358 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



maKes the ground work very inuch easier. 

 Weeds come out very much better than they 

 do out of the clay. Radishes and other root 

 crops are benefited in many ways. Well, this 

 spring we are trying to push strawberry-plants 

 so as to get runners at the very earliest mo- 

 ment. In fact, we have applied rich old com- 

 post all around the plants, and fine manure is 

 almost heaped over Ihe plants to make them 

 boom. Now, imagine my surprise to find, a ff^w 

 days ago. that one of the beds that had a pretty 

 good mulch of pur<' lake sand was growing 

 with more vigor and luxuriance than any of 

 those in the black manure. I was pointing it 

 out to one of my men, who has a greenhouse 

 and raises roses, and he told me the following: 



He had about a hundred three or four inch 

 pots of choice roses that he was trying to push 

 along by giving them the very best of compost 

 he could fix up; but they seemed to lag. Think- 

 ing that, perhaps, they needed more dampness, 

 he put about two inches of lake sand on the 

 bench, and set the pots a little way into the 

 sand. After a little, here and there the plants 

 commenced to start with wonderful vigor; 

 then another and another. Finally this un- 

 looked-for sudden start attracted his attention 

 — so much so that he attempted to lift up one 

 of the pots. It was stuck fasti and then he 

 found that the roots of the roses had gone 

 through the hole in the bottom of the pot, and 

 some of them had actually spread out through 

 this moist sand to the length of a foot or more. 

 He was obliged to break the pots open to utilize 

 all the roots belonging to the plant. I asked 

 him if the pots were not so full of roots they 

 were obliged to go through the bottom to get 

 more room; but he said not. They seemed to 

 have a particular fancy for that especial kind of 

 sand. In fact, when they got out of this choice 

 fertilizer into the sand, they began to thrive 

 like pigs in clover. Now. this lake sand con- 

 tains almost no weed seeds of any sort. It has 

 been washed by the waves so repeatedly that 

 one would think there was no vitality left in it. 

 Can it be that the moisture it held, and the 

 mechanical state permitting the roots to grow 

 at liberty, were the cause of it? 



A soil or material that is just right for one 

 vegetable, sometimes does not answer nearly 

 as well for another. For instance, we put too 

 many ashes on a long bed. It stunted and 

 almost killed the seeds of lettuce, cabbage, and 

 cucumbers, while the beet seed all germinated 

 nicely, and the plants grew with unusual 

 thriftiness and vigor. And this reminds me 

 that some one spoke of putting his paper of 

 beet seed on a heap of ashes while he prepared 

 his ground. The wind blew the package over, 

 and some of the seeds went down in the ashes 

 and could not be found. Well, the beets that 

 grew in the ash -heap were not only away 

 ahead of those in his nicely prepared ground, 

 but they were perfectly smooth, while the 

 others were more or less misshapen and scrag- 

 gly. You see, my (>xperiment corroborates his, 

 that beets will stand almost any amount of 

 ashes. 



Now, to get the best results we want an 

 evenly balanced soil. It reminds me of what 

 stock-raisers say about an evenly balanced 

 ration. A few days ago I was feeling bad to 

 find one of my beds so hard and clayey atone 

 end, while the other was a very soft, dark, 

 mellow soil that I thought would be greatly 

 superior for the onion seed I wanted to sow on 

 the bed. I should have had the soil changed, 

 and one end mingled with that of the other, 

 had it not been that the boys had already sown 

 the seeds on the clayey end before I notified it. 

 I was thinking that, whei'e the ricli soil was, 

 containing so much old rotten manure, we 



should get the earliest onion-plants. Imagine 

 my surprise to find the onions up and growing 

 in the poor end, before they got tiirough the 

 ground on the other. Another thing, when 

 they did come up on the rich end of the bed, 

 there were vacant spaces in the rows. I was 

 showing it to a friend of mine, and he poked 

 his finger into what I called the good soil, and 

 remarked, •' Why, there is not enough clay in 

 this to hold the moisture — it dries out too 

 quickly. If you will give this end of the bed a 

 thorough wetting, and give it a little mm-e 

 water than the other, you will see it will all 

 come up yet." I did so, and it is just as he 

 said. Now, had we depended on the rain, the 

 soil containing the largest proportion of clay 

 would certainly have given the onions the best 

 start. Of course, we do not want so much clay 

 as to have the ground baned, and form a crust 

 so hard that the seeds can not get through. 

 And this brings out the point that clay land 

 will stand large quantities of stable manure 

 better than sandy soil or muck lands. At one 

 time I was greatly in love with the black peaty 

 muck from our swamp garden; but I have 

 found out that, unless we have frequent rains, 

 this same beautiful muck is liable to dry out so 

 that it is impossible to get it wei again unless 

 we have long-continued wet spells. The beds 

 in that new greenhouse, made up of a pretty 

 hard clay, with stable manure right from the 

 horses, without any straw or litter in it, is giv- 

 ing about the best results, especially for plants 

 where foliage is what we want. The house 

 was planted at first almost entirely to lettuce. 

 Every pound of lettuce has brought 30 cts. ; and 

 as fast as the lettuce gets out of the way, 

 cabbage-plants, tomato-plants, onion-plants, 

 and almost every sort of plant we have tried, 

 do just wonderfully. This 24th day of April 

 we have green peas ready to pick, where the 

 seed was sown last December. We have just 

 had two cold waves, and cold cloudy weather 

 for a week or ten days. Every thing outside 

 came almost to a standstill, unless thei'e was 

 bottom heat under the beds; but every thing 

 in the greenhouse just moved right along; for 

 with the bottom heat, and a temperature of 60 

 or 70 degrees overhead, there was not any 

 standing still. After we had decided that all 

 cabbage-plants in the future could be grown 

 outside, we were obliged, in order to fill orders, 

 to clear away a bed in the greenhouse, and 

 transplant the cabbages inside. Like every 

 thing else they just took hold and moved right 

 along; while plants from the same bed, trans- 

 planted outdoors, did just about nothing. The 

 weather was not cold enough to kill them, it is 

 true; but they did not go ahead any. They 

 were covered with sash; but what good could 

 sash do when we did not have any sunshine? 



HOW TO HOLD A BAG OrEN, ETC. 



Our new price lists, as you may have noticed, 

 are now printed on electrotype plates — not on 

 type kept standing until it is old and worn out, 

 as heretofore. The boys have been advocating 

 electrotypes for some time: but I feared it 

 would stand in the way of making frequent 

 changes in prices, and that the electrotypes 

 might be behind, and prevent price lists from 

 going by the first mail, etc. Well, it all went 

 on swimmingly until a few days ago, when the 

 electrotypes did not come (they were made in 

 Cleveland). We sent telegraius, but they did 

 not answer. Mr. Calvert said their fashion 

 was to send the goods instead of answering 

 telegrams, and that the electrotypes would be 

 sure to be on hand by the next train. Sure 

 enough, they came, but we had the usual 

 hitches. The girls could not have the price 



