102 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 18^4. 



body, and have determined the relations the different con- 

 stituents of the food bear to each other and to the animal 

 body. We find that the animal must appropriate from 

 the vegetables all of the substances of the muscles and 

 fat, and probably has no power to combine them from 

 their elements so as to form the required compounds. The 

 fibrine of the blood is the same as that of the wheat. 

 The albumen of the egg and of the vegetable are the 

 same. Casein of milk and the lagumen of the bean are 

 similar. In the language of another : " These substances 

 are all convertible into each other in the animal organism." 

 If tins is true, the food of animals should be compounded 

 in regard to the result desired. A certain quantity of food 

 will sustain the animal in health. It must be modified if 

 we desire to fatten or work the animal. The necessary 

 variation is very small, it is true, but in it is shown the 

 skill of the scientific feeder, and it is often sufficient to 

 obtain the result sought. We do not have sufficiently 

 accurate information concerning the feed value or nutritive 

 ratio of many of the feed stuffs of the South to give you 

 perfectly accurate formulas for the economic use of many 

 of these feed stuffs. So far as I am aware no attempts 

 have been made to construct formulas for the rations for 

 stock using Southern feed-stuffs entirely. We have for- 

 mulas using sorne of the Southern products, which are 

 largely and profitably used in the Eastern States, England 

 and Germany. In presenting you with a few formulas, in 

 all of which cotton seed meal is used instead of corn or 

 oats, we acknowledge that it is more than an attempt at 

 introducing the principles of scientific feeding into the 

 South. Similar formula? cannot be at present constructed 

 for all of our feed-stuffs, as our government has not yet 

 seen fit to direct much of its attention to the development 

 of the knowledge of the Southern feed-stuffs, and the 

 enterprise of a few chemists of limited resources is in- 

 adequate to the task. We trust, however, that farmers 

 and those interested in the cotton seed mills will find them 

 of 6ome service. 



Here follows a long and rather complicated table whu h 

 we cannot give in full for want of space. The main 

 showing of the table is that cotton seed meal is richer 

 in " albuminoids " than any other stock feed now in gen- 

 eral use. It is also very rich in many of the other prin- 

 ciples necessary to the making up of an entirely first- 

 class feed. We quote further: — 



There is not an animal produced upon a Southern plant- 

 ation that cannot be fed and fattened upon the produc- 

 tions of that plantation if they be properly prepared. It 

 is simply the nonsense of fashion which leads the 

 Southern farmer to send to the Northwest for his feed. 

 The Mississippi farmer has at his door 550,000 tons of 

 the very best feed-stuff in the world, worth at the rates, 

 at which we calculate tho food values of different materials, 

 $22,880,000. If we compare this with the oats crop of 

 Illinois, which produces more than any other State, we 

 find that crop worth only $25,558,000. We pay high prices 

 for grain brought from the North, while we ship away 

 or allow to waste a better feed-stuff, obtaining for it 

 less than half of its value. 



The farmer of the North can well afford to ship grain 

 here and buy back cotton seed meal. The values stand 

 as follows: — If corn is worth per 100 pounds $1.11 as a 

 feed stuff, cotton seed is worth $2.08, cotton seed meal, 

 $2.30; oats, 98 cents; cow peas, $1.33; good hay, 75 cents. 

 These valuations are given in " Stewart's Feeding Animals," 

 which has lately been published and are based upon the 

 most carefully made analyses. 



The feed value of the cotton seed meal and cake arc 

 not appreciated by the Southern farmers as they are by 

 those elsewhere. Where competition is the greatest and 

 the farmers the most intelligent, or where there is necess- 

 ity of economic feeding, we find cotton seed is most highly 

 prized. There we have no complaints about its killing 

 stock. It is only where the farmers are so careless as to 

 allow their stock to eat too much of it without other food 

 that it will kill the stock. Corn, wheat and oats, under 

 the same considerations, would do the same, probably, 

 though, as they are not so rich they are not so likely to 

 do it as the rich cotton seed and its products are. We 

 have no hesitation in saying that the cotton seed meal 

 or cake is one of the best feed stuffs that is produced in 

 any climate. The meal is better than the seed. * * * 



The chief interest that we have in the cotton seed is 

 centered in the kernel, which constitutes just about one- 

 half of the seed by weight. If we look at it as a feed 

 stuff it is composed of fat 36'55 per cent, nitrogenous 

 matter 29'25 per cent, carbo-hydrates 19-52 per cent, crude 

 fiber 438 per cent, according to Dr. Dabney, giving a 

 nutritive ratio of 12*07. 



If we take the seed as a whole, it has : Ash, 7'8 per 

 cent, albuminoids 228 per cent, of fiber, 160 per cent, 

 other carbodydcate 15'4 per cent, fats 30'3 per cent — nu- 

 tritive ratio 4'6, according to Wolf. 



The ash is composed, according to Wolf, of potash 32'15 

 per cent, soda 8'75 per cent; lime 561 per cent, magnesia 

 16'65 per cent, phosphoric acid 31 '16 per cent, sulphuric 

 acid 216 per cent, silica 0'31 per cent,' chk rine l - 62 per 

 cent. — Independent Journal. 



AGRIOULTTJKE IN AMERICA: THE BEEKEEPING 

 INDUSTRY. 



BY JOHN L. DOW. 



In nothing has there been greater progress displayed 

 throughout America during the past half-dozen years than 

 in the keeping of bees. Formerly success in beekeeping 

 was attributed largely to " luck," and the variety of systems 

 practised by different beekeepers was only equalled by the 

 multiplicity of designs adopted in the construction of the 

 hives. A specialty of the American farm, as seen today, 

 is its apiary, as the rows of hives are called, which are 

 marshalled along at distances of from 5 to 7 feet from each 

 other in some convenient situation near the garden or 

 orchard. And what arrest6 attention is the similarity of 

 pattern in these square white painted hives. From Cali- 

 fornia to Massachusetts one would think that the keepers 

 of bees had obtained their hives from one maker. You 

 find, however, that nearly every State has its own special 

 make of beehives, but the differences are only in detail, 

 and do not interfere with the general plan that seems to 

 govern these square boxes. ~\Ve eventually discover that 

 keeping in America is now everywhere reduced to principles 

 that are as much distinguished for their certainty of oper- 

 ation as formerly the occupation was noted for being one 

 essentially of guesswork. 



Although beekeeping to the extent of apiaries comprising 

 from a dozen hives or so up to about 50 is general among 

 the farms and orchards, the big bee ranche, whose pro- 

 prietor devotes his whole attention to the industry, is also 

 quite an established American concern. It is estimated 

 that for the year 1882 there were 70.000 beekeepers in the 

 United States, possessing among them a total of 2,000,000 

 hives, averaging 20 lb. of honey each, which at the low 

 average of 10 cents per lb. represented a total of 4,000,000 

 dollars, besides 20,000,000 1b. of wax, worth 6,000,000 dol- 

 lars, or a total for the year's crop of 10,000,000 dollars. 

 Of these amounts, honey and wax to the value of 1,200,000 

 and 700,000 dollars respectively were exported for the 

 same year. Among the beekeepers in the eastern states 

 the work of what is called "wintering the colonies" is 

 a very serious portion of the beekeeper's responsibility, b&t 

 in the more genial and Australian like climate prevailing 

 along the Pacific Coast, between San Francisco and Mexico, 

 the bee industry is carried on under the most favorable 

 conditions. In Los Angeles County, southern California, 

 there are 200 apiaries, aggregating 12,000 hives, from which 

 it is estimated that an average of 500,000 lb. of honey are 

 taken annually ; and one large producer, Mr. J. S. Harbi- 

 son, sent through to New York on one occasion a con- 

 signment of honey and wax amounting to 10 car loads of 

 20,000 lb. each or 200,000 lb. in all. Among individual yields 

 vouched for at Los Angeles is one where from a single hive 

 during the season 566 lb. of honey was taken, some of which, 

 owing to its purity and the superior manner in which it was 

 got up lor* market, reached 50 cents per lb. 



The square box form of the hives that has already been 

 alluded to was adopted as far back as 1851, almost about 

 the same time, by the American and German beekeepers, 

 Laugstroth and Dzeron respectively, to admit of working 

 their movable comb improvement, an invention which has 

 led the way to all the recent beekeeping improvtnuuts. 

 It is strange that the complete revolution in bee manage- 

 ment effected by the early discoveries of these two nicu 



