1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



533 



the hands of the mothers. The mothers do not 

 use tobacco; and may (iod be praised for this 

 one comforting thought; and siiii more com- 

 forting — yes, it ought to be a tliousand times 

 more comforting, when we reflect tliat the 

 mothers are not and never ca)i he m Iav or oi 

 vile pictures and impurity. Every mother 

 knows — in fact, it is stamped on every tiber of 

 her being, that not only the safety of her boys 

 and girls, the safety of the home,* the safety of 

 humanity, the safety of this whole world, of 

 Intellect and righteousness, depends almost en- 

 tirely upon purity in thought and life. Impuri- 

 ty and sensuality are the enemies of the home; 

 they are the enemies of every thing pure and 

 holy. Sometimes it has seemed to me as if 

 there were only one Anthony Comstock in our 

 nation, and that, when he dies, Satan would 

 take courage, prick up his ears, and open up 

 business again. God forbid ! Every father 

 should be an Anthony Comstock on the home 

 guard. Every mother is already, if she only 

 knew it. May be she needs waking up a little, 

 and needs to be reminded that she as a mother 

 is one of the officers. Yes, God has chosen her, 

 and God calls upon her to make herself heard 

 and known. May (rod help us; and may he 

 help me to keep constantly before my eyes and 

 before my imagination that grand little text 

 that should find a prominent place in that little 

 picture-gallery (the imagination) in these 

 hearts of ours. Give it lots of room, and fix 

 your eyes upon it often: 



BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR 

 THEY SHALL SEE GOD. 



MULCHING AND MANURING STRAWBERRIES AT 

 ONE AND THE SAME TIME. 



We have about an acre of strawberries that 

 are growing their third crop. We ordinarily 

 let them bear only two years; but we kept 

 working and manuring this patch in order to 

 get plants, and this season we proposed to plow 

 it under just as soon as the last berries were 

 picked. Only part of it was mulched during 

 the winter. We do but little mulching, because 

 we want to work the ground in the spring so as 

 to get nice plants for shipping. But just before 



* A real true home can not well exist without a 

 father and a mother; and impurity would set to 

 work the very first thintr to break up a home. A 

 few days ago I took a hasty g-lance into a popular 

 magazine. Mind, I say "popular;" but in all its 

 long years of record it lias never been prominent 

 for its godliness. This magazine was speaking 

 about uuliappy marriages, and divorces, and a sug- 

 gestion was casually tlirown out tliat the home 

 should consist of only the mother and the children, 

 and that grown-up men sliould be at liberty to go 

 where they please, and do as they please, providing 

 they, co;;ff(iL'€?y, support the women and children. 

 In tliat case we should all of us have mothers but 

 not any fathers. Oh, yeslwe should have fathers, 

 after a fashion: but although the boys and girls 

 might know their mothers, each and all, quite well, 

 they might or miglit not know which father was 

 their fatlier. The sutrgestion lias haunted me like a 

 nightmare. It certainly came from the prince of 

 darkness, and from the lowest depths of the bottom- 

 less pit. The man who bag not manliness enough 

 about hmi to stand up l)efoie the world and ac- 

 knowledge himself the father of bis own children 

 (eacli and everij one), and the lawful husband of the 

 midher of those children, bad better spend his life in 

 the penitentiary, for he dees not deserve any better 

 place. 



picking-time we found we should have to mulch 

 with something. Muddy and gritty strawber- 

 ries are behind the times. Every strawberry- 

 grower ought to be ashamed of offering dirty 

 berries. On the fairground, near our place, 

 there are some horse-stables where they make 

 a great quantity of loose strawy manure. It is 

 so much straw and so little manure that I pay 

 only from .50 to 75 cts. a load, and this for a load 

 that we bring on our hay-rack. Well, I thought 

 I would use this for mulching to keep the 

 berries off the ground. You know how the 

 frost cut them off, and just about spoiled the 

 Jessies with some others, and then the hot 

 drouth diminished and dried up what few ber- 

 ries were left. Well, we had pretty much given 

 up getting any strawberries worth mentioning; 

 but a pretty good rain came on the evening of 

 the 19th, and lasted during the forenoon of the 

 next day; and almost as soon as the rain was 

 over I was happily surprised to see not only 

 the bright new foliage, but stems of berries 

 sticking up here and there that had just about 

 doubled in size during the rain; that is, ihey 

 were twice the size they would have been had 

 it not been for the rain and manure. Well, 

 now, that acre of strawberries is bearing con- 

 siderable nice fruit, and making plants at a 

 tremendous rate, under the influence of the 

 straw mulching and the manure. One objec- 

 tion to stable-manure has been, you know, weed 

 seeds; but if we are going to plow the patch 

 under so soon, who cares for the weeds? The 

 more they come, the better. I propose now to 

 let the whole thing be until both weeds and 

 plants get at their best, then we will take out 

 the best of the plants, with a lump of dirt ad- 

 hering, and make a new plantation right beside 

 the old one. By this time the weeds will be up 

 so as to be worth something to plow under; 

 and thus we shall have a splendid piece of 

 ground for buckwheat and crimson clover, as 

 mentioned in the last issue, or for any other 

 late crop. 



A VISIT AMONG THE STRAWBERRY-GROWERS. a 



Saturday afternoon, June 15, I started out to 

 see what my neighbors were doing in the height 

 of the berry season. About ten miles northeast 

 of Medina I found the Lawnsdale fruit-farm, 

 on ground high enough so they were affected 

 by the frost but little compared with our own 

 locality. PYiend Williams, the proprietor, 

 raises strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, 

 gooseberries, and currants, with potatoes for 

 filling in and to make a sort of rotation of crops. 

 He has about 30 acres of land, and it was really 

 a refreshing sight to behold such a berry-farm 

 right in the midst of a locality where every 

 thing else is devoted to regular farming and 

 stock-raising on a heavy clay soil. 



On a northern slope near the road I found 

 about an acre of strawberries that was worthy 

 of a picture; but I did not have the Kodak 

 along that time. The berry-plants are in rows, 

 apparently about four feet apart, like our own. 

 They were so well mulched with straw in the 

 fall that not a berry could find a grain of dirt 

 or soil to rest on. Friend W. hit it exactly in 

 being slow to remove the mulching. He kept 

 the plants back all he could without injury, 

 and then gradually made openings in the straw 

 to let the plants come up through when they 

 were ready to start. By the way, I have never 

 found anybody yet who would remove the 

 mulching with sufficient care to suit me. They 

 would go and claw the straw all away and 

 throw it in the paths. Now, the straw should 

 not be moved a particle. Let the berries go up 

 through it. leaving the straw where it is; then 

 you will have a perfect mat to keep down weeds 

 and to keep the fruit out of the dirt. It also 



