1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



609 



at five o'clock and gathers the green corn 

 for the wagon that starts out at six. People 

 have found out that our corn is just from 

 the stalks, and they willingly pay us 12 cents 

 a dozen, even for small ears of early corn. 

 Large onions, large potatoes, nice fresh 

 corn, and other things to match, bring good 

 prices. May I suggest to our friend, how- 

 ever, that if I were in his place I should not 

 be in haste to abandon the bee-business. 

 Don't make your hives into kindling-wood 

 just yet, as you see our friend doing on an- 

 other page. Take good care of them, even 

 if they don't pay Now. Don't buy any new 

 traps or fixtures. In fact, don't pay out 

 any more money until there is a better pros- 

 pect of some money coming in. Of course, 

 I wouldn't let the bees starve. Feed them 

 during poor seasons when they may be like- 

 ly to be out of stores, and keep them in re- 

 serve. When the onions and potatoes and 

 carrots do not pay very well, just as likely 

 as not bees will pay tiptop. 



down to one or two kinds, instead of the 

 great string of varieties we find in most cat- 

 alogues. Let us take wax beans for in- 

 stance. Wardwell's kidney wax beans, at 

 least in our locality, are in every respect 

 superior to any thing else in the way of wax 

 beans. They are larger, and so free from 

 rust that you will not find a specked pod in 

 a whole bushel— absolutely stringless, and 

 more productive than any other bean we 

 have ever raised. To-day I picked 16 great 

 beautiful pods, as handsome as wax work, 

 off from one beanstalk. This is the product 

 of a plant from a bean dropped when we 

 were planting beets. It is a great relief 

 to us to have only this one kind. We have 

 for weeks been getting 50 cents a peck for 

 them, and they are going off now by the 

 bushel, at BO cents a peck. What is the use 

 of so many varieties'!* We are proposing to 

 cut our seed catalogue for 1891 down to 

 fewer varieties than ever before ; but in 

 order to do this intelligently, we are testing 



THE REASON' AVIIY 



FRIEND TERRY GOT 

 WHEN OTHER FOLKS 



The picture above, which is from a photo- 

 graph, illustrates the truth in our heading. 

 Friend Terry had pictures of drawers of 

 different kinds of his berries made for the 

 strawberry-book ; and while doing it, the 

 idea suggested itself of taking a drawer 

 from the stock in front of one of the gro- 

 ceries, and putting it side by side with his 

 own. Although the picture is not a very 

 good one, it tells the story. On page 602 I 

 gave you an illustration of the way in which 

 his berries sell while the market is glutted 

 with the common kinds. 



RAISIXG FEWER KINDS OF VEGETAULES. 



It is a very great relief to me, and doubt- 

 less will be to many of the friends, to come 



$4.00 A BUSHEL FOR HIS STRAWBERRIES 

 COULD NOT GET $2.00. 



almost every variety offered. Just think 

 what a relief it will be to have one kind of 

 tomatoes, one kind of wax beans, two kinds 

 of lettuce, three kinds of cabbages, two 

 kinds of corn, two kinds of cucumbers, two 

 kinds of muskmelons, same of watermelons, 

 two kinds of onions, three kinds of peas, 

 three kinds of radish, two kinas of squash, 

 two kinds of turnips. I do not know that 

 we shall be able to cut down quite as close 

 as the above, but we are planning to come 

 pretty near it. There may be special cir- 

 cumstances requiring different varieties for 

 different localities ; but perhaps a bright, 

 wide-awake seedsman in each different lo- 

 cality can help this matter to some extent. 



