214 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ September 11, 18GI3. 



the existence of fertile workers, thus challenged all those " who 

 write !lustily about fertile workers :" — " If there should be one 

 fertile worker La all England or Scotland this year, I will here 

 offer £10 to the owner if he will send her to me; and if he 

 does not want to part with her I will give him £10 to the poor 

 of his parish if he will send me a dozen of her eggs. And let 

 me hope that these writers will hold their tongues about fertile 

 workers till they honestly meet my challenge and offer, and 

 produce one of what they write about." A friend, a bee-keeper, 

 who had seen my hive, urged me to take up the challenge, as 

 he thought I could. The hive gradually dwindled away till 

 the middle of May, when there were no more bees than would 

 have filled a common tea-cup. Still drone eggs were laid up 

 to thaj-tirne, and although other four bee-keepers and myself 

 examined every individual bee, we could not see any difference 

 among them, and certainly no appearance of a queen. This 

 is now the third case of fertile workers which I have had ; but 

 it affords the clearest evidence of the existence of such, as had 

 those eggs even been laid by a queen, that queen could not 

 have been mated, as it was eight weeks after they were laid 

 till any drones were seen in my other hives. 



In this locality the present year has not been such a good 

 season for honey as the last. The weather was too dry, the 

 furze and clover, were soon over, and very little flower honey has 

 been obtained in the ordinary way of management. I have 

 been very fortunate myself, having had nine supers from six 

 stocks which I had in the spring, or nearly 2 cwt. of honey, 

 the heaviest super containing 38 lbs. I have been endeavour- 

 ing to prevent swarming this year, and have succeeded in 

 some cases, but as completely failed in others, although thera 

 was abundance of room. I intend to increase the number 

 of bars in the Woodbury frames up to twenty or twenty-four. 

 I have done so with success up to fourteen bars, but it is 

 not enough yet, as the queen has filled all the fourteen bars 

 with brood. 



I had one top swarm, the bees alone weighing 8j lbs., the 

 heaviest which has ever been in this part of the country so far 

 as I am aware. 



Foul brood has entirely disappeared from my own and my 

 neighbours' hives, but I knew of several cases in other apiaries 

 in this neighbourhood, and they all occurred in the old cottage 

 hives and managed in the usual way. 



The bees about here are now (August), all at the hills among 

 the heather, and if we have fine weather for two weeks I expect 

 as much more honey as I have obtained, but if we have bad 

 weather many hives sent away will not obtain enough honey 

 to keep them all winter, and heather honey will not be plentiful. 

 — Alex. SHBAKEB, Tester Garden. 



MOUNTAIN SILK OF NORTH CHINA. 



Mr. Consul Meadows, whose consular district includes Man- 

 chooria and Eastern Mongolia, reports that mountain silk re- 

 mains as yet the one article which the district is likely to 

 furnish to England. There are two crops of the mountain 

 cocoon, a spring and an avitumn ; the autumn much the largest, 

 but the spring greatly superior in quality. In the autumn the 

 cocoons intended for the spring crop are placed in baskets, 

 which are hung up in Chinese dwelling-rooms facing the south, 

 but still having a temperature in the greater part of the winter 

 considerably below freezing point. The natural heat of spring 

 suffices to bring the chrysalis out of the cocoon in the butterfly 

 state. The butterflies then couple, eggs are produced in four 

 or five days, and are laid on paper spread upon mats and tables. 

 In a few days each egg produces a very small black worm which 

 is nourished by young oak leaves that are gathered and scattered 

 over the paper. After some days the worms are transferred to 

 the oak bushes on the hill slopes. After its first sleep or torpor 

 of a couple of days the worm becomes green in colour and 

 larger in size. For its fifth sleep it prepares by spinning 

 itself into a cocoon, in which it assumes the chrysalis shapa. 

 When the worm begins to make its cocoon, it selects two or 

 more oak leaves, more or less facing each other, and joins them 

 together by a network of the silk thread which keeps issuing 

 from its mouth as it moves its head from the one leaf to the 

 other, holding on by its back claws to the twig from which the 

 leaves grow. When the leaves are sufficiently joined to form a 

 sort of cup or basket under the twig, the worm drops into the 

 receptacle it has thus formed, first quite surrounds itself with 

 the loose, flossy-like silk which forms the outer portion of the 

 cocoons as they come to market, and then proceeds to thicken 



the inner surface by' further thread-spinning, till its bulk is, 

 sufficiently decreased for its turning into the chrysalis shape. 

 The best silk is produced by nourishing the worm on the leaves 

 not of the oak, but of the " Tseen-tso-tsze," which exists, 

 however, only in small quantities. The chrysalids which are 

 not kept for breeding are used by the Chinese as an article 

 of food. Not a tenth of the hillsides suitable for the oak 

 bushes are at present planted with them ; but considering 

 the quantity of sill; already produced, it may be taken that 

 the trade could be developed into one ef appreciable im- 

 portance even for our great manufacturing interests, unless 

 exactions and jealousies of the local mandarins interposed to 

 repress it. 



[We recommend this silkworm to the attention of the Accli- 

 matisation Society. Surely it might be naturalised in this 

 country with advantage. — Ens.] 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Dark Cochins Producing White Chickens (.v. E. H.).— Such sports 

 are not very rare. Still, they are often considered sports when they are 

 really nothing of the sort, but a simple throwing back. For instance, we 

 believe those you have bred would do so, and probably in one batch would 

 produce dark and white birds. The Black Cochins were said to be pro- 

 duced by mating a Buff cock with a White heu. White Cochins are more 

 prone to be falcon-hocked than any others. Seeing yours have it, and 

 that their origin is at least doubtful, we do not advise you to keep them. 



Dewsbcry Poultry Show.— The winner of the .silver cup for the best 

 pen in the Show was Mr. .Tames Thresh, Manchester Road, Bradford, not 

 .lames Thresby as published. 



Preserving Pears Whole (Poire).— The following is from a French 

 work on confectionery :— " Take care that the pears be not too ripe ; they 

 are fit as soon as the pips are black. Set the pears on the fire with suffi- 

 cient water to cover them ; take them off when quite soft, and put them 

 into cold water ; pare them lightly, cut off the stalks, prick each with a 

 pin sufficiently long to reach the core, and put them again in cold water, 

 with a little alum ; set them on the fire to boil until the pears are tender, 

 then take them out, and put them in cold water for the third time. 

 Clarify and boil some sugar to petite liwe ; pjut some water to it. and when 

 it boils add the pears, cover the pan, and give the whole a boil; skim, 

 pour it into an earthen pan, and leave it. The next day drain the syrup 

 from the pears, add a little more clarified sugar to it, and boil it again to 

 petite lii-se ; pom* it over the fruit, and leave it as before. The next and 

 two successive days proceed in the same way, each time decreasing the 

 degree of boiling until it reaches tjrande perle ; then add the pears, give 

 the preserve a boil (covered), skim and pour it into a pan, place it in a 

 stove for two days, then drain the fruit, and put it by for use." 



Ripe Grape Wine IS. II"., Wiluhire).— The following are the directions 

 given by " Upwards and Onwards," the most successful maker of grape 

 wine that we know :— " Directly after the grapes are gathered and weighed, 

 they should be picked from their stalks into one of the large pans ; and 

 the pestle and mortar being deposited on the washing-bench, having the 

 fruit on one side and an empty pan on the other, bowl after bowl of 

 grapes should be crushed in the mortar; not by a vertical jam, but by 

 working the pestle with a light circular horizontal motion, using suffi- 

 cient force only to macerate the skins and pulp without smashing the 

 pips, for in the latter case they would impart an unpleasant roughness 

 to the wine. The pulp is emptied from the mortar with the ladling bowl 

 into the pan, and so on until the bruising process is completed. When a 

 pestle and mortar cannot be had, the grapes can be hand-crushed in the 

 colander, made to rest over the pan upon the two squared stakes. Now 

 strain about a pint of the juice from the must, and prove it by the sac- 

 charometer, which is done by nearly filling the tin tube that belongs to it 

 and immersing the glass instrument therein, when the specific gravity of 

 the juice is read oh the index plate, and the stated degree should be 

 noted down. On the supposition that ten gallons of wine are to be made, 

 SO lbs. of grapes, exclusive of their stalks, will be a good proportion to 

 make use of, and we shall conclude that this is the weight of the now- 

 called ' must ' in the pan before us. Toss two gallons of clean cold 

 water into it, and stir it about well with a large wooden spoon, or some- 

 thing to answer the purpose. Strain off a piut of the watered juice, and 

 make a note of the specific gravity as before. Place the two squared 

 stakes across the pan, and cover it over with a piece of drugget, or some- 

 thing of the sort, to exclude the air and preserve a temperature of about 

 60 c . The must will now gain daily in sweetness, and should be well stiiTed, 

 and proved daily with the saccharometer, until it is seen that the sweet- 

 ness begins to diminish, and then no time must be lost in straining off, 

 as the skins of the grapes would deteriorate thejuice by remaining longer 

 with it. The wine-press now comes into action. To fit into the strain- 

 ing-box I nse a bag made of strong cheese-cloth, into which, by raising 

 its open end, is ladled about a gallon of the must to be pressed, and the 

 I 'cheese ' of compressed skins and pips is emptied into a milk-pan, and 

 so on consecutively. Before I used a press I carried out this process as 

 follows : — An empty pan was placed beneath the squared stakes, or a 

 short ladder, and resting up^n them or it the colander, into which the 

 must was ladled by degrees ; the j uice was then well pressed by the hands 

 from the skins and pips into the pan below, and the refuse tossed into a 

 milk-pan, and so until the muscles of one's arms became rigid. The 

 &U - ained-off jnice is now measured with the tin can, and in every pro- 

 bability, it will be found to have run eight gallons, then one gallon and a 

 half of clean water will be sufficient to pour over the skins and pips in 

 the milk-pan, and if this water can be heated to a temperature of not 

 more than 80 ? so much the better. Let it he well stirred amongst the 

 skins and pips to express what virtue remains in them ; then strain it off 

 and add it with the jnice in the working-pan, and the united quantity 

 should slightly exceed ten gallons. I may mention that I never add a 

 drop of raw spirits to my wines of any description.'' 



