1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



617 



the apparatus will be pretty sure to get out of 

 shape, and otherwise injured by the frosts of 

 winter— especially that four-inch cemented tile. 

 Perhaps it does not freeze hard enough in that 

 part of Kansas, but I should like to know how 

 the arrangement has stood wintering. 



CRIMSON CLOVER. 



We have just had a visit from friend Terrill, 

 of North Rldgeville, O. He too has been grow- 

 ing crimson clover. His place is seven miles 

 from the lake shore; and his clover, sown 

 among corn, and all sown in July and August, 

 is a perfect success. In one piece, where the 

 clover was put in with the growing corn, crim- 

 son clover was turned under the next year, and 

 corn planted again. He says this is perfectly 

 practicable. Right beside where crimson clover 

 is turned uiider is a strip where rye was also 

 turned under, and the rye had a top dressing of 

 stable manure last fall, while the crimson 

 clover did not. Now, the rows of corn were 

 planted so as to cross over on to where the rye 

 stood; and all along during the growth of the 

 present year you could see plainly, on every 

 corn row, where the crimson clover stopped 

 and where the rye commenced. The crimson 

 clover alone was away ahead, as a fertilizer, of 

 rye with its top dressing of manure. 



THE GREAT AMERICAN STRAWBEYRY. 



Friend Terrill says that the big strawberry I 

 told you about is the Great American, and no 

 mistake. After all other strawberries were 

 gone his wife said she was going to look over 

 their beds and see if she could not find just a 

 few more berries. When she got whpre a neg- 

 lected matted row of Great Americans had 

 been allowed to grow up thick, tilling the path 

 like those I described, she found just such 

 great beauties as I did. They were later than 

 any thing else, but, if I am corn ct, larger, and, 

 to my taste, more luscious. Like ours they 

 were too soft for shipping, but just the thing 

 for home use after every thing else was gone. 



appears cooler than it was before. Let him who 

 doubts try it. 



To the father of a family, who is always on the 

 lookout against typhoid fever, and those diseases 

 that, in tlie majority of cases, have their origin in 

 impure water, this discovery is to me a Godsend. 



And while on the subject of salt I will say that 

 there is a practice among- old bee-keepers in this 

 county, who use the old-fashioned gum (which is a 

 section of a hollow black gum for a hive), of throw- 

 ing a handful of salt under the hive on the bench or 

 bottom-board every spring. They say bees need it. 

 They tell you that the bees will get away with it in 

 a very few days. Well, I had read in the A B C of 

 Bee Culture something about the use of salt water 

 lor bees; so this spring I exposed salt water during 

 the ijreeding-seasou, in Simplicity feedei-s placed at 

 a distance from the hives. At least a dozen feeders 

 were used, and it was necessary to refill them every 

 other day. My bees have bred up faster, and swarm- 

 ed nioi-e and done better, this year than ever before. 

 From 47 colonies there were at least 60 swarms; 

 and my nearest neighbor, less than a quarter of a 

 mile away, had only one swarm from 30 colonies. I 

 have heard of no other apiary in this county in 

 which the swarming was not a long way below 

 normal. 



1 have extracted 115 gallons of honey, and could 

 now take thirty more from the supers; but the 

 honey now being gathered is dark, and it had better 

 be left for winter stores. This is the best yield that 

 1 have ever had, and I can not help attributing it in 

 some degree to the use of salt. , T. S. Fokd. 



Columbia, Miss., June 37. 

 uAt the time the above was received, our cis- 

 tern water was, from some unknown reason, ex- 

 ceedingly bad. We thought some small animal 

 must have got into it; but it is so perfectly in- 

 closed with the best of cement and stone flag- 

 ging, that we did not see how it was possible. 

 At any rate, I procured a bag of table salt, and 

 put In some three or four pounds, and then 

 stirred it up thoroughly with an aerating- 

 pump. The water improved immediately, and 

 is almost entirely free from any smell whatever. 

 It may be, however, that the unpleasantness 

 had beeun to abate aiiout the time I put in the 

 salt. Mrs. Root feared it would make the water 

 hard; but three or four pounds in a large cis- 

 ternful had no perceptible effect in that direc- 

 tion. Will others test the matter, and report? 



Health Notes. 



PURIFYING A CISTERN OR WELL BY THE USE OF 

 COMMON SALT, ETC. 



It is odd how one will now and then stumble 

 across customs in vogue among the illiterate, that 

 must have had their origin somewhere in the misty 

 past in the brain of some acute thinker and observ- 

 er. The other daj' an old woman in our village was 

 seen by the writer early on Monday morning empty- 

 ing a cup of some white-looking substance Into her 

 well. Curiosity prompted the query, " ^^■hat are you 

 doing ? " It turned out that her grandmother, who 

 was as illiterate as herself, had told iier that, on 

 wash-da.v, at least once every month, she poured a 

 cupful of coarse salt into the well. When the day's 

 washing was done, the taste of salt had disappeared 

 from tlie water, and for days afterward the well 

 water was colder and fresher and better every way 

 than before. 



The well water at home, notwithstanding the 

 curbing was of sewer-pipe, and although it seemed 

 Impossible that anything- unwholesome could have 

 found its way into it, was nevertlieless beginning to 

 taste badly since tlie advent of warm weather; so, 

 remembering that salt is said to be certain destr-uc- 

 tion to low forms of life, both animal and vegetable, 

 and even having in mind that a prophet in the Old 

 Testament had purified the waters of a certain 

 fountain with salt, I went home and removed the 

 covering from my bf)red well, and tlirew in about 

 two pounds of salt. The result borders on thi; mar- 

 velous. After the lirlny taste lias disappeared, Ijy 

 considerable pumping. I realized that the old wo- 

 man had spoken only the literal truth. The water 

 was "healed." The bad taste had wlioUy disappear- 

 ed, and the water is now more palatable, and really 



ELECTROPOISE. 



We are just now informed that the price of 

 Electropoise has been reduced from !p2r).00 to 

 $10.00. Well, that is good, but it is not enough; 

 S^IO.OO is still an extravagant price for a humbug 

 toy that costs less than 50 cts.; and this would 

 be true, even supposing the thing were good 

 for something. This humbug is still given a 

 place in many religious papers; and the Golden 

 Rule — just think of it, friends — a paper that 

 calls itself the GoWeji Rule — gives place to an 

 advertisement containing a testimonial to the 

 effect that it cured a ca/iccr.' This thing that 

 has neither sense nor science about it, can have 

 no possible effect for either better or worse, un- 

 less the proprietors have discovered a new 

 force in nature unknown to the whole scientific 

 world; yet this senseless thing, they claim, 

 cured a cancer! Electropoise should certainly 

 teach the great wide world one useful and 

 wholesome lesson — that the remedies we take 

 have probably, as a rule, nothing whatever to 

 do with our getting well. We take something, 

 nature goes to work and cures us, as she would 

 do anyway, and then we give the drug or nos- 

 trum the credit. 



Please continue Gleanincs, as I can not well do 

 without it. It has come to me through all the past 

 ten years as a faithful friend, with encouraging 

 words in times of adversity. G. C. Huohes. 



Exeter, Mo., July 3. 



