1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



835 



Toward sundown I turned my wheel up to 

 the neat little home of Mr. Mohn, who has 

 charge of the branch experiment station of the 

 State of Ohio, at Strongsville. They had just 

 finished digging their field for testing the dif- 

 ferent varieties of potatoes, and we had quite 

 an interesting time in comparing notes. Friend 

 Mohn has been improving these beautiful Octo- 

 ber days in having their ground thoroughly 

 underdrained. The farmers of the State of 

 Ohio have complained several times that our 

 experiment stations confined their experiments 

 too much to the best kind of Ohio soil. Said 

 the farmers: " We want you young professors 

 to try your hand on some of the poorest clay 

 soils of Ohio: for inasmuch as we can not all 

 have the best soil, or even tolerable, we should 

 like to know how to manage farms on poor 

 land." 



Friend Mohn has been trying to answer this 

 question the past season, for his farm was 

 selected as being some of the poorest soil nat- 

 urally, to be found in the State of Ohio. He has 

 decided that even the poorest ground should be 

 underdrained. In fact, this stands at the bot- 

 tom of all success in farming. The past wet 

 season has put a most positive emphasis on this 

 point. 



CAN WE AFFORD TO BUY CHEMICAL MANURES 

 AT PRESENT PRICES? 



The decision is, if I am correct, this past sea- 

 son, as it has been before, that it does not pay 

 to use chemical fertilizers where crops are to be 

 sold at the ordinary market prices. If you are 

 growing choice potatoes for seed, or choice 

 grains for the same purpose, it may pay. But 

 even then stable manure, where it can be had 

 at any thing like the usual prices, is very much 

 cheaper than the chemicals. 



UNDERDRAININGJBY MACHINERY. 



The same machine that I saw at Wooster, O. 

 (see page 751, 1893), has been in use at Strongs- 

 ville at the experiment station. They have 

 this fall been digging ditches and laying tile 

 and filling the ditches for the small sum of 15 

 cents a rod; and friend Mohn says they can do 

 it ever so much better than it can possibly be 

 done by hand, and I ihink he is right about it. 

 Just try it and see, friends, whether you can 

 make a good ditch 30 inches deep, and lay the 

 tiles and fill it up, for 15 cts. a rod. If you can 

 not, several farmers had better club together 

 and get a ditching-machine to come and do 

 the work for them.* 



Well, it was almost sundown, because I had 

 visited long, and the wind would be right in 

 my teeth going home. I had hoped it might 

 abate enough so as not to be much of a hin- 

 drance on my return; but it did not seem to be 

 inclined to abate a whit. Now, although I had 

 come 14 miles from home almost without effort, 

 or without conscious effort, I knew I should 

 have a tremendous pull to get home again with 

 that wind, even by bedtime. Half a mile away 

 was a railway station, and a train was due in 

 the course of fifteen or twenty minutes; so I 

 very wisely took the train back home. By the 

 way, it seems to me there has been some bor- 

 rowing of trouble on the part of our railway 

 companies because the wheel, as they take it, 

 threatened to be a competitor in methods of 

 travel. My impression is, however, that, in the 

 long run, the railways will have more business 

 because of wheels. They may have to work 

 cheaper. In fact, the electric railways are 

 already opening the way for lower rates of 

 travel; but in the end all of these things are 

 going to work together for good. Why, dear 



*The address of the inanufacturer of these 

 ditchers is J. B. Hill, Bowling Green, Wood Co., O. 



friends, we have a scripture text to prove it 

 It does not exactly mention wheels and trolley 

 cars, but it says, " All things shall work togeth 

 er for good to those who love the Lord." 



HOME-MADE HAND-MADE BUSHEL BASKETS. 



A few days ago, while I was standing in 

 front of our store, a farmer who was passing 

 asked, " What do you sell those bushel baskets 

 for?" I told him they were 20 or 25 cts., ac- 

 cording to the quality. But one of the boys 

 corrected^me by saying that there was a basket 

 we sold for only 15 cts. 



",What! an oakstave basket for only 15 cts.? 

 are you not mistaken, Frank ? " 

 L '\No; I am sure I am not mistaken, Mr. Root, 

 for they.sell two of them for a quarter." 



"■Two for a quarter! Why, where in the 

 world did our folks buy them so they could be 

 sold at that price?" 



After selling the man a basket I interviewed 

 Charley, who has charge of the counter-store 

 and he said there was a basket- maker over in 

 Weymouth, five miles distant, who was so 

 anxious to have something to do during these 

 dull times that he was actually making a good 

 stout serviceable oak basket, like the one in my 

 hand, so that we could retail them as I have 

 said. My curiosity was aroused, and in less 

 than an hour I was having a pleasant chat 

 with the basket-maker. He is a stone-cutter 

 by trade; but business being dull, and being 

 anxious to pay his rent, send his children to 

 school, etc., he had figured the thing down to 

 these exceedingly low prices rather than do 

 nothing. His shop was a little room perhaps 

 15x20 feet, in an upper part of his little home. 

 I am going to try to tell the readers of Glean- 

 ings how he makes baskets. Let me give yo» 

 a picture of the basket first. 



Not very many tools are needed. What he 

 has are, I believe, all home-made, or made with 

 the help of the blacksmith near by. First we 

 want a form for the basket so as to have it 

 hold an exaci bushel. This form is made of 

 wood covered with heavy bands of iron where- 

 ever nails are driven. These heavy iron hoops 

 are to clinch the points of the nails as they 

 strike them. The form stands up about three 

 feet above the floor, in the middle of the room. 

 The form is just the shape of a bushel basket 

 bottom up. In the center, where the bottom of 

 the basket comes, a steel rod runs up two or 

 three inches. A thread is cut on the rod, and a 

 steel burr runs up and down on it. The first 

 thing is to make the bottom of the basket. 

 This is composed of two wooden wheels 9 inches 

 across and ')s thick. He makes them of ^g^-inch 

 basswood which he gets at our factory. Color- 

 ed and knotty boards will answer for baskets 

 as well as any. The two wooden wheels are 



