1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



641 



seems to want it very much, he says he can 

 find several places where he can have it for 

 taking it out of the way. He is only three 

 miles from the city. Now, wiili this condition 

 of affairs, I am quite sure that the money he 

 paid for the fertilizers would have gone ever so 

 much further if paid out for manure and a 

 team to haul it. 



During the recent heavy rain, a great amount 

 of his richest and most fertile soil, together 

 with the fertilizers and stable manure, had 

 washed down into the swamp: but this time 

 friend F. had the advantage of most of us; for 

 the good ground and fertility had gone right 

 around the huckleberry-bushes instead of going 

 to waste. This surface-washing is getting to 

 be a serious matter, and something must be 

 done to stop it: at the same time, if we can 

 have some sort of crop to catch it before it goes 

 into our creeks and rivers we shall be heading 

 oflf loss in another way. This huckleberry- 

 swamp has no outlet. The soil is so porous 

 that the water ordinarily gets away before it 

 rises up very high. Such swamps are scattered 

 all over our State, and one can imagine some- 

 thing of the fertility they contain by the enor- 

 mous growth of weeds, swamp - grass, etc. I 

 tell you, if I had some huckleberry-bushes un- 

 der cultivation, so situated that they would 

 catch and save the fertility during a time of 

 tremendous rains, I should feel happy. If I 

 am correct, the huckleberries would stand be- 

 ing covered with water for quite a long period, 

 and not be injured. When a boy, I used to 

 gather the berries when wading in water near- 

 ly a foot deep. No matter how severe the 

 drouth, there is but little danger of losing a 

 crop of huckleberries on this account. 



Toward evening my good friend Frank took 

 his smart horse " Rush" (I think that was his 

 name), and we went to visit my cousin. Mr. 

 Atwood, whom I mentioned on page 485. Oh 

 what a sight met our gaze! Mr. A. has been 

 busily at work ever since my last visit. Twenty- 

 five acres of that swamp land have been 

 brought into subjection, and the beautiful rows 

 of celery are not only as straight as you can 

 draw a string, but so even and regular in size 

 and color that each row — in fact, each plant — 

 seems to be a perfect counterpart of its neigh- 

 bor. As we passed along the road and looked 

 up first one row and then another without get- 

 ting a glimpse of even a bit of " pusley " I really 

 felt like giving a whoop to express my satisfac- 

 tion. When we came to where another man's 

 land commenced, where he had started into 

 celery also, the contrast was almost painful. 

 Crooked rows, plants missing, weeds and dis- 

 order, made one realize that he was not in a 

 fairy land after all. The boy told us that Mr. 

 A. was not at home. He said he had gone over 

 to a neighbor's after a jug of water. You 

 remember my exhortations to friend A. Well, 

 I asked the boy if he knew whether there were 

 any nice young ladies living over where friend 

 A. had gone. We went over, and brought him 

 back with his jug— that is, after he told us he 

 was not particularly engagid for the evening. 

 He is quite a scholar as well as gardener; and 

 after I had teased him some he commenced 

 with a solemn air: 



" Mr. Root, do you remember a certain 

 French general who once said, when asked 

 why he did not pay more attention to the ladies, 

 that his affections, his heart, and his soul, 

 were bound up in France? For France he was 

 going to live, and for France he was going to 

 die, therefore France was his mistress and his 

 'all in air." 



" But, friend A., I do not see the point. 

 Where is your France ?" 



With a dramatic air he waved his hand over 



the beautiful lines of green as they stretched" 

 out in the distance in the moonlight, and said 

 something like this: 



"For the present, making a success and a 

 thing of beauty of these vast acres of swamp- 

 land takes all of my time and energies and 

 affections." 



"But you have succeeded; you have 'got 

 there' already," interrupted friend Frank. 

 Whereupon the boss of the celery-farm shook 

 his head sadly, and then I added: 



" No. perhaps you have not succeeded — at 

 least, as well as you may succeed in lime to 

 come. But, my dear sir, it will be a long time 

 befoie I am convinced that a good man will not 

 succeed quicker, and his success be greater, in 

 any honest, praiseworthy undertaking, with a 

 good ivoman to help." 



The plant-beds that so delighted my eyes on 

 my former visit were now about vacated, the 

 contents having been so beautifully spread over 

 those wide acres. 



"But, look here, friend A., how does it come 

 that, during this severe drouth, every thing 

 looks so bright and green, and your swamp- 

 ground is such a beautiful jetty black ? Surely 

 you have not been irrigating this whole 25 

 acres, have you ? " 



My young friend right here suggested that 

 he had got a new plan of irrigating, and then 

 he pointed to the water shining in the moon- 

 light in one of the ditches right at our feet. I 

 started. 



"Why, see here, old fellow; how does that 

 water come way up there, within a foot of the 

 top of the groiiiid ? " 



There was a twinkle in the eye of the propri- 

 etor as he replied: 



"Why, I put it there. After that dredging- 

 machine that you heard panting and blowing 

 off through the woods got up here and let the 

 water out of my way, I found there was danger 

 that I should soon want the water that I was so 

 anxious to get rid of. So I found a place in the 

 creek high enough up where I could let the 

 water in on my grounds, and that is the way I 

 have kept things growing at such a rate." 



" But you toid me there was a little fall from 

 one side of the swamp to the other— enough so 

 the water would run off in your tiles. If this is 

 true, how do you keep it at the right height here 

 without having it come up down there by the 

 road so as to give your plants too much water? " 



'■ Well, we did have just that obstacle to meet, 

 and we met it very simply. We fix a piece of 

 heavy tin on tiit- end of a board ; then we dig 

 down so we can see the tiles, and push the tin 

 down through a joint so as to hold the water 

 back. The dirt can then be thrown in back 

 around the handle sticking up; and by raising 

 or lowering this you can control the fiow of the 

 water." 



There, my friends, you have an ideal celery- 

 swamp. Right in the same neighborhood I 

 found a market-gardener. Mr. Chas. C. Miller, 

 who made me open my eyes and stare at his 

 early White Phime celery, and his beets and 

 radishes that he was raising for the Akron 

 market; and as he said his boys w.'re going to 

 get up at four o'clock in the morning, to gather, 

 wash, and load the stuff for an early start to 

 the city, I decided to stay all night, so as to be 

 around in the morning to see them work. I 

 left home in the middle of a hot day. and there- 

 fore came away in my shirt-sleeves. I would 

 have taken my coat along, but tliere was a 

 heavy wind right against me. and the coat 

 would have been a hindrance any way I could 

 fix it; therefore I did not take any. When I 

 went away in the evening with friend Frank 

 he kindlyloaned m(! a coat. But the weather 

 turned so cool by morning, especially in the 



