1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



445 



to the tire and smoke of battle, and menu business, 

 j'ou can stiinrt coolly by the suiillowers, and there 

 will be such a siinilarit,\- between .vour straw hat and 

 Iheir disks, that it will be about a-; bad lor the sun- 

 llowers as it is for you. 



1 don't know what soil is best adaptc<l to mignoii- 

 ncttc; but it grows luxuriantly on this Jersey sand, 

 and yields lots of honey. There have been about 35 

 bees on an average, daily, from sunrise to siniset, on 

 a plat of five square feet, for two months now. 

 There are 43,5ti0 sq. ft. in an acre, so there would be 

 317,800 bees continuall.v at work on an acre of mignoii- 

 nette. 



Borag-e is a good bee-plant with us. There is a 

 good succession of blo<im. I find about 10 bees to .5 

 sq. ft. as above, or 87,130 to the acre. 



These plants I have near my bee-yard, and still I 

 have not often seen an Italian bee either on mignon- 

 nette, borage, or sunflower. Not one in a h\ni<lred 

 of the bees visiting these plants was an Italian; but 

 from a half to two and a half miles away I can al- 

 ways find plenty of them. S. J. H. 



Spotswood, N. J., July 3.5, 1883. 



Thanks, frieud II. ; but I hard]y think I 

 shoukl be satisfied with tlie number of bees 

 on an acre, you mention. According to the 

 latest observations, there are about 4UU0 bees 

 in a pound ; and if each colony sent out 5 

 lbs. of flying bees, your acre of mignonnette 

 would keep only a little over 10 colonies 

 busy, and the borage a little over 4. Our 

 Simpson plant would, I tliink, keep more 

 than double tlie number of bees you have 

 mentioned on tlie mignonnette. Suntlower 

 has been visited so seldom by the bees of 

 late years, w'e have discontinued its cultiva- 

 tion, 



■■» 1 1 1 w» 



BASSWOOUS. 



SOME ENC(JUKAGING WORDS FOH lUSING GENERA- 

 TIONS. 



EN June Gleanings, friend Holtke gives a very 

 good statement of how basswoodscan be grown 

 from cuttings, in a propagating house; but not 

 every one has such a structure, and it would hardlj- 

 pay to build one just to start a few basswoods. We 

 have grown a few in the open air very successfully, 

 and give the modus operandi. 



Here let me digress a little, and say that nearly all 

 trees, vines, and shrubs, can be grown from cut- 

 tings, if proper care be taken, some from ripe and 

 others from green wood. All having soft, or open 

 cellular wood, such as all the willows, all of the pop- 

 lars, mulberries, and many other trees, grow readily 

 in the open air, as do almost all grapevines, roses, 

 currants, gooseberries, arbor-vitaN etc. 



Ground should be prepared in the fall, and should 

 •"e deeply plowed or spaded. Cuttings should also 

 be made of well-ripened wood, and should be from tv 

 to 8 inches in length. Tie in bundles, and bury in 

 dry. sandy soil, out of the reach of frost. As soon 

 as spring opens, the ground should be thrown into 

 beds about 6 feet wide, and the soil made mellow by 

 frequent raking with a rake having long iron teeth. 

 The cuttings should be pushed into the soil so that 

 the last bud is even with the top of the bed. Use a 

 board about a foot wide, place it on the bed, afid 

 stick the cuttings along its side about three inches 

 apart; when you have a row complete, turn the 



board forward, and stick another row, etc. Keep 

 the beds free from weeds; and if soil is liable to 

 bake, mulch with half-rotted tanbark, sawdust, or, 

 what is better, decayed straw or marsh hay, if freo 

 from weeds. Treated in this way, 75 per cent of 

 cuttings should make a good growth. 



Were we going to start a basswood nursery, how- 

 ever, wc should prefer to set roots. These can bo 

 procured very cheaply in any basswood country. I 

 have oO acres of woodland which we use as sheep 

 pasture, and I prcssume the sheep destroy 100,000 

 young basswoods every year. Take young trees, 

 from one to three feet high; remove from woods, 

 taking pains to break the roots as little as possible. 

 When ready to plant, cut the tops off to within an 

 inch or two of the crown, and they will throw up a 

 strong shoot that will make a growth of from 4 to 10 

 feet the first season. 



I was much amused at friend Root's idea, that the 

 section business would soon use up all the basswood. 

 Why, friend R., enough basswood is burned in log- 

 heaps in Michigan every year, to make sections 

 enough to last a century. The section business, al- 

 though it may look large to you, is very small com- 

 pared with some others. Right here in our little 

 town, as much as 500 or tiOO cords of basswood bolts 

 are cut into heading for flour-barrels some years, 

 and such mills arc scattered all over the State, and 

 yet there seems to be enough basswood lumber at 

 $13.00 per M., the price asked for it 30 years ago 

 when I was a boy. We estimate that there will be 

 enough to last for sections for a couple of thousand 

 years; then snow-white poplar, and the beautiful 

 white spruce, will come in; and after that, soft ma- 

 ple can be used, it being as white as basswood, and 

 has not that disgusting smell characteristic of l)as8- 

 wood. When this is gone, no doubt Out that some 

 genius will invent a process for making sections out 

 of straw that will throw those now in use all in the 

 shade, and our rich Western prairies will no doubt 

 furnish enough straw for 3 or 4 millions of years 

 yet, by which time you and 1 will be gone, and the 

 present style of sections discarded. Don't borrow 

 so much trouble, my friend. 



Plainfleld, Mich. F. L. Wright. 



Thanks, friend W. I presume it is very 

 likely that basswoods can be procured 

 cheaper from tlie forests than from any 

 other source, unless a very great number is 

 wanted, and then I tliink cuttings will be 

 perhaps ahead of those raised from the seed, 

 or even those procured from the forests. 

 Another item needs consideration. Just 

 now it would be very desirable indeed to 

 have a forest of basswoods that would yield 

 honey all through August. That this is 

 possible, you may almost any of you assure 

 yourself by going through the woods about 

 the time basswood fails, and seeing what a 

 great difference there is in different trees in 

 the time of blooming. Well, just get your 

 cuttings from the tree that blooms the lat- 

 est of any one you can hnd, and your late- 

 blooming forest, raised from cuttings, is 

 ([uickly within your grasp. I think it very 

 likely I liave been a little too fast in antici- 

 ])ating trouble ; but I am sure that the quan- 

 tity of basswood cut off in ISIedina Co. will 

 very materially damage tlie honey crop. I, 

 too, liave thought of card and straw board, 

 and things of that kind ; but I have as oft- 

 en computed how much cheaper is the bass- 



