582 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 



Aug. 1. 



me to turn it under. The blossoms were alive with 

 bees, and I almost believe that the whole working 

 forre of my 100 colonies of bees were upon the field; 

 they fairly tumbled over each other. I never saw 

 them thicker upon basswood bloom. After going- a 

 few times around, I stopped tlie teams, went to the 

 apiary, and found the bees capping section honey. 

 I put the teams at work in another field; and as 

 long as it yields honey at that rate, it can stand 

 there. I think the rain caused the flow of honey. 

 The medium clover is keeping up. I feel certain 

 that, where crimson has proved a failure, the medi- 

 um will be a success. I do not intend to have any 

 more bare floors in my cornfield when I can carpet 

 them so cheaply with clover. I shall give my pref- 

 erence to the red clovers— crimson second place. 



Our opinion is that some of our friends who 

 plowed up the clover in disgust, a month ago, 

 would have had a similar statement to make if 

 they had let it alone — Rural New-Yorker, June 

 6, 1896. 



CRIMSON CLOVER A SUCCESS IN INDIANA WHEN 



SOWN AS LATE AS THE MIDDLE OF 



SEPTEMBER. 



We can grow the choicest crimson clover in Indi- 

 ana. Sept. 18, ]89.5.Isowedasmallpatchl0by3i/4 rods. 

 I pastured it when it was 6 in. high, and kept it pas- 

 tured down all the fall, and this spring, and then 

 left It for seed. I got 1% bushels of seed, and the 

 ground is a perfect mat to-day, without plowing or 

 harrowing, and oh how the bees work on it! They 

 just hum from morning till night. It was in bloom 

 17 days. I had 9 colonies, spring count ; now 14, and 

 about 75 lbs. of honey, while most of them around 

 here have nothing. Samuel Rickel. 



Akron, Ind., July 20. 



The above certainly gives encouragement for 

 sowing this plant later than we had supposed 

 advisable. If it was pastured down during 

 both fall and spring, then the report is still 

 more astonishing. I can not make out whether 

 the abundant rain caused the old stalks to send 

 up another growth after the seed was cut and 

 sown, or whether the seed rattled off enough to 

 make the lot green again by the 20th of July, 

 the day on which the letter was written. 



While on the subject of crimson clover, per- 

 mit me to call attention to a bulletin issued by 

 the United States Deoartment of Agriculture. 

 This utters a warning to farmers and others, 

 that it is unsafe to feed crimson clover to horses 

 after the blossoms are matured; and still more 

 unsafe to let them have access to the crimson- 

 clover straw from which the seed has been 

 thrashed. Quite a number of valuable horses 

 have been killed by the formation of balls in 

 the intestines. These halls proved to be made 

 up of hairs or spines of the head of the mature 

 plant of the clover. Where hay properly made 

 by cutting the clover when it is just in full 

 bloom (not later) is fed to horses, no harm re 

 suits. It is only necessary to beware of letting 

 them get hold of the overripe plant, either be- 

 fore or after the seed has been thrashed out. 



WHY SHOULD TOMATOES ROT WHEN WE HAVE 

 SUCH AN ABUNDANCE OF RAIN? 



Mr. 4. 1. Boot. -^On my little place just outside 

 the city, on a hilltop, I have a home. Last summer 

 I tried to raise tomatoes. The weather was unpre- 

 cedented for torrid heat, and no rainfall. As soon 

 as the fruit reached any size, a spot of rot covered 

 the top of the fruit until at last I became so discour- 

 aged that I gathered the green tomatoes for pick- 

 ling, and pulled up the vines. 



Early last spring I saw in Gleanings the scheme 

 of suo-irrigation. It appeared so rational, and easy 

 to accnmphsh, that I thought I had found out the 

 cause of my previous failure. I set drain tile, about 

 a foot, in the soil, leaving the top some six inches 

 above the soil. Ai ea'-li tile I set the plants. They 

 have just loomed right along: and as there have 

 been copious rains I have not had much water 

 poured to the roots. The plants are thrifty, and the 

 blossoms are setting rapidly into fruit. 



Judge of my surprise when, looking at them this 



morning, I found that the blight had already attack- 

 ed them. That I was greatly disappointed is put- 

 ting it very mildly, and I am all at sea, not knowing 

 who to direct me, as I failed last summer utterly to 

 learn what was the cause of the rot. 



Katharine Ensworth. 

 Room 220, U. S. Pat. Office, Washington, D. C. 



The above letter, and samples of the toma- 

 tot-s. were forwarded to our experiment station, 

 and here is their reply: 



I have examined the tomato sent, and do not find 

 the trouble, apparently, different from the common 

 point-rot of this fruit, which prevails more exten- 

 sively under conditions of insufficient moisture. 

 There is some of this rot, to be sure, where the con- 

 ditions are not so clearly responsible; yet I can offer 

 nothing better than tlie removal of the rotted toma- 

 toes and attention to the water supply. 



Wooster, O., July 22. A. D. Selby, Botanist. 



P. S.— A piling-up of difficulties is likely to follow 

 by growing the same plants season after season on 

 the same ground. 



As soon as I received the tomatoes it seemed 

 to me it was the same old trouble, familiar to 

 most of us— rot on the blossom end; but think- 

 ing that could not be the case this season, I sub- 

 mitted it as above. I am inclined to think the 

 trouble must have been lack of water, after 

 all. For the past two weeks we have been 

 having copious rains almost constantly, and I 

 do not think we have a rotten tomato now on 

 our whole plantation. Some of the fruit is 

 cracking open, however, before it is fully color- 

 ed. Just before the rains commenced, when 

 our earliest tomatoes had just begun to ripen a 

 little, we were troubled at the appearance of 

 the rot,- not only on tomatoes that were begin- 

 ning to ripen, but on many of the green ones, 

 some of them half-grown, that had a black de- 

 cayed look on the blossom-end, and nowhere 

 else. Prom the concluding sentence of Prof. 

 Selby's letter we conclude tomatoes should be 

 grown on new ground as far as possible every 

 season; not only that, it is best to have a rota- 

 tion of crops in the beds where the i^lmits are 

 grown; or have the soil all removed from the 

 bed once in two or three years, and replaced by 

 soil that has not been recently used for grow- 

 ing tomatoes. 



Later. — Since the above was received we have 

 received a second letter from Mrs. E, saying 

 that, after the plants were supplied with plen- 

 ty of water through the tiles, doing the work 

 personally, to see that there was no mistake 

 about it. the tomatoes are "doing finelv, and 

 no more have developed the blight." We are 

 glad of this, because it furnishes additional ev- 

 idence to show that the blight is generally if 

 not always caused by a lack of moisture. 



THE OUTLOOK IN THE POTATO BUSINESS AT THE 

 PRESENT DATE. 



From the United States Crop Report for July, 

 1896, we crither the following: The acreage 

 planted ot Irish potatoes is 93.7 that of last 

 year. The condition of the crop, the country 

 over, is 99 as against 95.5 a year ago at this ti me. 

 You see the acreage is almost as great, and the 

 condition of the crop is even better. This being 

 true, it is altogether likely that very low prices 

 will be the rule. With the excessive rains for 

 the past ten days, however, there is much com- 

 plaint of rot. especially on ground that is not 

 thoroughly underdrained. I tell you, it is re- 

 freshing to the grower to see the water pour 

 forth from the outlets of the underdrains after 

 these excessive showers. Some injury is done, 

 of course, on grounds that are drained the very 

 best, because the soil— especially clay soil— has 

 been so closely packed; but if the water can all 

 get off in an hour or two it makes a vast differ- 

 ence. 



