WINTER MEETING. 335 



are ever seen upon sound branches. The wine-growers of France 

 gather their grapes and leave them where the bees have access to them, 

 so that they will remove the juice from all broken ones, claiming that 

 by so doing a much fairer article of wine will be produced, as the 

 juice of the grape, when the skin is broken, will ferment and sour. 



When birds and wasps have punctured the skin of ripe peaches, 

 pears and grapes, and there is no nectar to be had from flowers, bees 

 will suck ouL their juices, and many persons will suppose that they 

 tore them open. An observant person, noticing that bees had made 

 holes through new Indian Head muslin, and had enlarged their fly 

 entrance, jumps to the conclusion that if bees can bite holes in muslin 

 and wood, they would have no difiQculty in biting holes in fruit. Now 

 let us make a careful examination of these substances: bees make holes 

 by picking, not biting; they work industriously at the muslin, until 

 they raise a lint, which they can pick off. I have seen a number of 

 them together, pulling at a raveling to drag it from the hive, and at one 

 time I lost a queen by her getting a thread wound around her body. 

 In the same way they work at wood, raising a little fuzz, until they can 

 grasp a fiber, and then keep picking at it. They cannot do this with 

 the skin of fruit; it is too smooth ; they cannot raise any nap or fuzz. 



Where Wood Ashes Are Cheap Enough. 



J. H. S., Paekersbcjrg, W. Va. — On page 785 The R. N.-Y says: 

 " What forms of potash will best take the place of wood ashes ? " I 

 was expecting to put ashes, made by burning whiteoak slabs, upon my 

 peach orchard. Is this not the right thing to do? Can something 

 better be used"? What are such ashes worth when fresh"? They will 

 cost $3 per ton in the orchard. 



Answer. — Such wood ashes at $3 per ton give you cheaper pot- 

 ash than you can get in any other form. We referred to the farmers 

 who are using ashes that cost from |9 to $13 per ton. For many years 

 ashes were by far the cheapest source of potash. Now, the German 

 potash salts are sold at prices that give cheaper potash than the ashes 

 at $8 or over. White-oak ashes are excellent, and at the price named 

 cannot be improved upon. They would sell readily at $13 on the 

 Hudson river. 



