BUCKWHEAT. 



73 



CAMPANILLA. 



ver. The influence of clover and abundunt 

 rains matured the ^rain in just 65 days after 

 the sowing ; and as the seed was not sown in 

 the first place till after the 15th of August, 

 our experiments showed that, under favor- 

 able circumstances, buckwheat is a very 

 speedy crop. There was no killing frost that 

 season until the last of October, but this, 

 of course, is unusual. 



SOWING BUCKWHEAT AND CRIMSON CLO- 

 VER AT THE SAME TIME. 



During the last two or three years we have 

 had excellent success in sowing crimson clo- 

 ver with buckwheat, especially where both 

 were put in along the last of July or first of 

 August. They come up together ; but the 

 buckwheat, being stronger, takes the 

 ground, and the crimson clover makes but 

 little showing until after the buckwheat is 

 harvested. Then the crimson clover, dur- 

 ing the cool moist fall weather, rapidly cov- 

 ers the ground. If frost should kill the 



buckwheat, the crimson clover will rise up 

 above it and hide its black unsightliness in 

 a very brief period ; and the dead buck- 

 wheat seems to be just the sort of midching 

 that the clover needs. The finest crop of 

 crimson clover we ever grew or saw was sown 

 this way, and turned under the following 

 J une, for planting potatoes. 



Caution. — It is a fact that buckwheat 

 honey occasionally contains 33 per cent of 

 water, and is, therefore, too thin, according 

 to the formula of the national pure-food 

 law passed July 31, 1906, which limits the 

 amount of water in honey to 25 per cent. It 

 will be necessary, therefore, to evaporate 

 thin honey to make it conform to the law. 



This may be done by means of a honey- 

 evaporator, or by storing it for a while in a 

 hot dry room. Bee-keepers need not hesi- 

 tate to go to the extra trouble involved by the 

 law, since the honey is really so much im- 

 proved, and ought to connnand liigher price. 



C. 



U 



CAGES FOR QUEErrS- 



DUCING. 



See Intro- 



CAlVEFANIIiLA. ,, A plant that stands 

 first in importance to the bee-keepers of 

 Cuba is the campanilla, or bellflower, a 

 species of the morning-glory. There are 

 several varieties, but only two of them seem 

 to yield honey — the campanilla blanca and 

 the campanilla marada. 



Campanilla blanca, or white bellflower, is 

 of most importance. It is a perennial, the 

 vines sometimes obtaining the size of from 

 two to three inches in diameter, and is gen- 

 erally found growing among trees and 

 shrubs or along fences and stone walks. 

 The height of bloom is about Christmas, for 

 which reason it is also called the " aguinaldo 

 blanca de la pasqne," and at this season of 

 the year it is a common sight to see almost 

 every tree, shrub, and fence along the road 

 one solid mass of white-aguinaldo bloom. 

 The odd featiu'e about this plant is its irreg- 

 ular blooming. It will l)loom only evcy 

 other day, and then, again, several days in 

 succession. The days of blooming are al- 

 ways iniiversal. One day every vine is in 



full bloom ; the next day not a single vine is 

 to be seen in bloom in miles of travel. 



Campanilla marada, or pink bellflower, is 

 an annual. It blooms during the months 

 of October ai:d November. It is found 

 principally in western Cuba, in the region 

 known as the " vuelta abajo," the great 

 tobacco region ; and it is the growing of 

 tobacco that makes possible the great 

 amount of this particular variety of the bell- 

 flower, for tobacco seed is, as a rule, always 

 sown on virgin soil. Laige tracts of land, / 

 on both mountain and coast, are cleared ■ 

 every year, just to grow one crop of tobacco- • 

 plants. "When the plants are big enough to 

 Ije transplanted they are pulled and shipped 

 by railroad, ox-cart, or mule-train, to where 

 the tobacco is to be grown. These tobacco- 

 seed beds are, by the next year, and for 

 years to come, covered by the vines of the 

 campanilla marada, which, in western Cuba, 

 springs up wherever the land has been culti- 

 vated. 



The honey from the bellflowers, in color 

 and flavor, is equal to alfalfa or sage. The 

 comb built during the bellflower floAv is 



