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 , >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 uuu; 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 8y 2 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 l 1 /^ 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 sow r n 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