28 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



.Tax. 1. 



very low temperature, and it also keeps much 

 better than the common flat or round turnips; 

 and for a table turnip, my opinion is there is 

 nothing in our seed catalogues to compare with 

 it. At present we get 25 cents a peck for the 

 Breadstone, but only 10 cents a peck for the 

 Purple-top Globe. You might ask why we do 

 not raise all Breadstone. vVell, it requires a 

 longer season, like the rutabagas; but the 

 Purple-top Globe grows so quickly we can put 

 them in the ground after other crops that are 

 gathered quite late. 



NEW PLANTS AND NOVELTIES FOR 1893. 



Although we are constantly experimenting 

 with the novelties, we do not find many things 

 each season enough better than our old varie- 

 ties to warrant giving them a place in our cat- 

 alogue. When we do get something valuable, 

 however, it often repays us for all our experi- 

 menting. I have several times taken some 

 special vegetable, and planted every variety I 

 could find in our most voluminous seed cata- 

 logues. The verdict has so often been, " No 

 improvement in any of them," that it is getting 

 to be rather monotonous. During the past sea- 

 son, we have given a careful test to Henderson's 

 Country Gentleman corn. It is certainly a 

 stronger grower, and has larger ears, than the 

 Shoepeg, while the quality is just as good. 

 Very likely it has been developed from the 

 Shoepeg; but when planted side by side with it 

 in the same ground, it shows a very distinct 

 superiority. Onions, melons, and a great many 

 other things, during the past season, seemed to 

 sport more than usual. In other words, the 

 seed did not seem to be true to name. After I 

 noticed that our Experiment Station had the 

 same trouble with onions, I began to think it 

 was something in the season. I can not quite 

 understand, however, how the season should 

 make Prizetaker onion seed show a greater 

 number of red onions, as well as the usual 

 straw color. I can, however, understand how 

 so much wetness might make them badly shap- 

 ed, and perhaps it did. 



The trade in onion -pi ants raised in hot- beds 

 and greenhouses will probably be a remarkable 

 feature during the coming season. The green- 

 house I have shown you is admirably adapted 

 to this business. For raising onion-plants to 

 put out in the field, no heat is really needed, 

 for they need not be started till February or 

 March. If started in February you will per- 

 haps need some bottom heat, such as you get 

 from fermenting manure. I shall commence 

 sowing onion seeds in our hot-beds and green- 

 houses in January. The little plants must 

 have lots of sunshine. They get contrary, and 

 refuse to grow unless you have your beds where 

 the sun can strike them full and square. Cel- 

 ery-plants, however, will do nicely, even if they 

 do not get a bit of sunshine at all; therefore 

 you can give your celery-plants the shaded 

 beds. Pieplant does just as well without a bit 

 of light; in fact, we get the handsomest stalks 

 in a dark cellar. L. L. Langstroth, while here, 

 told me that pie-plant can be forced in an or- 

 dinary cellar, without heat from fermenting 

 manure, or any thing else. My impression is, 

 the cellar should be rather warm, or you should 

 use a warm place in the cellar. Asparagus, 

 also, grows very well in the daiT\; but I think 

 it makes larger and stronger shoots where 

 it can have some sunshine. I have never tried 

 raising peas under glass; but we have some 

 just now coming up in that new greenhouse. 

 While I think of it, who has raised the Free- 

 man potatoes during the past season ? and has 

 anybody got any for sale ? It does not seem as 

 if we should let friends Terry and Maule mo- 

 nopolize so good a thing much longer. 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS. 



How amiable are thy tabernacles, OLord of hosts! 

 My soul loug-eth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of 

 the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the 

 living God.— Psalm 84: 1, 2. 



It is a bad plan for Christian people to travel 

 on Sunday. I know it is bad, in the same way 

 that Mark Twain knew it was bad to tell lies. 

 Somebody asked him what made him so posi- 

 tive in regard to the matter, and he said he 

 knew by experience. In the same way, I know 

 by experience that it is bad and demoralizing, 

 for one who professes to be a Christian, to en- 

 courage Sunday travel. I am not going to lay 

 down rules that will apply to all people and to 

 all circumstances; and, in fact, I am not going 

 to lay down any rules at all. I am simply going 

 to give you a little experience that Mrs. Root 

 and myself had when we thought we were 

 obliged to travel and do business on Sunday. 

 When we got ready to leave El Paso we found 

 that, by taking the first train, we could only 

 reach New Orleans some time Saturday night 

 or Sunday morning; but when we got on board 

 I supposed we could stop over, but found after- 

 ward we could do so only by buying new tickets; 

 and as the sleeper was paid for through to New 

 Orleans, we should also lose our sleeper tickets. 

 Under the circumstances tiiere was really noth- 

 ing to do but to decide that, as soon as we 

 reached New Orleans, to get a boarding-place 

 somewhere near the depot, and then get to 

 church as soon as we could. We reached New 

 Orleans about two hours before church time, 

 and I left Mrs. Root at the depot waiting-room 

 while I sallied forth to find some sort of home 

 during our week or ten days' stay in the city. 

 I did not leave her in the waiting-room, after 

 all, for the beautiful June morning called her 

 outdoors, as it did almost everybody else. Even 

 though it was the last of E^ebruary, peach-trees 

 were in bloom, things were coming up in the 

 gardens, trees were leaving out, etc. When I 

 started out to find a lodging-place on Sunday I 

 felt guilty. It is true, we might have gone to a 

 hotel; but we did not want to pay hotel bills, 

 and we thought it would be better to find 

 a quiet lodging-place, even though it was 

 Sunday. I had been in New Orleans before, but 

 some way that Sunday morning I didn't re- 

 member the lay of the city very well. I thought 

 I would keep a little out of the business part, 

 and therefore I strayed back into the oldest 

 part of the city, as I was afterward told. The 

 houses w ere all old, and exceedingly dirty. The 

 paving-stones in the street looked as if they 

 had been worn by the tramp of centuries: and 

 although I walked a mile or two, I could not 

 find a single spot but that looked as if it also 

 held the accumulation of ihefiWioi centuries. 

 The people where I applied for rooms were 

 dirty and disgusting. At first I did not stop at 

 all where the surroundings looked so forbid- 

 ding: but I got tired and sweaty, and it was get- 

 ting near church time, and then I became nerv- 

 ous, because Mrs. Root would wonder where in 

 the world I could be so long, and I thought we 

 should have to put up at some sort of place, at 

 least until Sunday was over. So I became des- 

 perate. Not only were the prices higher than 

 any thing I ever heard of before, but when I 

 looked into the rooms I felt sure that Sue would 

 never consent to even step over the threshold. 

 Why, dirt and filth and disorder were no name 

 for it. I finally found a public square where 

 there was a garden, flowers, monuments, etc. 

 but even the garden and flowers looked dirty 

 and sorrowful; and overlooking this square I 

 found a room considerably better — that is, there 



