay from a low-lying piece of ground of less than
an acre in sweet clover. I had sown the strip in tim-
othy the year before; but: as the seed of the clover
was washed on it from higher ground, the clover
choked the timothy, and so I went and cut it for hay.
It made about three loads, but it is very difficult to
cure, as the stems persist in staying sappy for days
after the leaves crumble off when you touch it. It
has to be made young or it will be so hard that horses
cannot eat it, let alone cows. I fed it to horses, and
they seemed to relish it; cows also like it green
in pasture as long as it is young, say not more than
a foot high; but they have to become used to it, as
some cows will not touch it at first. Most cows like
it as hay at first trial. C. L. R.
Illinois, May 18, 1907.
SWEET CLOVER IN THE SOUTH.
In your issue of April 25 a Pennsylvania corre-
spondent has a good word in behalf of melilotus. This
plant in the North and West is usually regarded as
a weed. In the South the white-flowered variety is
regarded with much favor as a forage plant, and
also for grazing. It is largely grown in certain sec-
tions 01 this State and Alabama, in the limestone re-
gions, and when the plant is mowed at the proper
stage, before there is too much wood developed in
it, the quality of the hay is considered second to
none of the clover family, alfalfa not excepted. It
thrives to advantage only on lands strongly im-
pregnated with lime. Here it is at its best, and
reaches its greatest perfection. It will take root and
grow luxuriantly on bare lime spots where there is
no other soil on the surface of the ground. In time,
left to itself, it will completely hide these unsightly
bald places, and corn and other field crops can be
grown profitably on the land. It has an enormous
tap root that penetrates deep down into the subsoil
and gains nourishment from plant food denied to
other leguminous plants. It reseeds itself every two
years; but if the plant is mowed (in this climate at
any rate) or grazed, so that no seed can develop, the
plant seems to lose its natural tendency to give up
life after two years' growth, and will continue to
produce good crops for several years in succession.
It has been fully ten years since I have sown any
melilotus seed, and yet I find it every year more or
less plentiful and luxuriant on my Johnson grass and
Bermuda grass meadows. Of course the presence
ot this plant on the lands named is highly bene-
ficial to these meadows, the coarse, deeply penetrating
tap roots of the melilotus opening up the compact
soil and thus conducing to the better growth of botti
Johnson and Bermuda grasses. Hay made from meli-
lotus when the plant is in just the right stage of
growth for best results, and properly cured, is a hay
that is in every sense equal to the best quality cow-
pea vine or any of the clover family.
Mississippi, June 15, 1907. EDWIN MONTGOMERY.
SWEET CLOVER FOR MULCH.
In regard to growing mulch crops for straw-
berries, I have never found anything better than the
sweet clover growing along the roadsides and on
railroad embankments. • Wherever it has been grow-
ing for a year or two it has all other weeds choked
out, thereby preventing the bringing in of other
weed seeds. I cut it when first in blossom. It
stands then about four to six feet high. After let-
ting it lie for a week to dry out I haul it in while
wet with dew, to save the leaves, and stack it up
ready for spreading over the strawberry beds in the
fall (about one-quarter acre). Of course larger grow-
ers may not find it plentiful enough to supply their
needs, but why not raise it? It seems to thrive almost
anywhere, even in the cinders and stones of rail-
road embankments. I believe I could raise a Is ger
bulk of it on a given piece of land than any c,rher
crop for mulch, corn not excepted. Furthermore,
it lies not so flat or heavy on the berries as corn-
stalks, catches more snow on account of its spreading
branches, and is heavy enough not to blow away.
Aug. 24, 1907. G. H.
56
SWEET CLOVES AND ALFALFA.
In reply to your request for experience in inocu-
lating alfalfa with sweet clover, page 652, I will say
that, while my experience is rather limited, still I
have experimented with them for several years. A
number of years ago I secured a trial package of sweet
ciover and sowed it in the spring on a rather thin
clay soil. It grew very well, but I found that it did
not develop tubercles on the roots. After the second
year the ground was reseeded from seed falling upon
the ground. This crop developed tubercles on the
roots, and grew six to seven feet high. The seed got
scattered near our yard and grew from year to year.
Soil taken from about the roots of the sweet clover
was scattered over a plot of alfalfa which had failed
to develop tubercles, and was looking rather sickly.
In a few weeks the alfalfa changed to a dark green
and grew rapidly. Upon examination I found that,
where the soil from the sweet clover had been put,
the tubercles were thick on the alfalfa roots, but
on a part where there was no soil scattered from the
sweet clover the alfalfa looked yellow, and no tu-
bercles were found. I then inoculated the remainder
of the plot, and could notice an improvement in the
growth of alfalfa in about two weeks. A. J. LEGG.
West Virginia, Sept. 28, 1907.
SWEET CLOVER AS STOCK FOOD.
The following is suggested by reading Mr. Legg*s
article above, "Sweet Clover and Alfalfa." There
are wrong impressions regarding the plant. Here it
grows very rank on the roadsides, and in some fields.
I used to think, like Mr. L/egg, that stock would not
eat it, for I often took care to notice when driving
along a road on the sides of which it grew as high
as a horse's back, whether the droves of stock, cattle
principally, fed on it, and never did I see that a
plant had been nipped. Later, in a field where a lot of
large steers were pasturing, the sweet clover grew in
great abundance, and the cattle, by feeding on it, had
cut it down to about knee-high. It had made a*large
57
growth before they began to feed on it, and below
the height mentioned it was too coarse and hard to
be palatable. Seldom now do we see it in pasture
fields; but on the roadsides adjoining these fields it
grows in abundance, and would undoubtedly grow in
the fields if the stock let it alone. When driving
lambs along the highway I Live noticed that they
eat it as readily as the grasses that grow with it,
blue grass, etc. Men owning horses in my nearest
village I have known to cut it from the roadsides and
haul it to their stables and feed it to their horses.
At first they refused it, but soon learned to relish it.
I know of a timothy meadow being cut this year
that had growing with it an equal bulk of sweet
clover. This was stored in sheds, and will be fed
out to cattle this winter. In the same field in which
this timothy grew last year, after wheat, there came
on five or six acres a very rank growth of sweet
clover. This year there grew a very excellent crop
01 corn on the same land. Alfalfa grows on all the
land about here without soil inoculation. But unless
the land is well drained, naturally or artificially, it
will winter-kill. As regards sweet clover, I would
gladly have more of it grow on my farm than the
SLOCK and cultivation will allow to grow.
Ross Co., Ohio, Oct., 1907. JOHN M. JAMISON.
SWEET CLOVER AS PASTURAGE.
Though quite a lot of sweet clover grows here, at
present it is mostly along the roadsides, so that we
do not get much value out of it for pasture. However,
it is well known by the farmers here that when
stock are occasionally pastured on the roads they
greedily eat the sweet clover, even when quite large.
I do not think it will pay to make a pasture exclu-
sively of this clover, for it requires conditions quite
similar to those under which alfalfa will thrive. It
is a* biennial, dies, root and all, after ripening seed,
and, though the seed will live in or on the soil for
years, and grow under suitable conditions yet, because
if its biennial character, pasturing would certainly
58
kill it out in two or three seasons. Perhaps the
roots would live in the soil and grow continuously
if kept pastured down so as not to go to seed, but not
so closely that the plants would be killed out. Some
recent observations of some patches here seem to
confirm this view of the matter; and if such be the
case this plant will pay well as a pasture plant where
alfalfa is not a profitable crop. Like alfalfa, sweet
ciover needs drainage and lime, and soils rich in
phosphates and potash. In food value it compares
well with alfalfa, according to the few analyses that
have been made. The bacteria that inhabit the root
nodules of sweet clover and alfalfa are identical, or
at least are capable of living on either kind of plant,
and for this reason sweet clover is a good plant to
precede alfalfa, to insure the proper inoculation of
the soil. We wish that more of this clover were in
our fields, pasture fields especially, and anywhere else
where it will do us more good than on the roadsides.
The seed may be sown in August or February, and
may get start enough to be pastured or cut for hay
the following summer. There is getting to be a
better understanding of sweet clover. It is no longer
regarded by farmers as a pestiferous weed, to be
fought and exterminated at any cost, but is regarded
now as a friend, and the danger is that we may ex-
pect too much from it. I am informed that it is used
for both hay and pasture in some of the Southern
States, and if any of our readers there have had ex-
perience with it as a field crop will they tell us what
they think of this clover? W. E. DUCKWALL.
Highland Co., 0., May 22, 1909.
SWEET-CLOVER NOTES.
There has been some little discussion lately about
ttie value of sweet clover for stock food, or for im-
proving the soil. It was reported that the seed could
not be obtained, but several of the seedsmen offer It
— mostly thus far for bee pasture.
SWEET-CLOVER SOIL AND ALFALFA.
And as sweet clover is everywhere growing along the
roadsides there is no reason why men there should not
59
inoculate when first they sow the seed. It is a simply done
thing — just a quantity of soil, say 100 Ibs., mixed carefully
with 20 pounds of seed, sown together and instantly har-
rowed in will give the desired inoculation. Early August or
July seems a good time to sow alfalfa here, though some
sow in spring with success. A man could get this inoculated
earth in wagonloads and put it on with a manure-spreader,
if he chose, and all the better, so he harrowed it in promptly.
We were interested in studying sweet clover, as it grew along
the roadsides and in waste places. Every man's hand is
against it (save the bee-keepers), yet it is evident that,
even here cattle graze it, for we saw none in the pastures.
It had been grazed down close there. Not that it is worth
while sowing it in Iowa, but there are many regions where
it can be grown with profit, I am sure. We will sow it in
Louisiana, for instance.
This clipping is from a recent Breeders' Gazette,
and is part of an article by Joe Wing. Mr. Wing
recently told me that much sweet clover was growing
in the Gulf States, and that some preferred it to
alfalfa. He is intending to sow it on the Louisiana
plantation in a mule pasture, but intends to sow burr
clover with it. For hay, he says it must be sown
thickly and cut earlier than alfalfa.
W. E. DUCKWAIX.
WHERE SWEET CLOVER COI^ES FROM.
Some years ago the earth from the excavation of Jerome
Park Reservoir, New York city, was used to fill in salt
meadows near Pelham Park. The material was practically
all subsoil, rocks, gravel, and clay. For the past three years
or longer this has been covered with an almost unbroken
growth of sweet clover, 50 acres of it or more. The average
height is six feet, though many stalks are 8 and 8y2 feet
high. The growth is so dense tnat it is difficult to force
one's way through. The roots of the plants of this year's
growth are abundantly noduled ; the old seeding plants have
very few nodules. The old roots are l1/^ to 2 feet long, and
there is already a good deal of humus from the dead plants
and roots. In places grass is coming in, and there are hun-
dreds of very thrifty locust trees scattered about. How .came
the clover there? It extends also along and beside the em-
bankment of the now disused railroad on which the filling
was conveyed from the reservoir. I have taken some of tne
soil and seed and sown it on a rundown field on my farm
in the hope that what it has done for the filled meadows it
may do for my field. The Department of Agriculture recom-
mends sowing the seed in early spring ; but in the case of
these meadows the seed is evidently self-sown from now on.
A horse to which I offered some of the young plants ate
them with avidity. The taste to me is not unlike that of
red clover. Do not these facts indicate great possibilities for
sweet clover? W. C. D.
Sweet clover usually works into a new territory
along the railroads. The seed falls out of a passing
car, or comes in baled hay fed to horses. We know
of one case in Bergen County, N. J., where this clover
started in a railroad cut where freight cars stand.
We shall be interested to know how this experiment
of scattering the soil turns out.
Oct. 2, 1909.
Sweet clover will probably grow on soils that are
slightly acid, but it much prefers limestone soil.
It will grow on soil that is practically exhausted and
worthless, and will thrive there, producing consid-
erable humus from its decaying roots and tops, and
also adding much nitrogen to the soil through its
bacteria. The writer has corresponded with many
men who have sown down fields that they considered
practically worthless, leaving the sweet clover to
grow up, fall, and decay, for three or four years'
time, then plowing and cultivating for more useful
crops, and, without exception, they state that one
would never recognize it as the same soil that they
at first seeded down to this plant. Sweet clover is a
oiennial; that is, it lives for just two years. A field
sown to it will come into bloom the second year, and
it not harvested will reseed itself on the same ground,
thus continuing indefinitely to grow, to deposit its
roots and tops in the soil as a fertilizer, as well as
to build up the soil by its bacteria. Some writers
prefer seeding the field two years in succession, there-
by obtaining somewhat quicker results, because there
will be plants in bloom each year, whereas if sown
out once for the most part there will be plants in
bloom only every other year.
Sweet-clover seed is said to heat very easily, and
most commercial samples appear to be worthless,
nivery one of our correspondents recommends caution
in buying the seed. Probably if it were grown more,
the growers would learn better how to handle it,
and a better article would be put upon the market.
It is also quite slow about germinating, many writers
61
claiming that some of the seed will not come up until
the second year. We find this to be somewhat the
case ourselves. Sweet clover possesses many advan-
tages over the other plants which are commonly used
for building up soils. Crimson clover is undoubtedly
one of the greatest of these plants, but it is an annual,
and requires seeding every year, while the sweet
clover requires but one seeding. Winter vetch is also
a splendid soil-builder. It is a little high-priced, and
the crop is decidedly uncertain in the Northern States
unless inoculated, and it also requires reseeding each
year. Mammoth clover is one of the best, but it is a
biennial, and not so certain to reseed itself as fs the
sweet clover. Moreover, the sweet clover produces
larger plants than* any of the other legumes men-
tioned. Its stalks will sometimes be as large as a
man's thumb, and six or eight feet tall, thus pro-
ducing very large amounts of humus to add to the
soil.
We would always bear in mind that it must not be
allowed to escape cultivation to fence corners or to
other waste places, but if sown and confined to cul-
tivated fields no one need fear it, because one or two
years' cultivation will entirely destroy it. I think
it possible that many of the men who are laboring
over the abandoned-farm question in the Eastern
State would be more than repaid for trying this
plant, ana I think that, if they would apply good-
sized amounts of ground limestone to the worn-out
fields at the same time, they would accomplish' the
desired result about as quickly and as cheaply as is
possible. And I feel sure that farmers having any
kind of soil that simply needs building up will find
this plant as useful in bringing it up as any legume
that we have. CHAS. B. WING.
Ohio, March 12, 1910.
SOIL SUITABLE FOB SWEET CLOVER.
I have numerous letters from readers of the Rural
New-Yorker in regard to the seeding of sweet clover
and the character of soil best suited to it. Sweet
clover will grow on any soil that is not water-logged
62
if it contains sufficient moisture to sprout the seed.
On very thin and worn soils the growth is small com-
pared with that on fertile soils. We use sweet
clover to build up thin and much depleted soils —
fields that have become useless as pasture — those
filled with washes and gullies. These fields generally
have a growth of small bushes or briers, where they
have been lying idle for several years. These are
cut and tramped into the ruts. The tops of the little
ridges are dug off and raked into the ruts, which help
to hold the briers and bushes in place until they are
converted into humus. If the washes and gullies
are not too deep the seed is harrowed in with a
double A harrow; otherwise the seed is sown early
in the spring, just as soon as the soil can be stirred,
and about half a bushel of spring oats sown with it.
The amount of seed to be sown per acre on fields as
described above is 15 or 20 IDS.; on soil that is rea-
sonably fertile, where sown for hay or pasture, 25
to 30 Ibs. per acre. Where sown to produce seed,
the soil should be reasonably fertile and 15 Ibs. of seed
per acre sown broadcast, and harrowed in. Sow as
early in the spring as the soil can be stirred. For fall
seeding, prepare a good seed-bed and sow the seed in
October.
Sweet clover for hay should be cut just as the first
blossoms appear. If left standing longer the stems
become woody, and a great many of the leaves fall
off when cured. Great care should be exercised to pre-
vent the hay sun-burning, as this will destroy the
palatableness and its nutritive properties. There is
no better way to fit a piece of ground for alfalfa
than to seed to sweet clover, cut off a crop of hay
the first season, and plow under the second season
when the clover is about a foot tall; then cultivate
with drag and harrow until the first of September,
then seed to alfalfa. The sweet clover improves the
soil and inoculates it with the nitrogen-gathering
bacteria which are so necessary to the existence of
alfalfa. When seeding for hay I would not use any
nurse crop; and do not cut too close to the ground
the first time. Leave five or six inches of stubble to
68
protect the crown and roots until a new growth is
made. If permitted to go to seed the second season,
and the seed to ripen, it will reseed itself. The
sweet-clover plant lives but two years. It dies at
the end of the second season, and its large fleshy
roots decay rapidly, admitting the air deep into the
subsoil. J. W. G.
Warsaw, Ky.
A PLEA FOR SWEET CLOVER.
What J. W. G. says about sweet clover on page 63
agrees with my experience. One reason that so
many farmers condemn it without a trial is that they
have seen stock refuse to eat it when green and
rank. The bitter taste of the green clover, which
sometimes causes stock to refuse it, largely passes
away when cured for hay. For hay it grows too
coarse to be allowed to stand until in bloom, unless
it is to be run through a feed cutter. That which
we ran through the cutter was all eaten, although not
harvested until beginning to bloom and nearly five
feet high. We intend to try it in the silo with corn.
Another reason why this clover is not more used is
that it is feared as a weed. By cutting or plowing
under so that no seeds form there is no danger.
Farmers are just beginning to wake up to the fact
that the humus in the soil should be kept up as
well as the elements of fertility. No matter how
rich in fertilizer a soil may be, it can not do its best
unless filled with humus. When humus is added to
a soil its texture is improved, it is enabled to with-
stand drouth much better, and nitrogen, the most
costly plant food element, is increased. The advan-
tage of sweet clover is that it is so very thrifty and
hardy, so well able to get along with poor soil, drain-
age, and preparation. Some soils are said to require
inoculation, but we have not found such.
If there is any leguminous crop equal to sweet
clover for green manuring in the cold North "we
want to be shown." H. M. P.
Vermont, Feb. 12, 1910.
64
Frank Coverdale's Experiments and
Experience.
SWEET CLOVER.
ITS VALUE AS PASTURAGE FOR CATTLE AND BEES J WORTH
FOUR DOLLARS AN ACRE FOR HONEY ALONE.
Prom GLEANINGS for Feb. 15, 1908.
The steers shown in the illustrations are part of a
load shipped to Chicago Aug. 1, bringing $5.75 per
100. During June and July they were fastened into
this 35-acre field in which was a pretty good stand
oi sweet clover. This ground has been sown to this
valuable legume for four years, and it seems to thrive
better each year. No one who looks at this pasture
and sees the cattle eating it and becoming fat has
any doubt about its value as a pasture-plant. Most
farmers think I am growing a vile weed; but they say
it makes good feed for the cattle nevertheless. When
I want to get rid of it after getting other fields started
I guess I shall have to plow up the field.
Sweet clover is certainly a great honey-plant, and
this adds very largely to its value to the keeper
of bees. It is also the very best clover to sow where
a permanent and first-class grazing-field is wanted for
dairy cattle, sheep and hogs. I have not the least
doubt of its permanency, because of its luxurious
growth through both wet periods and the drouths. It
always furnishes a large quantity of nice green
feed until the ground begins to freeze in the fall.
Even after it is frozen the stock do well on it if any
is left.
1 have 150 colonies of bees near this field, and it
is a sight to see it when it is in bloom. The bees
keep on filling the supers slowly with the honey,
which is water-white, and very agreeable to most peo-
ple. For me, this clover has yielded honey every
season; but the bees do better on it at times. My
neighbors keep some bees, so about 200 colonies work
on it annually, and yet the field is worth from $3.00
65
to $5.^/v/ an acre each year for the bees alone. I
have made a very close study of this matter.
I think it will not be many years before these bees
will have hundreds of acres of sweet clover to work
on, and then I expect to see real results. I have
seventy acres of sweet clover 20 miles from home,
where I never expect to keep bees; for I want only
a good rich pasture in this place.
A willow-tree once blew down and broke the fence
so that my cattle walked right into my neighbor's
hay-field. A ditch extended from my field into his,
and the sweet-clover seed had been washed down until
it grew along the banks in his field. This neighbor
had told me he was afraid it would cover his farm;
but my cattle found it that night, and ate it nearly
to the ground without touching either the alsike or
the timothy. FRANK COVEBDALE.
Maquoketa, Iowa.
[In a letter written later, to Dr. Miller, Mr. Cover-
dale made the statement that sweet clover is worth
$4 an acre for honey, $15 an acre as pasturage for
cattle, and $30 an acre for seed, when the seed sells
near home for $10 a bushel. This makes a total of
$49 an acre. — ED.]
GROWING SWEET CLOVER.
HOW TO GET A GOOD STAND.
From GLEANINGS for May 15, 1909.
[Mr. Coverdale has had several years of experience in
growing sweet clover for seed, and he is in position to
know its value also for stock and for bees. His statements
here, in regard to the growing of this clover, are of especial
interest because of his long experience. — ED.]
If one wishes to grow sweet clover for the seed
alone he will find that it is not profitable, for this
plant must be grown for all there is in it. Sweet
clover differs from all other clovers, and requires
entirely different handling. A good stand for seed
can not be secured on poor land in this locality; and
even if it could, one would miss every other year, as
this plant is a sure biennial. Furthermore, sup-
posing it were possible to get a good stand, and the
67
field were run for seed only for ten years, there would
be only half a stand each year, as the old crop, if it
were sufficiently thick, would smother the young
plants and make the field very spotted. With fairly
rich land there should be little if any trouble in
getting a stand; but to grow sweet clover profitably,
the field must be grazed during the early part of the
season, until July 1st at least. After the stock is
taken off, the clover will grow very rapidly, so that
a fine crop of seed may be harvested. When the seed
is sufficiently ripe, the field should be mown 12 to
14 inches from the ground, so there will be a heavy
fah feed for stock after cutting. This is not true
of either the red or alsike clovers. Stock thrive
on sweet clover better than on any other legume
that I have tried, and I have now had six years' expe-
rience.
The worst drawback is the difficulty in getting a
good stand, as it takes two or three years before
a field reaches its best, and during this time it seems
like pulling teeth to plow it under, because it is worth
too much to plow. However, in managing a field
as outlined above, a crop of seed averaging two bush-
els to the acre can be secured each year, which, with
the very excellent pasturage one gets, pays to an ex-
tent fully equal to a crop of corn, and there is much
less labor.
At the Iowa Experiment Station, last year, five
acres were sown to sweet clover in May, and a good
stand was secured. The field was mown five inches
above the ground, and it yielded one and one-half
tons of hay per acre. After this, sheep were pas-
tured on it until winter set in.
This clover should be sown with timothy without
a nurse crop. Cattle should be pastured on the
field all summer, but not too heavily. The white
sweet clover is apt to come up well, and then later
get yellow or sick-looking in places. Perhaps one
patch ten feet wide will do well, while another a
short distance away gets sick, making the field look
spotted. If one does not care to keep cattle of his
own, stock belonging to some one else might be taken
68
in. If no seed is wanted, the cattle can be allowed to
run over it the whole season; and if bees are kept, a
honey harvest will begin July 5th and continue until
frost. The bees work on the field like one great
swarm from early morning until late at night, and
every one who gets a taste of the sweet-clover honey
wants more of it.
The white sweet clover should be cut for seed while
the stalk is still green; and after the crop is run
through the huller the hay will be superior to the
best timothy. It is best to work with the crop
when it is a little damp, to avoid shelling; and when
hauling, spread a canvas over the rack, and occa-
sionally empty this canvas over the middle of the
stack.
I am beginning to see that white sweet clover will
thrive well anywhere after the bacteria become fixed
in the soil, and it will bring up old wornout land
very quickly when once a stand is secured, as it
produces a great amount of humus, and gathers an
immense amount of nitrogen into the soil. In 1907
my sweet clover produced three bushels of seed per
acre where the cattle were taken off in the middle
of July. There would have been a better yield, per-
haps, if they had been taken off earlier; but by so
doing the young plants are sacrificed that are to
grow the seed for the next season.
Maquoketa, Iowa.
SWEET CLOVER FOB FORAGE.
My enthusiasm runs high over my experiments with
sweet clover and I will continue to work with it. The
photo shows thirty-five acres of it, which is six years
old and you can see that it is a fine field indeed. No
other legume could have been -sown to hold out and
produce so large a quantity of very excellent feed.
It produces abundance of greed feed from the last
week in April until November, and the fore part of
winter if any is left. Looking north you can see
seventy rods over this field.
Forty-one 1,200-pound steers had the run of over
fifty acres altogether, and fattened up well, and
sold in Chicago for $5.65 a hundred, August 1. I
have been shipping the steers from this field each
year. $5.75 is the best price I have obtained from
steers off this field and that was in 1907, when all
were confined to the sweet clover, which seems to
produce the best gain and makes the steers very
smooth and slick.
Just see how tall it has grown in two weeks, after
the steers were taken off August 15. Part of the field
was cut for seed about September 1, 1907, and gave
three bushels to the acre of nice clean seed. The hay
that I have cut is of the very best and both cattle
and hogs are very fond of it. I intend to pay more
attention to securing the hay crop from this valuable
legume.
I sowed twenty acres for hogs last spring and got a
poor stand. I -have found that this kind of pasture
can't be kept for hogs unless all are well ringed, as
when fall comes they dig up every root and all is
eaten. There is something about the large roots that
hogs are extremely fond of. I will ring all the
hogs and reseed again in the spring, and it will be
a sure thing, for they won't get the roots then.
Timothy and sweet clover thrive splendidly to-
getner. I consider one acre of this clover, all things
considered, worth one acre of corn where one gets
a good stand. But here is where nearly all have
failed. Many have sown it here and none have a
perfect stand. It always does well where it seeds it-
self on the land and it spreads rapidly over the field
when not pastured too hard.
A good catch can be had on ground that will grow
fifty or sixty bushels of corn to the acre, and it will
be worth just as much, to the man who succeeds and
uses it right.
It is not a question of whether the sweet clover
makes good feed, but whether one can get a good
stand that will be strong enough to endure the first
winter. Ever after that it will be strong enough
to stand any kind of a winter. This clover acts
very much as does alfalfa, and from the experience
70
I am getting now, August may be a good time to
sow it, at once after taking of a crop of early grain,
by plowing the ground, get in good shape and sow.
I got the best stand this way. If I was sowing in
spring would sow without a nurse crop and turn on
cattle when the clover gets five or six inches high
as tramping the ground suits it.
To try to grow this clover for hay alone would
be unsuitable as it grows too early and too coarse
and gets big enough for hay in May, and can't be
cured at this time. So it must be eaten off by
stock until haying weather arrives, and then it
grows hay of fine quality, and must always be mown
about five inches from the ground and managed so
as to let it seed some if one wishes to keep the stand,
as it is strictly a biennial.
The sweet clover field always affords abundance
of fall and spring feed when once established. I like
to cut for seed when the seed is a little on the green
side, and the straw is better hay than timothy after
being hulled. However, I don't consider it anything
near as nice to handle for hay as alfalfa, but the
hay is just as good. I consider sweet clover espe-
cially adapted for grazing and it never bloats a steer.
The cattle fill to the highest pitch on sweet clover,
but never bloat, a thing of considerable value to me.
When once got on poor land it builds it up very
fast in both humus and nitrogen. It usually runs
around 22 per cent in protein, and any man who suc-
ceeds in getting a good stand will be amply repaid
for his trouble. — F. COVERDALE, JACKSON COUNTY,
IOWA, IN SUCCESSFUL FARMING.
SWEET CLOVER COMING TO BE RECOGNIZED BY THE AGRI-
CULTURAL PAPERS.
I am making considerable headway with sweet clo-
ver in my State. One year ago no farm journal
would tolerate the idea of advocating the sowing of
melilotus alba; but now, if you read Wallace's Farmer
you will notice that they advise farmers to sow it
under certain conditions, saying it should be taken
on trial by all farmers. It begins to look now as
71
though M. alba were to play a prominent part on
every farm in the United States, both where alfalfa
is grown and where red and alsike are depended on.
Much good has come from Henry A. Wallace's visit
to my field last fall, and that is why he recommends
its use as a pasture-plant, and the coming summer
I hope to demonstrate its value as a superior hay
crop, just as I have done as a superior pasture-legume.
THE YELLOW VARIETY PROMISES WELL.
I am harboring a strong hope that the yellow varie-
ty may prove to be of great value to sow in the corn
at the last plowing, and then to be pastured the fol-
lowing season or be plowed under the last half of
May. If this proves to be good it will mean more to
the corn-belt farmer than anything of the kind that
was ever brought to light. That is why I want this
yellow seed. Yellow sweet clover grows two feet
high here by the 16th of May, and could be turned
under; and what a fertilizer it would make, and all in
time to plant to corn! or if sown with timothy it
would make a splendid pasture; or knock down the
stalks, and with a binder cut it for seed. It is a
proven fact that sweet clover is the best to feed to
stock, and that it contains more of the essentials than
any other clover. Doesn't the future look bright for
sweet clover? FRANK COVERDALE.
Maquoketa, la., Feb. 7, 1910.
YELLOW SWEET CLOVER IN KANSAS, ETC.
Yellow sweet clover commenced to bloom here the
last week in April. It is in full bloom now, and all
kinds of stock like it. As for pasture, sown witn
alfalfa it prevents bloat. All missed places and alkali
spots I sow with it. I have four acres of it. I think
it is next to alfalfa for pasture and forage crop. I
sowed a bushel of alsike for pasture this spring — the
first I have tried. I put it on bottom land. They say
it does better there than on upland. The yellow sweet
clover does not grow as rank as the white, and makes
better pasture. JOHN W. WILSON.
Concordia, Kan., May 11.
72
SWEET CLOVER AS A FERTILIZER.
From Hoard's Dairyman, Aug. 9, 1907.
Valuable as melilot is shown to be as a forage crop,
it will rank still higher as a renovator of the fertility
of our soil. Being a legume, it shares^ with other
genera of that family in the maintenance of the nitro-
gen-secreting organisms that enrich the soil. In fact,
our alfalfa-growers inoculate their fields with the
melilot bacteria to make their plants vigorous and
lasting. It has the advantage of its hardiness, adapt-
ability to poor soils, its spontaneous growth, and,
most notably, of its remarkable root development.
This last feature is due to its biennial habit. The
first year's growth, like the cabbage, beet, and turnip
goes to provide a storehouse of food for the rapid
second-year growth and production of seed, so that,
unlike the other legumes, with their slender fibrous
roots, it develops a cluster of fleshy roots which reach
several feet into the. ground. My own observations
afford an estimate of over 20 tons of root growth per
acre. Prom the New York Experiment Station I get
an estimate of 28 tons per acre. This root develop-
ment is unique in the pulse family, and, with the
nitrogen-secreting organisms, makes an ideal combi-
nation.
The second-year growth is even more remarkable
than this. I have taken ten pounds of half-grown
herbage from a square yard of surface early in June,
or more than 24 tons per acre in less than half
the growing season. This is followed by a corre-
sponding crop of seed, which explains its rapid propa-
gation.
But its biennial habit gives it another value as a
fertilizer. The dense fibrous roots of the perennials
are slow to decay and yield their fertility to the soil,
but the long fleshy roots of melilot decay almost as
soon as the seed matures, leaving their nitrogen con-
tent in condition for immediate use and the soil in
the highest state of permeability through this deep
penetration.
73
These marked advantages have been verified many
times by observation. They were first noted along
the roadsides where melilot first gained foothold.
The crop of grass succeeding a growth of sweet clover
is always luxuriant. Even beds of sand, which never
bear more than few coarse weeds, after a growth of
sweet clover were completely covered with a thick
sward. In roadway ruts and ditches the bare subsoil
is first clothed with melilot which is followed by grass
and the ugly gashes are soon healed. Noting the
liking of sweet clover for bare spots, the writer
sowed some stony hilltops and barren slopes in cul-
tivated fields. A marked improvement was noted in
the crops raised on the clover plowed under on these
spots.
Clearer proof was noted on a neighbor's field seeded
to rye. Here a hatful of seed was scattered upon a
ridge in the center of the field. The spring winds
blew the rye plants out of the ground, but the sweet
clover made a good stand and . in the fall covered
the ground. Oats followed the rye and on the patch
of sweet-clover sod the growth and yield was twice
as heavy as elsewhere.
But the best test has just been made by our-
selves on a 16-acre field of badly worn soil, the
land having been cropped with little change for
50 years and had lately yielded less than half crops.
It was seeded with timothy, clover, and melilot. The
latter made a good stand only where inoculated by
wash from the bacteria-infected roadside, but there
it made a fine growth and the first cutting gave four
loads per acre. This seeding was kept three years.
Pastured the last year, it gave double the feed af-
forded by adjacent pastures.
Last fall a thin coat of manure was given the
weak spots and the sod was turned for corn. Corn
was drilled in the well-fitted ground about May 20th
and the strong growth thus started was kept by good
conditions until the finish. It took 70 pounds of twine
to harvest the crop and the yield was taken off at 50
loads; only the lightest has been husked but this
yields 120 baskets per acre.
The best ears exceed a pound in weight. While
the yield is not remarkable, the change due to the
clover enrichment is very great and could hardly
have been wrought otherwise at so little cost.
Beloit, Wisconsin. I. M. BUELL.
SEED GATHERING AND SEEDING.
From Hoard's Dairyman,, Aug. 16, 1907.
The lavish production of seed in this plant makes
the securing of this an easy matter. The stems also
shed their leaves as the seed matures, leaving little
besides the long spikes loaded with the short brown
seed-pods. These dry quickly after cutting, and can
be easily whipped or beaten off. A roadside patch
of a few square rods will often yield seed enough for
several acres, and I have whipped off two barrels of
the seed-pods in half a day. I usually cut with a
hand sickle, and lay in small piles to dry. There is
no reason why it should not be secured and hulled in
the usual way if one has enough to handle thus, and,
when there is demand for it, no doubt farmers will
raise the seed as they now raise clover. It is adver-
tised by the leading seedmen under the name Bok-
hara clover, at about $16 per cwt. One can afford
to gather the wayside crop for one-third this rate.
My attempts at seeding with melilot have been
very interesting. From the readiness with which it
spreads along the highways, in gravel beds, in rubble
piles about old quarries, in cuts and ditches, even in
June and quack-grass sod, one would look for no
trouble in seeding cultivated fields.
But it behaves quite differently in field culture. On
new land, or that freshly manured, there is no
trouble; and if the soil is too barren to afford any
other growth, it will maintain itself; but if the soil
is both poor and weedy, the latter will smother the
tender young plants even though they make a fair
start. I notice, however, that, wherever the surface
is subject to overflow from a sweet-clover-covered
surface a vigorous growth is maintained from the
start, due no doubt to bacterial inoculation.
75
Its vigorous growth and rapid spread along our
highways is due no doubt to the wide dissemination
of these germs by the mud and dust of travel. They
are also carried by winds and waters over adjacent
surfaces, and wherever this occurs the sweet clover
thrives.
We need, therefore, to provide both seed and the
inoculation of the soil with the nourishing bacteria.
Our alfalfa-growers are advised to gather the bac-
teria-infected soil from the sweet-clover patches on the
roadsides and sow it upon their alfalfa seeding, and
doubtless the best way to gain the same end with
our melilot is to do this.
As to time and amount of seeding we may follow
our practice with red clover. But if one sows the un-
hulled seed it is safe to follow nature and sow in the
fall, leaving the seed to start in the spring.
This in old meadows, pastures, and with fall grains,
is doubtless the best time to seed. I have found four
quarts per acre of the unhulled seed enough for a
good stand.
ITS DISTRIBUTION AND HISTORY.
Although sweet clover is so new to us that very few
people have thought of its value as a farm product, a
knowledge of its value is as old as history. Its native
home is Western Asia, as its name (Bokhara clover)
indicates, the same as that of the human race. Its
use as a forage-plant seems to have been common
from the first. Homer notes it as growing on the
plains of Greece and Asia Minor, and tells us that the
steeds of the Greeks fed upon it during the siege of
Troy. I have been told by men from the East that it
is still raised in these lands on irrigated lands as
alfalfa is in the West and for the same purpose.
The ijame "Melilotus," honey-blossom, common to
both Greek and Latin, shows that it was well known
to both races, and under the name is often noted in
classic literature. But by far the best record of this
plant is preserved to us by Pliny in his Natural His-
tory. He refers to it several times, describes the
plant, gives its distribution and uses, and tells more
76
about it than most of our modern botanists. In his
day it was held in high esteem, both as a honey-plant
and for its medical uses, and really these latter have
been held in high favor by the people of the Conti-
nent to the present day.
Numerous species of melilot have been highly es-
teemed as forage-plants in Central and Southern
Europe from ancient times, and most notably in
Switzerland, where the flavor and excellence of Swiss
dairy products are due in large measure to the pres-
ence of melilot in their mountain meadows and pas-
tures. In England, however, though several species
are common, conditions do not seem to favor their
growth, and they do not afford enough verdure for
profitable forage.
it is very interesting to note that our melilot in
its new home shows a remarkable increase of strength
and vigor. Dr. Asa Gray describes it as growing 2 to
4 feet high in the New England States. Dr. Bailey,
in his Botanical Encyclopedia, makes it from 3 to 8
feet high in New York. Here, on the Southern Wis-
consin line, I have measured cut stems tnat were
10% feet long, and no doubt taller growths may be
found along our creek and river bottoms. This appar-
ent adaptation to new conditions may also account
for the marked difference in palatability between our
stems and that common in the East, South and South-
The use of the bacteria-supporting legumes for the
maintenance of the fertility of our farms is one of the
most promising fields for agricultural experiment.
It is well to know that we have right at our doors the
most hardy, rank-growing members of this class, and
one that promises the largest increment of fertilizing
matter from its growth. I. M. B.
Beloit, Wis.
SWEET CLOVER TO THE FRONT.
From The Nebraska Fanner. January 10, 1910.
There was a time when it would be a daring thing
indeed to suggest to any farmer that sweet clover
had an agricultural value. Even to this day there are
77
many who deem it a nuisance simply because they
have seen it growing where it was not wanted. Any
plant is a nuisance when it butts in out of place. The
sorriest-looking field of corn we have ever seen was
put into that condition .by some harmless volunteer
buckwheat growing where the farmer wanted only
corn. We have been giving considerable attention to
sweet clover during the past year, and our efforts have
started an avalanche of favorable testimony.
The letter below, from Mr. Harris, of Garfield
county, is written to answer those of our subscribers
who desire to know more of his methods and suc-
cesses than was contained in his letter we published a
few weeks ago. Mr. Harris is in the border land of
the sand-hills country, and his evidence bears out
what we have been saying in regard to the value of
sweet clover for sandy land. He has no seed for
sale, hence his enthusiasm has the true ring, and is
not a part of a propaganda to create demand for
sweet-clover seed.
GOOD THING FOR SANDY LAND.
I know of only two varieties successfully grow-
ing in the United States: the white and yellow bloom-
ing. Sweet clover requires less seed per acre than any
of the other clovers, and a fine stand can be had by
sowing it in the spring alone, or with any of the small
grains. It makes good grazing or hay the first sea-
son, and it will make a good growth on land that the
other clovers, alfalfa, and tame grasses will not grow
on to any advantage. It contains the remedy to re-
lieve bloat of alfalfa and red clover.
In letting some young cattle to some timothy and
red-clover hay-stacks as well as to some good upland-
prairie hay-stacks with sweet-clover stacks in the
same enclosure this fall, they did not disturb any
of the stacks except the sweet clover. They ate into
these quite deeply. When we began to haul hay for
the whole herd and scatter it out upon the ground
and fill the feeding-racks, the cattle left all other kind
of hay for the sweet clover, which they eat up so close
you could scarcely tell any has been fed them.
78
Our horses eat the sweet-clover hay with the same
greed and relish as did the cattle. The hired help
we had taking care of the stock said he thought
sweet clover was unfit for stock; but he knows dif-
ferent now, and is trying to procure some seed to
sow on his farm. Mr. Thompson, of. the Allerton &
Thompson ranch, adjoining my ranch, is growing
tame grasses and clovers very successfully on their
50,000-acre ranch here. They have considerable sweet
clover also, and will put out considerable more this
coming year, as they consider it a very valuable
clover.
After having had five years' experience with it in
Wheeler and Garfield counties I will say that I have
had horses and cattle pasture on it where there was
red clover, timothy, blue grass, rye, and native grass;
and while the stock let grasses, clover and rye seed,
they did not let the sweet clover get more than four
inches high; while with only a barbed-wire fence sep-
arating, other sweet clover grew six feet high. I have
also had tne same experience with it as a hog-pasture,
and have had the hogs root and eat the sweet-clover
roots in the fall and spring, and not disturb the red
clover in the same pasture. I have also seen stock
refuse good hay when offered sweet clover, and several
oiners have done finely with it here. Alfalfa also does
well when inoculated by sweet clover. I consider
sweet clover almost as valuable as alfalfa on account
of it being very hardy, and reseeds better than any
of the clovers. The roots die in two years, leaving
fifteen to twenty tons of vegetable matter in the soil.
I have had red clover and alfalfa grow four feet high
here, while sweet clover has grown six feet high; and
could I have only one of these it would be sweet
clover.
A test was made with it in feeding sheep in Wyom-
ing a year ago last winter, which gave about the same
results as alfalfa. It was not hard to find farmers in
Southeast Nebraska twenty-five years ago 'who de-
clared that they would sooner grow a crop of weeds on
their land than a crop of alfalfa, while now many
of the same have half of their land in alfalfa, and
wish the other half was also. I fear we often allow
our prejudice and erroneous notions to get the best
of us, and do not investigate and make actual experi-
ments for ourselves so as to obtain facts and truths
that would be valuable to us all.
I have no sweet-clover seed for sale.
Garfield Co. J. S. HARRIS.
SWEET CLOVER IN KENTUCKY.
Editor Nebraska Farmer: — Mr. V. R. Thompson,
president of the Brown County (Ohio) Agricultural
Society, tells me that the fattest bunch of grass cattle
he ever saw came off a twenty-acre washed and gullied
hillside near Milford, Kentucky, where sweet clover
had taken possession, simply because the land was too
poor to grow anything else.
Sweet clover grows along creeks here on sandbars,
also on wornout clay by roadsides.
Ohio. C. D. LYON.
Clippings from Farm and Fireside.
TO RELIEVE BLOAT IN SHEEP.
A reader at Gibbon, Neb., refers to a former ar-
ticle by Mr. Harris in these words: "In a recent issue
you published an article on sweet clover by Mr. S. J.
Harris in which he states that 'It contains the remedy
to relieve bloat of alfalfa.' Now, I have had trouble
in pasturing sheep on alfalfa, and would like to know
if sweet clover will prevent bloat when planted with
alfalfa, or should the clover alone be used? What is
its value as compared with alfalfa as a food for
sheep?"
The bitterness of sweet clover is due to a drug
called cumarin contained within the plant. It is this
drug that prevents bloat when animals are pastured
upon sweet clover. Professor Buffum, of Wyoming, is
breeding this bitter principle out of the plant; but
some friends of sweet clover say they would not have
it out of their sweet clover if they could, because it
is so valuable in preventing bloat. While it is com-
monly accepted that sweet clover will not cause bloat
because of the cumarin it contains, we do not know,
and do not know that Mr. Harris meant to say that a
little sweet clover would prevent bloat if a whole lot
of alfalfa is eaten. We are inclined to believe that it
might not. The two plants would not go well to-
gether, because alfalfa is a long-lived perennial, while
sweet clover lives but two years. Alfalfa would
scarcely be in good condition to pasture when the
sweet clover sown with it would have lived out its
appointed time.
As to the relative value of sweet clover and alfalfa
as sheep feeds we have only the results of some ex-
periments made at the Wyoming station to guide us
in forming conclusions. We quote directly from Bul-
letin No. 79 of the Wyoming Experiment Station at
Laramie :
"Wild sweet clover is common along irrigation ditches
and in waste spots ; and since it withstands alkali well, and
gives a heavy tonnage of hay, it should prove a desirable
hay crop in many sections. Stockmen commonly believe that
sweet clover is useless as a forage-plant ; but cattle and sheep
will eat the growing plant if it is not too large and coarse,
and the experiment here reported shows that lambs eat the
hay readily, and make good gains from it.
"Comparing lots 4 and 5 we find that the sweet-clover
lambs made an average gain of 30.7 pounds in fourteen
weeks, while the alfalfa lambs made 34.4 pounds gain. The
former ate one-sixth more hay, somewhat more corn, and a
small amount of oil meal. The larger consumption of sweet-
clover hay was due to the fact that it was cut late, and
was very coarse and stemmy. The lambs liked it, however,
and showed a steady appetite for it. There was not the
slightest difficulty in getting them to eat it at the start."
SUCCESS WITH SWEET CLOVER.
From Farm and Fireside.
I am so well pleased with experimenting with sweet
clover as a soil-restorer and a forage for live stock
that I will endeavor to give a few points on its man-
agement.
oweet clover belongs to the family of leguminous
plants. The same bacteria live on its roots that live
on the roots of the alfalfa plant. Some people will
say alfalfa is so much better than sweet clover, why
not plant it? How do they know if they have never
tried it?
I first used sweet clover as an inoculator for alfalfa.
81
The bacteria developed much more rapidly in the soil
sown to sweet clover than in that sown to alfalfa.
The plant of sweet clover does not depend on arti-
ficial inoculation or fertilization as does the. alfalfa
plant.
Another advantage is that the seeding does not have
to be done so early. The seed of alfalfa should be
sown from the 15th of August to the first of Sep-
tember, if best results are expected. The seeding of
sweet clover should be done about the first of October.
Four to six weeks are gained for the maturing of
crops growing on the land to be sown to sweet clover,
which may be corn, tobacco, tomatoes, or other farm
and garden crops, while the land to be sowrn to alfal-
fa should be broken and thoroughly cultivated before
seeding, which requires about four weeks.
The sweet clover yields as much forage as alfalfa,
if not more. From analysis, the sweet clover con-
tains the following composition:
Water, 6.86 per cent; protein, 22.55 per cent; crude
fiber, 23.49 per cent; carbohydrate, 33.61 per cent; fat,
3.91 per cent; ash, 10.05 per cent, making its feeding
value as a forage crop high. Its value as a fertilizing
agent in gathering nitrogen can hardly be realized. It
has the ability to thrive splendidly on the poorest
sandy soil and on dry and badly washed hillsides,
where the other clovers would never start.
The seed of sweet clover should be sown thin on
old worn fields, then the stalks will be large and
heavily branched, producing a great amount of seed.
About the first of September the stalks should be cut
and placed in the ruts and washes. Then the seed
will be scattered sufficiently to set a heavy sod, and
will produce a fine pasture the next season. The
second or third year after sowing, blue grass will
take in this locality and soon be a solid set.
A description of the sweet-clover roots will show
that they are a high-class fertilizer. Unlike other
legumes the roots are somewhat fleshy and not
fibrous. During the first year these roots reach far
into the ground and draw up from considerable depth
an abundance of plant food which they store up for
82
the second year's growth. On the death of the plant,
at the close of the second year, the fleshy roots de-
cay more rapidly than fibrous roots, and their nitro-
gen becomes more quickly available for other crops.
My experiments cover the use of the following crops
after sweet clover: Beets, beans, onions, parsnips,
cauliflower, celery, melons, raspberries, and straw-
berries. All show a marked advantage on the part
where sweet clover was turned under after a growth
of two seasons. The color and size of plants, as well
as the amount and quality of fruit, were noticeable.
PREPARES LAND FOR ALFALFA.
I think it one of the finest things in use to prepare
land for alfalfa. Sow to sweet clover for one year;
break the land, turning under the young growth the
second spring about the first of June, and cultivate
until ready to seed to alfalfa. The germs of bacteria
will increase rapidly and the soil will be filled so full
that the alfalfa plants will grow right off and make
two or more good crops the first season after sowing
in the early fall.
As a soiling crop, it is right up to the front. Com-
bined with blue grass it makes one of the finest pas-
tures known to stockmen. Unlike alfalfa, it improves
by being pastured, yet again, like alfalfa, the stock
have to become accustomed to it before they will eat
it with a relish. But, when once they have learned to
eat it, they prefer it to all other grasses.
As a pasture for hogs, the chief difficulty lies in the
fact that the hogs want the roots as well as the tops.
They eat the grass readily from the first, seeming to
like its peculiar flavor, and are also fond of the hay,
eating it more readily than that of red clover.
Another one of its many good qualities is that cat-
tle may be fed exclusively on sweet clover and under
the conditions most favorable to bloating, without
any danger from this trouble, cumarin, one of its
constituents, the principle which gives it its bitter
taste, effectually preventing the fermentation that re-
sults in bloating.
Kentucky J. W. GRIFFIN.
83
SWEET CLOVER FOUND GOOD.
This article caps the discussion of the newly certified
merits of sweet clover, which we have presented to our
readers in recent issues. Sweet clover has been given a sci-
entific try-out. Prof. B. C. Buffum, director of the Wyoming
Experiment Station, has taken it in hand. He has grown it,
fed it, tested and observed it, and has thoroughly demon-
strated its worth. Furthermore, he has found hope of im-
proving it, and has undertaken the task. Here is his account.
—EDITOR, FARM AND FIRESIDE.
Bokhara, or sweet clover has so long been con-
sidered worse than useless that there is a widespread
and almost universal prejudice against the plant.
Its hardiness, adaptability, persistence, and grow-
ing power under adverse conditions are well known;
but it is not easy to convince the skeptical that it has
any kind of value, or that improvement may make
sweet clover one of the most important of all our
forage crops. My experience with sweet clover dates
bacK some years and my results with the plant are
such that the past season I planted twenty acres of it
for breeding purposes and to improve the soil. I have
two varieties, and shall attempt crossing and hybridiz-
ing in addition to other methods of changing its
character and composition.
So far as I am informed, sweet clover first came into
use as a forage plant in Mississippi and other por-
tions of the South. Then reports came from Utah
that sweet-clover hay was being baled and used for
stock-food. In 1903 I visited Big Horn Basin, Wyom-
ing. Here on the "Pitchfork" Ranch, one of the best
developed in the West, the owner told me that one
year he planted and put up a large area of sweet-
clover hay, and that his cattle apparently ate it as
well and thrived on it as well as they did on alfalfa.
I then resolved to carry out some investigations of
sweet clover.
There was an area of land on the Wyoming Experi-
ment Station farm which lacked drainage, and where
tne accumulation of alkali salts had destroyed a stand
of alfalfa. This ground was covered with a menacing
growth of what Western stockmen call "foxtail."
This is not the tame foxtail of the East, but more
84
properly a wild barley called "squirrel-tail grass" in
the older botanies. It grows in waste places, or some-
times in meadows, and the beards -cause much trouble
to stock eating hay contaminated with it. I planted
four acres of this land to sweet clover in spite of the
protests of friends that I should be mobbed for in-
troducing and fostering what to them was only a dan-
gerous weed. It was planted late, and in the short
season made no growth that could be harvested the
first year. The next season, however, I cut two crops,
and put up four small stacks of the hay. The yield
of cured hay was 2% tons to the acre. One-half the
hay was salted with seven or eight pounds of common
salt to the load as it went into the stack.
The assistant head of our live-stock department was
requested to make feeding trials with sweet-clover hay
that fall; but either his own skepticism or some other
cause prevented the order being carried out, and my
sweet-clover stacks perfumed the air through that
winter and the next summer and fall before the feed-
ing traits were actually organized. I must pause here
to note the first beneficial effect of growing sweet
clover. In the two seasons it had cured the land of
foxtail, and apparently did some good to the alkalized
ground as well. Sweet clover is a weed-eradicator
and nitrogen-gatherer worthy of wide and extended
use. Our station-chemists' analyses, I remember, gave
as high as twenty-three and eight-tenths per cent,
crude protein; the others gave fifteen and nineteen
per cent. At the same time our high-altitude-alfalfa
hay was showing more richness than other alfalfa,
with about sixteen per cent, protein and high digesti-
bility. Our richest sweet clover was higher in protein
than any other roughage, and showed one condition to
be avoided. Care must be taken not to give too much
of it, as stock may become cloyed and go "off feed"
from overfeeding.
When given to the lambs on experiment, the hay
was eaten with great relish, even the coarse stems
being readily consumed. My men fed carefully, and
lots of ten lambs each were fed on sweet clover, com-
pared with alfalfa and with native hay; lambs fed
the same corn ratio. It is sufficient for present pur-
poses to state that the butcher who dressed the lambs
testified that the .sweet-clover-fed lambs were the
fattest and finest carcasses he ever handled, and a
photograph of the dressed meat showed much
superiority of the sweet-clover lamb over lamb fed
native hay. The alfalfa lambs gained 34.3 pounds per
head, a little less than four pounds better than the
sweet-clover lambs. That is, sweet clover offers a sub-
stitute almost, though not quite, of the same feeding
value as alfalfa, where the latter is not available.
Perhaps a portion of the success was due to curing
the hay in the stack a year before being fed. The
people of this country have not appreciated the value
of time in curing hay. I am told that old-crop hay
usually brings a premium in the haymarkets of Eng-
land. The evidence is conclusive to me that sweet-
clover hay, properly grown, handled, and fed has a
value worth while — at least in many localities where
the plant will thrive and where alfalfa does not do
well for any reason.
Perhaps no plant has a higher value as a fertiliz-
ing agent. Soil from sweet-clover land is useful in
inoculation for alfalfa with nitrogen-gathering bac-
teria. So impressed have I become with sweet clover
tnat I have taken up the task of its improvement by
plant-breeding. I believe it may be made to lose a
portion or all of the cumarin, which is the bitter-
sweet principle that makes it unpalatable to stock;
and perhaps it may be possible to change it into a
perennial.
The seed I bought for sweet clover at 18 cents per
pound was adulterated with alfalfa seed, so I have a
stand of about half-and-half sweet clover and alfalfa.
However, this will not be a serious disadvantage and
I have hopes of getting quick results in improving
sweet clover, both in palatableness and yield.
Any one who wishes to plant sweet clover for hay
or soil improvement can get seed from almost any
reliable seedsman. I recommend planting fifteen or
twenty pounds of hulled seed to the acre. It may be
sown broadcast if the seedbed is moist and fine, or,
better still, plant with a press drill not more than an
inch or two deep. For hay it should stand thick and
line-stemmed, and be cut before it comes into full
bloom. The green hay is quite succulent, and needs
to be cured in small cocks, allowing it to get pretty
dry before stacking, and then use salt as indicated
above. Sweet clover is a biennial plant, and will all
die the second season if not allowed to seed itself, so
u need never become a bad or persistent weed.
B. C. BUFFTJM.
Several points regarding sweet clover have been
raised by interested readers. There is some doubt
regarding its blossoming habits. In the North it is a
biennial, seldom forming seed the first year. In Ken-
tucky and further southward, however, correspondents
tell us it will seed the first year with them, unless
cut twice.
One farmer writes: "It does best on a soil contain-
ing a good deal of lime." Generally speaking, it
seems to grow on almost any soil not too boggy or too
sour. A writer in the Ohio Farmer has had different
experience, however.
"It is rather more difficult to secure a stand and
crop of sweet clover than of alfalfa. As I have inti-
mated, it often comes of its own free will where it is
neither expected nor desired; but repeated efforts to
start it where it has been wanted have uniformly re-
sulted much less successfully than similar attempts
with alfalfa."
That paragraph sounds a sensible warning to those
who are figuring on sweet clover to do too much. As
the writer further states, however, some of the un-
reliability of stand may be due to unreliable seed.
Sweet clover is hardly a standard market article as
yet. While most seed-houses carry it, many of them
have never found it worth while to catalog it, owing
to the slim demand. The plant has been so little
grown, commercially, that good seed is hard to get.
A germination test is well worth while before plant-
ing.
We have a lot to learn about sweet clover. This
much is fairly certain now: It is a first-class soil
87
renewer. It will grow in many places where alfalfa
will not. It serves to introduce alfalfa. When grown
and cured right it makes a feed that stock will not
only thrive on, but relish. As far as feeding value
goes, it runs alfalfa a close second. As long as we
do not make a fad of it, we believe it is destined to do
many fine things for farmers. EDITOR.
SWEET CLOVER: ITS WORTH AND ITS
CULTURE.
MELILOTUS INDORSED AGAIN.
From Fftrni dtuf Fircxide.
Sweet clover (melilotus) meets the approval of
every farmer in this neighborhood as a valuable pas-
ture and a soil restorer. For sheep, cattle, and horses
it is hard to equal, and its blossoms are also fine for
bees. A neighbor who has been in the bee business
thirty years says his bees produced 150 pounds of
honey in one season from one stand. This may seem
an unqualified statement, but it is well vouched for.
This clover thrives on some of the poorest soils here
in Southern Indiana. Nothing surpasses it for bring-
ing back fertility to the soil in the shortest time.
Tne roots of the plant the second year go to a great
depth, making them a high-class fertilizer. On the
death of the plant at the close of the second year the
roots decay and the fields can be plowed at this time
or come again from the seed.
If thrashed, sweet clover gives fifteen bushels of
seed an acre, now selling at three to six dollars a
bushel. If the plants are plowed under, my expe-
rience has been that the land, after two or four
years, is left in shape to produce fifteen hundred
pounds of tobacco to the acre, of the finest quality.
I believe every farmer who owns hill ground or land
that is not suitable for alfalfa will be justified in
giving this clover a trial. J. R. CRAIGMYLE.
NEW LIFE TO WORN SOILS.
My first planting of sweet clover as a soil-maker
was on an old, worn, and almost completely exhausted
field, one that had been thrown out in the commons.
A five or six years' growth of scrub oak and sassafras
bushes covered the ground where the washes and
gullies were not so numerous as to prevent their
growth. The soil, geologically speaking, once was a
clay loam (now all gone). The subsoil was yellow
clay underlaid by a stratum of clay, sand, and gravel.
I give this full description of the condition and the
character of the soil because there are so many similar
farms in the same condition, not only here in Ken-
tucky, but through the whole Mississippi Valley,
north and south, and there are so many farmers who
might be benefited, if they only would be, by sowing
sweec clover.
The oak and sassafras bushes were cut and piled
in tne gullies; the top of the brush was laid up the
hill so that the forks of the little limbs would catch
the trash. This would catch other trash and earth,
which would fill in around the larger brush and soon
ft-1 the gully. The backbones, or little ridges, be-
tween the gullies were dug off into the gullies and
tramped hard on to the bushes. The larger ridges
were plowed and harrowed, then the entire field was
sown in the spring to sweet clover and blue-grass.
The sweet clover came up nicely the first season;
but the blue-grass did not come up until the second;
then the sweet clover was tall enough to shade the
tender grass through the heat of summer and to pro-
tect it through the winter. At the end of the second
season, when the sweet clover went to seed, there-
was a growth of the sweet clover fully six feet tall,
and heavy enough to hide a sheep any place in the
field. The blue-grass was five or six inches tall, but
thin on the ground. When the ground was dry, dur-
ing the fall and early winter, this field was pastured
with a few mules and horses. In feeding on the grass
they trod down the dead sweet-clover stalks, which
served as a mulch to the seedling sweet clover, and
prevented the ground from washing. At the begin-
ning of the third season a fine crop of the sweet clover
came up, which with the blue-grass made fine grazing.
89
HOW TO HANDLE SWEET CLOVER.
The amount of (hulled) seed to the acre, for hay,
is thirty pounds; that for pasture and for green
manure, as in cases like the above, is fifteen pounds.
As the stems or stalks of sweet clover become hard
and woody, when thoroughly developed, it is neces-
sary, to secure good hay, to sow the seed so thickly
that the plants are dwarfed. But for building up
old fields, and to seed to pasture, we want a large
growth of plants which will give us the largest
amount of seed the second year and large stalks to
protect the young grass; hence we sow less to the
acre.
I have tried spring, summer, and fall sowing, and
found very little difference, as the seed germinates
slowly, when sown at any time. If sown in the spring
I would advise sowing with it a light seeding of
spring oats. I have found that, to follow along Na-
ture's lines in seeding, or, in other words, to sow the
seed of grasses just after the time of the ripening of
the seed, will give a good stand, other conditions
being favorable.
Where grown for hay, sweet clover should be har-
vested twice the first season. It will not go to seed
the first year if it is cut twice. Where it is cut twice
the second season there is very little seed formed.
The plant of sweet clover dies at the end of the second
season.
Sweet clover should be cut a little earlier in its
growth than alfalfa, as the stalks are more of a woody
nature. Just before the first blossoms appear gives
the best quality of hay.
The great difficulty with sweet clover has been its
unpalatability to stock. In grazing on young plants,
however, the stock begin on it when other grass is
short, and they gradually become accustomed to it.
I note in particular that horses, mules, sheep, and
cattle take to it readily, when turned on it during a
dry time when pasture is short. It is not affected by
extremely dry or hot weather, as are other pastures.
There is quite a difference between the palatability
90
of the tender green plant and the cured hay. The
plant develops the bitter or acid flavor when about
half grown, or about the time to cut for hay. If, how-
ever, the sweet clover is mixed with other hay in feed-
ing the stock at first, they will soon develop a taste
for it, and will prefer it to other hay.
There is quite an advantage in sowing sweet clover
with alfalfa, ten pounds of sweet clover and twenty
pounds of alfalfa. The stalks 01 the sweet clover hold
the alfalfa from falling, and the mixture makes a
splendid hay. J. W. GRIFFIN.
FURTHER TESTIMONY.
A few weeks ago, while taking a buggy-ride through
this county, my traveling companion pointed to a
lot of dry weed-stalks lining the roadside and said:
"I wish the highway superintendent would have those
cut when they ought to be cut. They are fhe worst
weeds we have."
"Not so," said I. "but one of the most useful weeds
we have, and one holding much promise, but never a
pest." It was sweet or melilot clover which here, as
in many other sections, is found in great abundance
on roadsides, railroad embankments, and waste places.
It covers such spots with thrifty verdure, furnishes
bee pasture for many weeks, and, if we only knew
how to handle it just right, it would be serviceable
for other useful agricultural purposes.
Years ago I called attention in these columns to
melilot clover as one of our most promising cover
crops and soil-renovators. It gives an astonishing
lot of green stuff in a surprisingly short time, and it
draws nitrogen from the atmosphere equal to vetch
and alfalfa. In its earlier stages, sweet clover closely
resembles alfalfa, and from the looks of both I should
think that there might not be much difference in the
taste. One of my cows, when tied out in a meadow,
ate the grass down well to the ground, but left the
alfalfa-plants untouched, just as another in another
patch left the sweet-clover plants, until the one be-
came used to the taste of alfalfa and learned to eat
sweet clover. I find my cattle will eat alfalfa and
sweet clover, cut young, as well as vetch (another
plant at first rejected) with apparent relish:
I am glad to see the real merits of melilot clover
more and more appreciated, as may be seen in the
columns of recent issues of FARM AND FIRESIDE and
other agricultural papers. Hundreds and thousands
of acres in the suburbs of our cities, and other un-
occupied lands in their vicinity, are annually covered
with a dense mass of sweet clover, and all of this is
anowed to go to waste, as may be seen by the dead
and leafless stalks every fall. If cut in proper season
it might be utilized for food for horses, cattle, swine,
and poultry in the closed season. It has the same
food value as alfalfa meal. When the sweet-clover
piant gets old and tough and woody, and loses its
leaves, it has also lost its feeding value. Secure it
in time. T. GREINER.
SWEET CLOVER IN ALFALFA MEADOWS.
From The Ohio Farmer.
In buying Western alfalfa seed one is pretty apt to
get a small proportion of sweet clover along with it
(Melilotus alba). It had not occurred to the writer
to mention the presence of sweet clover in alfalfa
seed; but as he now recalls it he can not remember
an alfalfa-field established upon Woodland Farm with-
in recent years where sweet clover did not appear in
greater or less amounts the first year. Some of it will
even show the second year, but after that it is seen
no more. Sweet clover is a biennial, and can not en-
dure mowing off. If not allowed to mature seed it is
soon extinct. It is hardly right to classify sweet
clover with weeds, since it is a splendid soil-enricher,
one of the most energetic nitrogen-gatherers known,
and it carries the same nitrifying bacteria that alfalfa
does, and is thus a direct benefit to a young alfalfa-
field, since it pioneers the way and makes the alfalfa
that succeeds it thrive all the better. However, one
should mow it off at least two or three times in a
year, and that will prevent its seeding and becoming
too plentiful.
Sweet clover in the South is much used as a sheep
and pig pasture. It is greedily eaten there when it
92
comes up first in the spring. It makes a hay too
coarse and woody to be relished by most animals, and
has also an odor that seems too strong for Northern
stock. It is a splendid bee pasture, however.
I mention these peculiarities about sweet clover so
that men getting a little of it in alfalfa seed may not
be frightened. They should go on as though they had
none of it. Their alfalfa-meadows, in order to suc-
ceed, will need to be cut at least three times a year,
and that will vanquish every bit of the sweet clover.
CHARLES B. WING.
Champaign Co., O.
SWEET CLOVER.
F. L., Gallia Co., O., writes: "Will the Ohio Farmer
give experience in growing sweet clover — best time
and manner of seeding, etc.? State where seed can
be had. I have heard that it is a good crop to pre-
cede alfalfa, and wish to try it with this in view;
also as a pasture crop for hogs."
A subscriber from Brown Co., O., also writes: "I
have read quite a lot of late concerning sweet clover.
Please advise what you know about this legume. Is it
more sure to make a catch than red clover? Is it best
for pasture or hay? I see it growing along our road-
sides, apparently untouched by live stock."
There are a great many different species of legumes
passing under the name of sweet clover, some of
which are of little or no value. The most common
as well as the most valuable species in the central
States is Melilotus aWa, known variously as sweet
clover, bokhara, large white clover, melilot, and white
melilot. This is widely distributed over the United
States, growing quite freely along roadsides and waste
places. Under these conditions it is hardy and per-
sistent; but let it once understand that its presence
is desired— that is, prepare a good seed-bed for it,
and nurse it, and it is affrighted!
I should perhaps state that Melilotus alia is a bi-
ennial, resembling alfalfa not a little. Indeed, up to
blooming time it is not unusual to mistake one for
the other. It is three-leaved, erect, and somewhat
coarser than alfalfa. Its blossoms are slender and
white, rarely appearing until the second year. It has
a characteristic odor, and is not liked at first by live
stock. Undoubtedly its greatest value is as a soil-
improver, although it is claimed that stock can be
accustomed to it so that they will eat it with some
relish. Chemical analysis shows it to be similar in
composition to alfalfa. I suppose that, in spite of this
fact, they may seem to be as far apart as diamonds
and charcoal (both having the same chemical make-
up) to the ultimate consumer.
Unquestionably sweet clover is a desirable crop
to precede alfalfa, since the bacteria which work upon
the roots of sweet clover also work upon alfalfa; but
if our correspondent's experience should be anything
like the writer's he will find it rather more difficult to
secure a stand and crop of sweet clover than of al-
falfa. As I have intimated, it often comes of its own
free will where it is neither expected nor desired; but
repeated efforts to start it where it has. been wanted
have uniformly resulted much less successfully than
similar attempts with alfalfa. Accordingly, I can
hardly recommend it as a John the Baptist for alfalfa.
Nor do I think it anywhere near as sure a crop as
red clover.
One great trouble, perhaps the greatest, is to secure
good germinable seed. Just why this is true I won't
attempt to say. I have tried many different seeds-
men, and it is only rarely that I have succeeded in
getting hold of seed one-half of which would grow.
I would suggest that, before purchasing seed, our
correspondents ask for small samples and test them
for germination.
As to time of seeding, it is probable that June, July,
and August are as satisfactory months to seed sweet
clover as any. I would sow 15 to 20 pounds of hulled
seed, or half a bushel of unhulled seed per acre, on a
clean moist seed-bed, harrowing it in, as one would
alfalfa. It may also be seeded in corn at the last
cultivation with some degree of success where the
ground is full of humus, and moisture conditions are
favorable after seeding. It is of doubtful utility as a
94
forage crop; but as a catch or cover crop it may pos-
sibly become of some moment. It should be stated
that it affords excellent pasturage for bees.
SWEET CLOVER AS A FORERUNNER OF OTHER VEGETATION.
We have sweet clover growing in abundance on our road-
sides here, but I have not observed any instance where it is
growing to any extent in cultivated fields. When I was a
boy our roadsides were covered with many weeds. They
were generally pastured down into the ground with sheep
and cattle. Later, ragweed grew abundantly. Some 12 or
lo years ago sweet clover commenced to grow in patches.
It was undoubtedly distributed over wide extents of terri-
tory by the wheels of vehicles and not by any hand-sowing.
Now I notice this : Where the clover has grown thick for a
few years it seems to die out and give place to our natural
bluegrass. In other words, our friend the sweet clover
(melilotus) has perfo<rmed its mission — that of growing
upon and enriching an otherwise barren soil, leaving its
legacy, the nitrogen nodules, which are said to be the same
as on alfalfa. Who would not rather drive along a road with
the perfume of the sweet clover coming to him from both
sides than the hay-f ever-promoting ragweed pollen?
Lenawee Co., Mich. ABNER WILSON.
YELLOW SWEET CLOVER SOWN IN NOVEMBER, AND IN FULL
BLOOM THE FOLLOWING JUNE.
June 14, 1909, Mr. Philip Bohley, a man in our employ,
brought me a stalk of yellow sweet clover 5 ft. tall, covered
with bloom. He said the plant came from seed that he
sprinkled along the roadside in November the fall before.
He did not notice whether the seed came up in the fall or
not. All he could say was that there was no sweet clover
in that place the year before. The circumstance was so
remarkable that myself and Ernest took a trip there to see
it ; and the picture adjoining is supposed to be myself stand-
ing among the sweet-clover plants. I took off my fur cap
and donned Ernest's hat, and that is one reason why I do
not look natural.
The matter was mentioned in GLEANINGS for July 1, 1909,
page 418, and I then inquired if anybody else had secured
a successful stand of sweet clover, either white or yellow,
when the seed was sown as late as November. Several let-
ters informed us that the same thing had been done by
sowing the seed in August and September, but none as late
as November. Mr. Bohley says the horses grab for it every
time they go past it. Remember this seed was not in culti-
vated soil, nor had any effort been made to cover the seed
in any way. It was just scattered along the roadside ad-
Joining his' own premises. If this thing can be duplicated
it would seem to indicate that yellow sweet clover will fur-
nish a large amount of good food for stock, or for plowing
under, in a shorter time than any other legume or anything
June, 1910. A. I. ROOT.
95
Table of Contents.
(Continued from page two of cover)
Poultry, for 93
Preparing the ground for sowing other crops 75, 84
Preparing land for alfalfa 5, 63
Preventing honey from granulating 46
Quality of honey from 14
Railway banks, sweet clover on 61
Restorer of poor soils 88
Roads, for making 13, 32, 33
Roots of for pigs 79, 83
Roots of sweet clover for pigs 74, 80
Roots, value of 73
Roots, 28 tons per acre 72
Rural New-Yorker, clippings from 52
Seed required per acre 9, 86, 90, 94
Seed, imported 4
Seed, gathering 69, 75
Sheep, for 5, 40, 79, 80, 93
Soil-renovator, sweet clover for 91
Sowing, time for 82, 90
Stand, difficulties in getting a good one 68
Stock learning to eat sweet clover 28
Sweet clover nine feet tall 48
Tap roots, enormous 55
Ten feet high 77
Thrashing out the seed 16, 17
Unhulled slow in germination 46
Utah for sweet clover : 35
Value of per acre for honey 42, 43, 49, 65
Value for hay 85
Value for milch cows 35, 36
Weed, noxious, is sweet clover ever ? 3, 43
Winter-killing 7, 8
Yellow sweet clover 14, 15, 17, 41, 45, 72
4978
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