628 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



October, 1918 



poorer soil the seed slioukl not be jilanted so 

 thickly. You will note the article is on " Sunflowers 

 as a Silage Crop " and the only reference that is 

 made to alfalfa is in speaking of the sod ground on 

 which the big crop was raised. The sunflower is 

 getting to be a great silage crop in western Colo- 

 rado. The county agent of Montrose County ran 

 an excursion one day recently to that part of his 

 county where something over 300 acres were grow- 

 ing. This i.s the first year of sunflower planting in 

 that county ; but, wherever the crop has been tried, 

 it has been voted a success. Montana had such 

 good success with their trial plots last year that 

 they are publishing a bulletin on the subject. I 

 have noted bees take kindly to the flower ; bxit as it 

 is, impossible here in thft orchard districts to raise 

 the bees (on account of the spray poisoning), I 

 know nothing of its value as a honey plant. Thru- 

 out this inter-mountain country where the sunflower 

 has been raised for silage, a yield of from 20 to 40 

 tons per acre has been reported, notwithstanding 

 the statement of Director Thome. 



Geo. LaGraxge. 

 Grand Junction, Col., Sept. 7, 1918. 



BOTH MILK AND HONEY FROM ONE AND 

 THE SAME PLANT. 



Now, friends, you can see what I am 

 driving at. • Forty years ago or more we 

 sold considerable quantities of sunflower 

 seed as a plant furnishing not only honey 

 but valuable food for chickens; and I have 

 just searched the index in the back vol- 

 umes of Gleanings from Vol. 1 to Vol. 46 

 and found more or less about sunflowers as 

 a honey i^lant. Some seasons they have 

 yielded considerable quantities of honey, 

 at others, little or none. One California 

 writer recently told us that his crop of 

 white honey was seriously injured by the 

 mixture of dark honey from sunflowers. 

 He said the sunflowers gave an unusual 

 yield that season. I found in our neigli- 

 liorhood a little patch of sunflowers com- 

 ]irising perhai^s an eighth of an acre in 

 full bloom. When the weather is warm 

 enough it is well covered with bees, and 

 they gather both honey and pollen from the 

 flowers. I am told that an experiment sta- 

 tion somewhere in Canada ]n\t out a bulle- 

 tin some time ago in regard to sunflowers 

 i'or silage, and ga\e it a very high recom- 

 mendation. If any of our readers can 

 give me full information in regard to sun- 

 flowers for both milk and honey I shall be 

 especially pleased. 



TRANSPLANTING CORN. 



On page 437, Gleanings for July, I gave 

 you a picture of the way I tested my seed 

 corn; and you will notice three grains were 

 jilaced oi)i)()site eacli c.-ir of coin. Well, 

 wlieii these three grains got to be four or 

 live inches liigh they looked so handsome 

 and thrifty, owing largely to the rich com- 

 post and frequent watering, it seemed too 

 bad to destroy them ; and, as we had some 

 ground furrowed out for planting early 

 potatoes, I took them up and planted them 



out as we do cabbage plants, about the 

 proi3er distance for field corn. Well, about 

 the middle of August I had beautiful hard 

 yellow ears ready to gather for my chick- 

 ens. Of course, it would not pay to fuss 

 thus with field corn unless there was some 

 particular reason for wanting some nice 

 new field corn extra early, say for grind- 

 ing in your little home mill to have home- 

 made corn meal, which, by the way, we 

 think a great deal nicer when it is made 

 from corn right from the field. Well, at 

 the time I tested the field corn I also teSted 

 sweet corn for planting in the garden; and 

 this sweet coi'n was two weeks ahead of 

 that planted outdoors. I think it is a very 

 good idea to have a little sweet corn start- 

 ed indoors and transplanted in this way so 

 as to get a little ahead of the regular crop. 

 Just now the agricultural papers are 

 urging the farmer to select his seed corn 

 from the field, especially in view of the 

 scarcity and high price and poor quality 

 that prevailed last spring. Well, in lo- 

 calities where there is trouble from early 

 frost the transplanting outlined above, just 

 for ser-uring seed corn, will, I am sure, pay 

 big. Give the little corn-plants some of 

 your best ground and give them the best 

 care. Why, one of our agricultural papers 

 just now has said that a farmer might 

 make as high as $75.00 a day in taking time 

 at just the right stage of the maturing 

 corn to select the very best ears for plant- 

 ing- 



SOAPSUDS AS A FERTILIZER. 



If you will turn to page 438 of the July 

 Gleanings, you will find a picture of a bed 

 of extra-early jiotato i)lants. At the upper 

 lefthand cornei- there is an indistinct view 

 of some little ])lant boxes. These boxes con- 

 tain little plants of Netted Gem cantaloups. 

 After tJie potato plants were removed from 

 the bed, four hills of melons were taken 

 from these little boxes and put in place 

 of the potatoes. Well, in our locality we 

 had, along about the first of August, a 

 tremendously hot and dry spell. For a few 

 days it seemed as if the garden was going 

 to be an almost utter failure. With the 

 tremendous heat we had. both day and 

 night, the Grinnell sprinkler did not seem 

 to amount to mucli. The fierce heat of the 

 sun dried up the water, no matter how 

 much we put on; and the water from our 

 waterworks tliis year has been unusually 

 expensive. AVell, as these four hills of 

 melons in that potato-piant bed were close 

 by where Mrs. Root does the washine, once 

 a week they were treated to a tubful of 

 strong soansuds. I wanted to give soap- 

 suds a good test (while potash is so scarce) 



