332 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mak. 15. 



give them another stirring at just the right 

 point. If another rain does not come, you 

 should stir the ground anyway by the time the 

 weeds begin to recover enough to start to grow 

 again. I have sometimes thought that the 



son. Ir Is a wonderful exhibit of the benefit arising' 

 from a dust mulch, when we consider liow very dry 

 it was tliere last ye;i,r. l SSS^ST 



D Below is therdipping^referred^toio 



Cross section cut showing the way in which the vibrating 

 teeth tear to pieces the small weeds while they slip around 

 the larger wellruoted plants. 



man who work.^ with a Breed weeder ought to 

 have only so much land to go over, and he 

 should have nothing else iu the world to hinder 

 the work being done, not only on the very day 

 but almost the very hour it should be done; 

 then he has the upper hand of things, and suc- 

 cess is sure. 



There has been a good deal of talk about 

 a hand-weeder; and our friend Boardman, 

 whom you all know so well, has a home-made 

 one that he constructed him-elf, that gives 

 excellent satisfaction. The manufacturers also 

 make a hand machine and hoe combined; price 

 60 cts. I believe, however, they do not give it 

 a very high recommend. A hand-weeder, with 

 wheels, to work like a hand cultivator, is made 

 to work among onions This. I believe, is a de- 

 cided success; price 110. It is operated by one 

 man. I wrote to the manufacturers that my 

 impression was that the Breed weeder was not 

 very practical unless the ground was very 

 clean, free from stones, stumps, sticks, rubbish, 

 etcoHere is what they say about it:^ . cld 



You need not put too much stress upon the mat- 

 ter of freeing' the ground from all trash and rub- 

 bish, because they are so easily raised that, if some 

 of the trash collects on the fingers, it is easily drop- 

 ped; and yet it would be well to have the ground 

 perfectly free. We would not recommend its use 

 on ground wViere cornstalks had been fed down and 

 the butts plowed under in a shiftless maimer. If 

 the plowing has been well done, and the weeder 

 used once over the ground to rake this up, there 

 w^uld be i)ut very little trouble. if ^ 



They also write in regard to using it on clay 

 soils: ^ 



While you are writing up the weeders, we wisn 

 yoti would call especial attention to their great 

 value in a clayey soil, as with them the formation 

 of a crust is entirely prevented. You can start 

 them sooner after a rain than you can any other 

 kind of cultivator; and their work is so rapid that 

 the field is gone over before the crust has a chance 

 to form. Then, again, in times of drouth the dust 

 blanket, or mulch, which they form on the surface 

 of the ground, almost entirely prevents the evap- 

 oration of the water in the ground below. It Is 

 really held there to be appropriated by the plant- 

 roots. 



Below is something in regard to using the 

 machine among currant and gooseberry cut- 

 tings: 



We inclose a slip showing what Mr. Cotta, one of 

 the leading farmers of Illinois, says of it. He wrote 

 an article which appeared in a recent n\imber of 

 the Orange .Tudd Farmer, giving a full account of 

 his work with the weeder. We knew nothing of 

 this until we saw in another paper a long extract 

 from this article. Mr. Cotta also sent us a local 

 paper which published his essay on surface cultiva- 

 tion delivered at a recent Illinois State institute. 

 This had a half-tone cutof a gooseberry-bush— roots 

 and all— which was grown from a cutting last sea- 



The Zephaniah Breed weeder is the greatest tool tor con- 

 serving iiHiisture I ever saw. On examining the soil in a very 

 dry time in tlie late summer I found that soU gathered two 

 inches brlciw the surface was moist enough to ball in the 

 hands, uliik- the top % of an inch was as dry as could be. The 

 grounil twd rods away, that had been well cultivated, was still 

 dry. 1 kept one acre of strawberries iu hills, and began using 

 the weeder the day I set them. The plants made a remarkable 

 growth, although we had very little rain after setting. I used 

 It on one acre of currant and "gooseberry cuttings set the pre- 

 vious fall, beginning when the ground was dry enough to 

 work, and continued it on the currants until fall, and on the 

 gooseberries till the tops spread six or eight inches without 

 removing any teeth. It lias been very dry here, but the goose- 

 berries have made a marvelous growth, and now average larg- 

 ei- than two-year-old bushes. 



Freeport, 111. H. R. CoTTA. 



Our readers will remember tliat I visited 

 Matthew Crawford, of Cuyahoga Falls, O., last 

 season, just after his boys had been running a 

 weeder through a new plantation of straw- 

 berries recently set. The ground was fined up, 

 and fixed as nice as or nicer than a gang of men 

 could do it with hand-rakes; and yet they did 

 an acre or two in a part of one forenoon, and 

 not a strawberry-plant, so far as I could see, 

 was thrown out. 



To sum up, if you get your ground in the right 

 sort of trim, and you are one of that sort of men 

 who drive their work without letting the 

 work drive them, you will probably make a 

 success of the Breed weeder— that is, if you put 

 your skill and brains right into the work. If 

 you are trusting to the average "hired man," 

 and you are away somewhere else. I do not be- 

 lieve you want a weeder. In fact, I don't be- 

 lieve you want a garden either. 



For pamphlet illustrating the weeders, ad- 

 dress the Z. Breed Weeder Co.. 36 Merchants' 

 Row, Boston, Mass. 



"the white grub; how to destroy them. 



In December, while plowing I put a dozen 

 white grubs into a can partly filled with dirt, 

 and set them in the fence-corner to see what 

 effect freezing and thawing would have. About 

 the middle of January I took them out aixd 

 found that they were entirely destroyed, legs 

 and heads being about all there was left. 

 Therefore, if you want to clear a field of them 

 plow it when it is so cold they can't burrow 

 down again. W. R. Geannis. 



Lodi, O., Feb. 5. 



Special Notices in the Line of Gardening, Etc. 



By A. I. Root. 



AI.,SIKE CLOVER— REDUCTION IN THE PRICE OF SEED. 



Until further notice we will furnish alsike, medi- 

 um clover, mammoth or peavine, and alfalfa, each 

 and all at the uniform i)rice of f.')..50 per bushel; '4 

 bushel, 83.00; peck. $1.60. The above prices include 

 sack to ship in. Prices by mail, po.stpaid, 1 lb., 26 

 cts. ; 1 lb., by express or freight, with other goods, 

 15 cts. ■ 



SEEDS BY MAir; REMEMBERING THE POSTAGE, 



When ordering seeds by mail, be sure to remem- 

 ber to include 10c per lb. or Ic per oz. additional for 

 postage. Some of you may ask why we do not make 

 our prices high enough to include po.stage. I an- 

 swer, because so many of the friends have their 

 seeds sent by express or freight witli other goods. 

 It would be unfair to take postage in this case 

 where no postage was needed. You may say one 

 cent on an ounce is but a very small matter; but if 

 you will compare our prices witlt those of other 

 seedsmen, especially our ovnre jirices, you ^'ill see 

 we are away down below most of them. We have 

 plentv of help here at the Home of the Honey-bees, 

 and our bovs and girls are very glad to work cheap 

 rather than not work at all; therefore we can at- 



