1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



647 



far away. I think it will pay on peaches also, 

 and possibly on apples. It will certainly pay 

 to utilize all the slops and dishwater from the 

 house, in time of drouth. Mulch the ground 

 around the roots, and then pour on your slops. 

 You see. after the fruit is nearly grown it takes 

 only a little water to finish it up. Where 

 blackberries are not attacked with the blight, 

 it would surely pay to furnish water to finish 

 up the ripening. 



The only kind of plants we have now in our 

 plant-gardens is c<'lery — that is, aside from 

 strawberry-plants; and to keep the celery doing 

 well we have to keep soaking the beds with 

 Avater almost every day. Our celery out in the 

 fields is coming to a standstill, unless it be 

 some on the lowest part of the creek bottom 

 that is always wet. 



Our two plants of the Timbrell strawberry 

 have now increased to something like .30 or 40 

 strong plants. Half a dozen Greenville have 

 Increased to almost a hundred. This has been 

 •done, however, by an unstinted application of 

 fine stable manure and plenty of water. 



POTATOES DURING A DRY TIME. 



The Early Ohios are just about dried up. and 

 the tops are dead. As it is pretty nearly time 

 for them to ripen, it is not altogether due to the 

 drouth. The potatoes, however, will be small, 

 and few in number. The Early Puritan held 

 out better; but in a few days its stalks wMl also 

 be dead and dried up. The Freeman potato 

 held out quite a little better still; hut the only 

 real green tops on our upland are Lee's Favor- 

 ite. These are looking passably green and 

 luxuriant; but they are also an early potato. 

 Now. down in the creek bottom we put out 

 •quite late some Rural New-Yorkers, and these 

 are just a pleasure to look upon. The vines 

 are dark green, rank and luxuriant, and they 

 do not seem to be affected by the drouth at all. 

 They are just now beginning to cover the 

 ground pretty thoroughly. Last year, you may 

 remember, the Rural New-Yorker gave us the 

 only real fair good-sized potatoes we had; and 

 it looks as if it might be something so this year. 

 We should remember it is a late potato. It was 

 planted last of all, and is on ground that is 

 mostly low and wet, with a gravelly subsoil. 

 Some parts of the patch, however, run upon 

 tolerably high ground, and the potatoes look 

 rank and strong, even here. I am beginning to 

 think a good deal of the Rural New-Yorker. 

 Somebody asked to-day the price on Early Ohio 

 and Freeman potatoes. Now, this dry weather 

 seems to be so widespread that potatoes are 

 going to be pretty well up. In fact, they have 

 advanced in the Cleveland market from 12.25 

 up to .*3.00 a barrel already within a few days. 

 I told our friend that I would not dare to offer 

 seed DOtatoes at present for less than SI. 50 for 

 the Early Ohio, and S2.00 for the Freeman; and 

 may be the price on the Freeman will have to 

 be put up higher yet. 



AMERICAN PEAKT. ONIONS. 



Ours were all sold in the Cleveland market at 

 about .$2.00 per bushel; and Mrs. Root urged 

 me to plant all our ground to onions, and not 

 try to raise so many things. If I knew that 

 these white onions would bring S2.00 a bushel, 

 no matter how many I raised, I do not know 

 but I would think seriously of doing so. They 

 were ripe and dry. and ready to ship, just a 

 little after we picked our last strawberries. 



POTATO^ONIONS. 



The only kinds of potato onions we tested th's 

 season were the new white ones. They are some- 

 times called the White Multipliers. One thing 

 that pleases me exceedingly about this White 



Multiplier is, that it never sends up seed-stalks. 

 Y"ou have not got to go through the patch and 

 watch for them, and snap them off; neither 

 will yon have in your crop any tough hard 

 onions caused by letting the seed-stalk grow a 

 little before it was snapped oft'. The only draw- 

 back with this onion is, that it is not very pro- 

 ductive — at least. I have not made it so. I first 

 bought a pint of these white potato onions. 

 They were not very small, any of them, so I 

 succeeded in raising only about two quarts 

 from the pint. I planted every one of the two 

 quarts last September, and this spring all I 

 have is a heaping half-bushel. How is that 

 for yield ? It is a little queer how multipliers 

 behave. If you plant a little onion it grows 

 the whole season and makes a big one. If you 

 plant a big onion, this, too. grows a whole 

 season, but it splits up into a lot of little ones — 

 no going to seed at all. If I had to deal with 

 them, however, I can not help thinking that 

 some of them, sooner or later, would go to seed. 

 There is another thing in favor of these potato 

 onions: The work is nearly all done in the fall 

 of the year, when you have plenty of time, and 

 when the ground is nice to jjrepare. Fix your 

 ground rich and fine in September; plant your 

 onions, little and big, and they will almost take 

 care of themselves until they are ready for har- 

 vesting. This year they were ripe almost as 

 soon as the American Pearl; but perhaps the 

 dry weather hastened their ripening, and very 

 likely it made the onions smaller than usual, 

 and thereby decreased the amount of crop. 

 These White Multipliers. I understand, are 

 now offered for sale so that they can be retailed 

 at about a dollar a peck, or $3. .50 per bushel. 

 They are about the handsomest onion in the 

 world, but they are not qiiite as large, at least 

 this season, as we should like to have them. 

 But there are no thick necks at all. The tops 

 all dry up and drop off by themselves. There 

 is no topping to be done, if I understand them. 



That low creek-bottom land is about the only 

 place where we are aroing to have any kind of 

 crop this season. We have already more cu- 

 cumbers than our town can take care of. The 

 seed was hastily drilled in, and has had very 

 little attention since. 



Just a word more about onions. About a 

 year ago we sowed some White Victoria and 

 Prizetaker seed on some very poor ground, hop- 

 ing that they would make sets. They got to 

 growing, however, during the fall rains; and 

 when winter came they were rank green onions, 

 looking nothing like making sets. We .sold 

 some of them for plants, in March and April, 

 as I have told you; but as they were in an out- 

 of-the-way place they never got hoed nor cul- 

 tivated once; in fact, there was never anv thing 

 done to them after sowing the seed. Oh. yes! 

 we did break off the tops once or twice, that 

 were trying to run up to seed. Well, about the 

 middle of July one of the men mowed off the 

 weeds and clover so we could find where the 

 onions were, and we harvested several bushels 

 of very nice White Victorias and Prizetakers. 

 Of course, they were small in size, because of 

 being so close together, and for lack of cultiva- 

 tion; but the above is certainly a very cheap 

 way of getting a small crop of onions providing 

 it will work every time as it did then. The 

 ground was so very poor that weeds did not 

 grow of any account until April showers 

 brought them along. Just now we are improv- 

 ing the dry whether in overhauling our wind- 

 mills, repairing our pumps, and fixing larger 

 reservoirs to save up and hold, till a time of 

 need, the great floods of water that will soon 

 come and run away if we do not hold on to 

 them. Water, water, water, is the one thing to 

 make gardens boom during a time like this. 



