400 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



green, and tough, and customers complain that 

 it is bitter; so our lettuce trade drops off until 

 only a few customers who want it regularly the 

 year round are almost the only purchasers. 

 Well, we are now having a hot dry time right 

 in the middle of May, and all the lettuce has 

 been getting to be of poor quality in just the 

 way I have mentioned. One day it struck me 

 that the hot sun was what made it so dark and 

 tough, and so I commenced shading it. The 

 improvement was apparent in even 24 hours. 

 Putting shutters over the beds where the sides 

 were high enough does very well; and spread- 

 ing a cotton sheet over the whole bed answers 

 an excellent purpose. The sheet can be put on 

 every morning as soon as the sun gets hot, and 

 removed every night so as to let the lettuce get 

 the dew. But the best th'ng by all odds is 

 some sort of box to set right over the whole bed. 

 Single plants may be covered with bushel boxes 

 or old bee- hives or bee- hive covers. If you 

 have any such lying around unused you can 

 make them earn you some money by setting 

 them over the lettuce. In just two or three 

 days the Grand Rapids lettuce will become 

 beautifully white, and so crisp that the leaves 

 will break or snap in two by handling if you 

 are not careful. The bitter taste is all gone, 

 and you have not only handsome lettuce, but 

 that which is delicious, juicy, and crisp. The 

 best covering we have found are the large red 

 boxes that we used to set over our glass sashes 

 when they were not in use. These boxes reach 

 from one side of the bed to the other, and a 

 little more. This gives about the amount of 

 ventilation you need. When we first began 

 putting the bleached lettuce on the wagon we 

 told the man to slip it out of the paper bags 

 and let customers see it. The consequence was, 

 our sales doubled or trebled almost at once, and 

 our stock was sold out almost before we knew it. 



Now, then, friends, make haste and get your 

 lettuce covered, and astonish your customers 

 by showing them the most beautiful lettuce ever 

 seen, right during the hottest and dryest 

 weather. We handle it in cheap paper bags, 

 putting 34^ lb. into each bag. At .5 cts. a packet 

 this gives us 20 cts. per lb , which ought to be 

 satisfactory to any grower. My impression is, 

 that none of the largp. cities have got hold of 

 this kind of lettuce. The man who first intro- 

 duces it, will make a big thing. 



Now, friends get right at it and write me a 

 postal card, and tell me how it pleases your 

 customers. 



CRIMSON CLOVER, WINTER OATS, ETC. 



To-day, May 7, our crimson clover is getting 

 to be just immense. T. B. Terry once invited 

 me to come over and take a look at his medium 

 red clover. Now I should just like to have him 

 come and see our crimson clover. A single seed 

 may produce from 60 to 100 flower-stalks, and 

 each flower-stalk will produce one or more 

 blossoms. I can not tell yet just how many 

 seeds one blossom-head produces. And this 

 stooling-out feature is what misleads so many. 

 They see here and there only a little plant, and 

 conclude there will not be enough to amount to 

 any thing, and so plow it under. But these 

 same little insignificantplants, if let alone, will, 

 along in the middle of May, stool out so that a 

 bushel basket will not cover the plant, and the 

 stalks stand up from two to three feet high. 

 The piece sown among buckwheat, that looked 

 just right in April, is now altogether too much 

 crowded, while that sown among the Ford's 

 Early sweet corn, that seemed to be only part 

 of a catch, spreads out in every direction so 

 that the ground is going to be almost complete- 

 ly covered. 



On p. 366 I said that, on the 30th of April, our 



Rural New-Yorker winter oats were almost 

 ready to head out. Now, that is another of 

 A. I. R.'s blunders. There was here and there 

 some rye that came up among the oats. I pull- 

 ed up some stalks and saw some kind of embryo 

 head. Very likely some of our old farmers 

 thought Bro. Root had found a new kind of 

 oats /or sure, or else he was indulging in some 

 big yarns. Perhaps I shall have to admit that 

 I never raised a crop of oats before in my life, 

 which may partly explain my stupidity. But I 

 have something good to tell you about the win- 

 ter oats, afti r all. The piece of the patch that 

 I thought was killed out by the freezing and 

 thawing, or nearly killed out, under the influ- 

 ence of our nice April and May weather is going 

 to make quite a stand, after all ; and by the 

 time oats are usually harvested I may have a 

 pretty iair-looking field all over. It will prob- 

 ably be too thick where it was covered by snow- 

 drifts. 



By the way, I am becoming disgusted with 

 rye. It has got all over my grounds, so that, 

 whenever 1 try to raise clover, grass, or grain of 

 any kind, a great part of it is rye. It can not 

 get in with the crimson clover, however, for 

 this is too early a bird for it. 



THE CURRANT WORM AND LEGGETTS POWDER- 

 GUN. 



For two or three years the worms have 

 rather beat us, both on gooseberries and cur- 

 rants. This year, however, I determined to 

 beat t/icm if possible. I accordingly provided 

 myself with one of Leggett's dry-powder guns, 

 and we gave the bushes a good dusting with 

 Paris green almost before the leaf was visible. 

 Then we went over them about once in a week 

 right straight along, being sure to get the pow- 

 der down under the foliage, close to the ground. 

 The consequence is, that at this date, May 6, 

 not a worm has been discovered, and not a leaf 

 is disfigured unless it has been done since I be- 

 gan writing this. You may say, perhaps, they 

 have not injured bushes that were not treated. 

 Not so. Both currants and gooseberries be- 

 longing to my sister, near by, are entirely strip- 

 ped of their foliage. You may remember that 

 Prof. Cook advised us to use Paris green instead 

 of hellebore, provided we put it on before there 

 was any fruit on the bushes; and 1 think some- 

 body suggested that, if a little of the Paris 

 green fell on the ground under the bushes, it 

 would not come amiss. And now a word about 



THE LEGGETT POWDER-GUN. 



They have for some time past been claiming 

 that they could make the dry powder do as 

 good work as any of the liquid preparations, by 

 the use of their gun. The great point in this 

 is, that is saves you from carrying around heavy 

 barrels of water. If I am correct, they state 

 that 3^ lb. of Paris green, with their machine, 

 can be made to cover an acre of potatoes. All 

 you have to lug about is 4 ounces of the poison. 

 If dissolved in water it would take a barrel or 

 more. You may ask why the Leggett machine 

 is better than the bellows we have advertised. 

 It is better in this respect: You can throw the 

 poison in a little cloud that is almost imper- 

 ceptible to the eye, and yet it kills the insects. 

 The machine is worked by crank and gear- 

 wheels, giving a strong, steady blast; and the 

 feeding machinery is so accurate, and easy of 

 adjustment, that you can easily make ^ lb. go 

 over a whole acre. »So far we rather like the 

 new machine. The prices, however, are pretty 

 high— 1,5.00 for a small one, and $7.50 for one 

 large enough to throw the powder all through 

 a large apple tree. For the coddling-moth, the 

 Rural New-Yorker thinks it is, perhaps, just as 

 good as liquid preparations; but for applying 



