328 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr, 15. 



finest plants I had ever grown. For earliness, 

 robust growth, satisfactory fruit, and frevdom 

 from disease, I grow the Champion. My five 

 sashes have since been my dulight, and twice 

 paid for themselves, besides tiie home pleasure 

 and benefit. Mrs. L. J. Page. 

 Faribault, Minn^ 



FLORIDA UP TO DATE, ETC. 



The Alec Bell mango-tree story is rather 

 large, but you haven't told it all, even yet. It 

 was tliree years instead of one that the fruit 

 sold for C"150. I have the finest beans I ever 

 saw; shall commence shipping this week. Po- 

 tatoes, cabbage, and watermelons are looking 

 well. Japan persimmons are loading with fruit. 

 If half hold on, the trees will have to be sup- 

 ported. 



Bees are doing well. I am painting all of the 

 hives over new. and shifting all the bees into 

 newly painted hives, taking pains to cut out all 

 burr-comhs, and to put all drone-combs in up- 

 per stories. H. T. Gifford. 



Vero, Fla., Apr. 8. 



SWEET CORN. 



We have found an excellent demand for our 

 crop of fresh sweet corn in neighboring city 

 markets. City people seem to find it quite diffi- 

 cult to get their corn fresh. After it has lain 

 in the stores a day or more it rapidly becomes 

 tough and stale, and its quality rapidly depre- 

 ciates, until soon it is hardly good for any 

 thing. Consequently, corn freshly gathered, 

 brought in directly from the farm, is a welcome 

 article. To make a good succession through 

 the season, sow Cory first, then Minnesota, and, 

 last, iStowell's Evergreen. The last should be 

 sown several times at intervals of ten days, to 

 have plenty of corn until frost comes. The 

 early corn will probably bring at retail 20 to 35 

 cts. per dozen. Soon it will fall to about one 

 cent an ear; but even at this last price there is 

 a fair margin of profit, especially when the 

 stalks are prized as horse or cattle food, as 

 they justly should be. The feeding value of 

 the stalks materially reduces, even if it does 

 not quite offset, the cost of cultivating the 

 entire crop. A fair estimate of the proceeds 

 from an acre of sweet corn would be from $75 

 to 1100; and, considering the labor expended, 

 the sweet-corn crop averages about as well as 

 the majority of farm and garden crops. One 

 good thing is, that corn is not over-particular 

 as to soil. A tough sod, turned over in May 

 and enriched with fine barnyard manure, an- 

 swers well for this crop. Or we may use nitrate 

 of soda, superphosphate, and wood ashes, if we 

 have not the manure to spare. 



STRAWBERRIES. 



The strawberry is the most luscious of small 

 fruits, and the spring is by all odds the best 

 time to set out plants. At the outset, take 

 some care to secure vigorous young plants for 

 setting. The common opinion seems to be, 

 that any young plants that will grow answer 

 well enough — a great mistake. We want 

 young plants from large vigorous older plants, 

 that have never been allowed to produce a 

 berry. Fruiting-beds, and beds for prooagat- 

 ing-purposes, should be regarded as distinct 

 affairs. It is desirable to have the plants we 

 are to set out come from the strongest parent 

 stock possible. Next after getting the proper 

 plants comes the planting. To secure the larg- 

 est possible specimens of berries, confine the 

 plants to hills 18 inches apart in each direc- 

 tion, only one plant in a hill; but to secure the 

 largest crops of large berries, grow strawber- 

 ries in iheir beds. A closely matted strawberry- 

 bed means small, soft, poorly flavored berries. 



Plants of almost any vigorous-growing variety, 

 if set in early spring in rows foui' feet apart, 

 the plants two feet distant in the rows, will 

 cover the ground as closely as is desirable dur- 

 ing the season. To cause the runners to cover 

 all spaces uniformly, it is well to arrange them 

 by hand in any cases where they do not proper- 

 ly separate naturally. By placing a little fine 

 dirt just above the roots of the runner it will 

 be held in place, and the process of rooting 

 facilitated. Apply wood ashes for fertilizer, 

 and cultivate often till the vines obstruct the 

 work. M. Sumner Perkins. 



Danvers, Mass., Feb. 8. 



MICHEL S EARLY STRAWBERRY. 



I am sorry to see Michel's Early in the list of 

 " poor " ones at your agricultural station. I 

 am growing Bederwood. Bubach No. 5, Cres- 

 cent, Jessie, Michel's Early, and Warfield; 

 and Michel's Early made the best stand of 

 plants and gave the most berries (nice perfect 

 ones too) of any of them. For one I shall not 

 give up the Michel's Early yet. 



Eldora, la., Jan. 19. J. W. Buchanan. 



WHAT shall we DO? 



We can not take very much space in such a 

 journal as this to discuss the financial and social 

 matters that seem to be filling our newspapers 

 at the present time; but I hope I may be par- 

 doned for this suggestion: A great many peo- 

 ple seem to claim that the world owes them a 

 living and does not pay it. I fear this is bad 

 philosophy. The world owes no man any thing 

 until he has earned it. When he has earned 

 it, the world generally pays it. If manufactur- 

 ers, bankers, etc., are so greedy and dishonest, 

 do not have any thing to do with them. My 

 father went into the woods, and chopped logs 

 enough to build a house, brought up a family 

 of seven children, without any help from man- 

 ufacturers or millionaires, and it seems to me 

 that is just what our people ought to do now. 

 God surely helps those who help themselves. 

 A. L R. 



DAYLIGHT AHEAD. 



You may remember that, when Dr. Wilford 

 Hall got to doing an immense business in sell- 

 ing his internal water cure at $4.00 for each 

 secret, there began to be imitations. Some- 

 body offered the same thing for $2.00, and then 

 somebody else came down to $1.00, and so on 

 to 50 cts., and lastly to 25 cts. At the latter 

 figure there was not enough money in it to 

 cause a great scrabble any longer, and so the 

 whole thing went down, and the secret was 

 published in the papers. It is now getting to 

 be just so with Electropoise, and a $5.00 ma- 

 chine is already advertised. Very soon they 

 will be down to .?1 00. and perhaps 50 cts. The 

 question is, will the .50-cent one cure diseases 

 just as well as the $25.00 one? lam afraid it 

 will not — not even if they should sell the very 

 same thing that is now selling for .?25.00, for 25 

 cts. There is a tremendous lesson to be learned 

 right along here; but will the people learn it? 

 Will those who have been paying out so much 

 money for medicines and expensive apparatus 

 have grace to admit they made such a blunder 

 in thinking the thing really did possess virtue ? 



A. I. R. 



