1893 



GLEANINGS JN BEE CULTURE. 



491 



I think it will give us as many berries as the 

 Gandy and some others regarded as a fair 

 yield. 



We have had fair celery on the market for a 

 couple of weeks; but now, alasl it has gone up 

 to seed, and we shall not have any more for a 

 month or six weeks. 



Lettuce has brought .'JOcts. per lb., ever since 

 the first of January, until the first week in 

 June. The demand has been all this time be- 

 yond the supply. Just you see if I don't do 

 better next time. 



We have been having peas right along in 

 small quantites, from that experiment bed in 

 the greenhouse; and now we have peas almost 

 ready to pick, from several rows sown in March. 

 It does pay to plant peas during very unfavor- 

 able weather, early in the spring, even if you 

 have to push them down into the mud. Sow 

 them very close in the row, and they will gen- 

 erate heat and force, or something else, enough 

 so they will start and grow, when it is difficult 

 for any thing else to make any progress. 



For the first time we are growing potatoes on 

 clover sod, exactly after friend Terry"s " pre- 

 scription." The ground is the nicest to work 

 of any thing I have ever seen on our stiff clay 

 soil Th(! small-tooth cultivators and the 

 Breed's weeder work to perfection. I think we 

 are going to have some Terry potatoes this 

 year. 



The bugs have commenced work on our Hub- 

 bard squashes, cucumbers, and melons. We 

 have covered the plants with tobacco, and the 

 bugs have pretty nearly given up the job; but 

 on some hills, where they had got a good start, 

 it seems to be somewhat of a question. Occa- 

 sionally we (ifisist the tobacco, by pinching the 

 bugs between the thumb and finger. No mat- 

 ter what you use, it seems to have a good effect 

 to have the boss come around occasionally and 

 give the bugs to understand that somebody who 

 is interested in their destruction has an eye on 

 the way things are going. 



A month ago we had more tomato-plants than 

 we supposed anybody would ever want; and as 

 they were getting long legged in the green- 

 houses and plant-beds, we planted them out. giv- 

 ing them more room, hoping somebody would 

 appreciate our great big stout plants enough to 

 pay double price (SI. 50 per 100) for them, and 

 we have not been disappointed. By the first of 

 June, after people had finally got their gardens 

 plowed and ready, they began coining for those 

 big tomato-plants, some of them with blossoms 

 on; and after the community goteducated to it, 

 that it was better to pay a cent and a half 

 apiece for great big nice plants, with strong 

 bushy roots, we were sold out. People kept 

 coming, and wanting more of those great big 

 nice ones; and when we told them all we had 

 left were those once transplanted, at 10 cts. a 

 dozen, they went oflf and would not have any; 

 and yet when we first started, people went 

 away offended because we would not give them 

 the best plants in the whole garden for less 

 than :.'0 cts. a dozen. There is a good point 

 right here. When you have something that is 

 extra nice, even if folks do say at first they 

 won't pay it, they are very likely to come back 

 afterward, when they find they can not do any 

 bettei'. This makes me think of the man who 

 thought I was wicked for charging so much for 

 the American Pearl onions. Until this week 

 we have been getting a nickel for a half-pound 

 bunch, or, In other wnids. H) cts. per lb. for 

 onions, top mid all. That would be about f.5.00 

 a bushel; and when you take into considera- 

 tion the fact that the top weigh? fully as much 

 as the bulb itself, you see we got about ten dol- 

 lars a bushel for these nice-looking onions. If 

 some of our customers who are buying these 



right along should se(^ this, they might be 

 ofl'ended. But look here, friends. Although I 

 have raised them right along for three years, 

 nobody else in our neighboihood has enterprise 

 enough to go to work and undersell me. An- 

 other thing, you must have a good price for 

 taking any crop out of the ground when it is 

 only one-fourth grown. In other words, we 

 shall, perhaps, get as mucli money by letting 

 them grow into big onions for S2..50 a bushel, as 

 to pull them now and get $10.00. If you are go- 

 ing to pull them for bunch onions, you want to 

 put them in almost too thick for a regular crop, 

 and have a great lot of them, then thin them 

 out when they are as large as walnuts or hen's 

 eggs. 



CUKRANT-WOKJIS. SQUASH-BUGS, POTATO- 

 BEETLES, ETC. 



This year we had a good deal of trouble in 

 heading off the currant-worm with hellebore 

 until we discovered that it had lost its virtue 

 by being too old. We bought it at our drug- 

 store, but noticed that, instead of being a soft 

 powder, it was in hard lumps. After it is so 

 old as to be in lumps, it is of little or no use. 

 As no good hellebore was near when we found 

 out what the trouble was. we used pyre- 

 thrum instead. Now, this costs only a little 

 more per pound than hellebore— probably 

 not any more if bought in quantities; and I 

 feel certain tiiat a little pyrethrutii goes a 

 good deal further than hellebore. At the first 

 trial it completely banished every trace of 

 the worm; and although ten days have passed 

 since that one application, not another worm 

 has been discovered. We pay at our drugstore 

 40 cents per lb. for hellebore, and we are now 

 able to sell pyrethrum. right fresh from the 

 California growers, at the same price, or 10 lbs. 

 for $3.2.">. As we buy tobacco dust by the ton, 

 we can sell it in l(X)-lb. lots for Sl.7.^. If you 

 take a whole case of 400 lbs., we can make the 

 price SI. .50 per 100 lbs. As it is very light and 

 dry, a pound makes quite a big lot. Where the 

 bugs are very bad, we sometitnes use ^4 lb. to a 

 large hill of Hubbard squashes. We are han- 

 dling squash-bugs with this tobacco dust as we 

 did last year. And then you want to keep a 

 little watch also. We like it better than the 

 wire protectors, because we have nothing to 

 pick up and get out of the way after the bugs 

 are gone. We handle potato-beetles on the old 

 plan, still adhered to by T. B. Terry. Just as 

 soon as our potatoes were up. two boys went 

 over the patch and found all together about a 

 pint of bugs. Four days later they made an- 

 other careful examination, and found, perhaps, 

 one-fourth as many. A few days after that I 

 lookedlpver our fields and did not find a bug. 

 The success of this kind of picking, like many 

 other things, consists in taking a stitch in time. 

 Gel the mother-bugs just as soon as they move 

 in. keep watching for them, and be ready to 

 catch them when they first aiTive, and you will 

 easily keep the upper hand. 



A WONDERFUL NEW PEACH. 



At least, it was wonderful to us. The sam- 

 ples came by mail something like a year ago, 

 and I made no mention of them then because 

 I was watching for some later explanation. If 

 it ever came it never reached my hands. The 

 I)ackagecame from somewhere in the South, 

 'i'he queer thing about the peaches was that 

 they were fiat like a tomato; in fact, one would 

 hardly know what to call them, as the shape 

 was so unusual, were it not for the beautiful 

 peachy bloom with the attendant down, etc.; 

 and when we came to sample them it seems to 

 me they were the most luscious peaches I ever 

 tasted. I can readily imagine such fruit should 



