403 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May J 5. 



THE ST. MARTIN RHUBARB. 



Mrs. Root fears I gave almost too strong a 

 recommend in our issue of April 15; and to 

 make another test she made two pies — one of 

 the common rhubarb, and one of the St. Mar- 

 tin. The latter was a good deal the better pie 

 of the two, just as I expected it would be. But 

 she explains it in this way: She says that, al- 

 though she tried hard to make them just alike, 

 she thinks she must have got more sugar in the 

 St. Martin pie; and as the other one did not 

 have i^ugar enough, it gave the St. M. the ad- 

 vantage. Again, the pie made of the common 

 variety was not only sour, but the juice ran out 

 all over every thing. I urged again that here 

 was where the St. Martin was ahead; but she 

 says she thinks she sprinkled more flour in the 

 St. Martin, so that it took up the juice. Of 

 course, she did not mean to do so. but it might 

 have happened that way. This illustrates how 

 difficult it is to decide just what gave the 

 improvement in a pie or in a crop. It takes re- 

 peated tests to settle almost any fact decisively. 

 Perhaps 1 am a little inclined to be in haste to 

 decide that a new variety is an improvement. 

 If so, Mrs. Root is just enougli the other way, 

 and this makesusaverage justaboutrigiit. By 

 the way. what a grand institution the marriage 

 relation is, any way! But we are talking about 

 pies just now. Gur cook at, the factory is going 

 to make another test to-day, and then we shall 

 know better. I have pulled the stalks from 

 each, and have eaten them raw; and. to tell the 

 truth, I can not see very much differem-e. But 

 another factor comes in right here: Different 

 plants of rhubarb of the same variety, and in 

 the same field, show that some are more acid, or 

 tart, than others. Somebody has asked the 

 question whether we could preserve a distinct 

 variety by sowing the seed any way. Won't 

 some of our experiment stations tell us some- 

 thing about it? I once thought I could distin- 

 guish St. Martin by the brighter and more vivid 

 red of the stalks; but come to go over our plan- 

 tation of the common kind, I find there are oc- 

 casional plants with just as vivid a red as the 

 St. Martin. By the way, does not this whole 

 matter point out a moral ? The seedsman who 

 issues a catalogue should be exceedingly care- 

 ful indeed about saying a variety is an improve- 

 ment. The St. Martin has not yet gone into 

 our catalogue, and may he it never will. A 

 good many seedsmen advertise a new variety, 

 and copy what the originator has said. I pro- 

 test against this. The seedsman who issues a 

 catalogue ought to have enterprise enough to 

 give any new variety a good test in his experi- 

 ment grounds before he booms it or undertakes 

 to push it off on his customers. Just open your 

 seed catalogues and see how many seedsmen 

 there are who will tell you of a new variety, 

 "We have grown this new thing side bv side 

 with our best old varieties', and it certainly has 

 advantages as follows." etc. I am afraid a great 

 part of our seedsmen have too muteh "business" 

 on hand to go out into the garden and look after 

 the rhubarb, and have pies made from both 

 kinds, etc. 



After dinner.— The St. Martin is certainly 

 ahead in three respects. It has less juice, and 

 is, therefore, not so liable to run over in the 

 oven or after the pie is cut; it is much sweeter. 

 and therefore takes less sugar, and it also has 

 more of a distinct berry flavor than the old va- 

 rieties. 



LA.KE-SHORE SAND AS A MULCH. 



I am better and better pleased with this every 

 day. We are having dry weather now; and in 

 order to push the cabbage-plants, frequent wa- 

 tering is desirable. It is also desirable to water 

 the beds every lime we take up plants to fill an 



order. Well, we have always had more or less 

 trouble on account of the baking of the surface 

 of our clay soil, after this repeated watering — 

 especially when the boys got on a little too much 

 water. At times, in fact, our plant-beds would 

 crack open so that one could put his finger down 

 an inch or more — that is, where watering had 

 been badly neglected. Well, the sand works 

 this way: We sift our dirt until it is not only 

 fine and soft, but until the stable manure is 

 thoroughly mixed all through it. After the soil 

 is smoothed oflF nicely, about half an inch of 

 sand is spread evenly all over the surface. Then 

 the plants are set pretty well down. If the first 

 leaves come under the sand, it will not hurt 

 them a bit, for the sand will not stick, nor soil a 

 leaf of any thing, cabbage or strawberry. Now 

 the surface can not get very dry, for this sand 

 mulching keeps it damp; and when the sand 

 gets real dry it will run into any crack, if there 

 is one. and fill it up. In this condition you can 

 put on almost any amount of water, right in 

 the hot sun, without any danger of cracking at 

 all. 



"THE STRAWBERRY CULTURIST, ETC.," ETC. 



And now we have a periodical devoted entire- 

 ly to the culture of the strawberry. It comes 

 only four times a year, however, and the price 

 is only 20 cts. per annum. It seems to me there 

 ought to be at least a hundred thousand peo- 

 ple in our country who should take such a 

 journal at so insignificant a price. May be, 

 however. I had better strike off one figure and 

 say ten thousand. Of course, a good deal will 

 depend upon who is editor and how it is man- 

 aged. The opening number — Vol. I. No. 1 — 

 seems to promise very, well. Address W. F. Al- 

 len, Jr., editor and proprietor, Salisbury, Md. I 

 would suggest that the editor of the paper be a 

 little careful about recommending every new 

 strawberry that comes out. If I were he I think 

 I would take a pretty strong hold on the experi- 

 ment stations in this matter. Don't let a thing 

 be boomed — at least editorially — until some ex- 

 periment station has tried it and declares it 

 possesses merit. Not only the matter of grow- 

 ing strawberries, but shipping and selling them, 

 is going to need much consideration and discus- 

 sion. By the way, I am going to have some- 

 thing to say about a method of raising straw- 

 berries where no one ever sets foot on the 

 ground where they are growing. They are to 

 be grown in the plant-beds of which I have al- 

 ready shown you pictures; Sashes and shut- 

 ters can be used over these beds when need be; 

 weeds can be kept out without tramping among 

 the vines; mulching can be applied; fruit can 

 be picked without ever setting a foot on the 

 ground, and, of course, there will be no setting 

 a foot on the plants or on the berries. The ex- 

 tra labor will be one of the objections; but with 

 every thing purposely rigged for it, there will 

 not be so much extra labor, after all. We have 

 got the thing already going. 



BAG-HOLDERS, ETC. 



Look here. Dr. Miller, we do have bag-hold- 

 ers. They are standing out In front of the 

 store all the while, mounted on a neat little 

 truck, to carry grain. But when I am in a hur- 

 ry, bag-holders are not often around. You say, 

 put two hooks in the wall. Well, there is not 

 any wall most of the time. We have regular 

 bag-holders for our mail -bags, and other bags 

 where they are used almost every day. But 

 you see when my wheel is "champing its bits" 

 for a run, and there are only just so many min- 

 utes before the mail closes, we can not very well 

 hunt for a bag-holder or a— "wall." Why, our 

 little girls out this way just like the idea of 

 holding the bag occasionally, especially when 



