Vol. LVI.— No. 5 



HAMILTON, ILL, MAY, 1916 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YEAR 



A WORKING COMBINATION 



Bees, Fruit and Poultry Provide Safety Against Seasons of Failure, 

 With Something to Sell Every Day in the Year 



THERE has been much discussion 

 of whether it is better to combine 

 beekeeping with some other pur- 

 suit to guard against seasons of fail- 

 ure, or keep a sufficient number of 

 bees to enable one to harvest a suffi- 

 cient crop in the good season to carry 

 over the poor one. This will depend 

 very much on the temperament of the 

 beekeeper and on his locality. Fail- 

 ures are much more frequent in some 

 localities than in others and there is 

 a great difference in the number of 

 colonies that a given acreage will sup- 

 port. These matters are always best 

 decided by the beekeeper. He should 

 be the best judge of his own locality 

 and also of his own capacity as a 

 honey producer. 



Since many beekeepers live in lo- 

 calities which will not profitably sup- 

 port a sufficient number of colonies to 

 furnish an entire dependance, or pre- 

 fer for other reasons to combine bee- 

 keeping with some other pursuit it 

 may be of interest to discuss the pos- 

 sibilities of such a combination. 



It is usually safe to measure the 

 possibilities in a given direction by 

 some man's accomplishment and the 

 description of a successful business 

 has the added attraction of the human 

 interest story. With this idea in mind 

 the staff correspondent kaf the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal visited Nauvoo to in- 

 terview the president of the Hlinois 

 Beekeepers' Association and to learn 

 something of his methods. Mr. B. J. 

 Baxter is well known to many of our 

 readers, having been an officer in the 

 National as well as his own state as- 

 sociation. 



Nauvoo is an interesting old town 

 because of its connection with the early 

 history of the Mormon church; bat 

 that is outside our story. The Baxter 

 home is just in the outskirts of the 

 town and the first thing to attract the 

 visitor's attention is the well kept 

 vineyard and orchard. There are ten 

 acres in the home place which gives 

 the impression of being intensively 

 cultivated, mostly In fruit. There is 



also another place not far away so 

 that Mr. Baxter has about thirty acres 

 devoted to fruit growing in all. Since 

 Mr. Baxter is located within less than 

 a mile of the Mississippi river, the 

 limestone soil and proximity to the 

 water are very favorable to fruit 

 growing. Loss from spring frosts is 

 less frequent than farther from the 

 river. Locality is as important in 

 fruit growing as in beekeeping. 



The beekeeper looks for a large 

 acreage of nectar-secreting plants, 

 while the fruit grower must have a 

 suitable soil and freedom from un- 

 seasonable frosts. Poultry can be 

 kept almost anywhere if properly 



Grapes Yield Heavily 



cared for, but the margin of profit in 

 poultry is very small after the farm 

 waste has been consumed. 



The kinds of fruit which can most 

 profitably be grown depend greatly 

 upon a man's situation. If he has a 

 good local market and plenty of help 

 available, berries will often prove 

 profitable, although the rush of berry 

 picking usually comes during tha 

 height of the honey flow when the bee- 

 keeper needs little else to occupy his 

 attention. Mr. Baxter has grown rasp- 

 berries, strawberries, grapes and ap- 

 ples principally, with small quanti- 

 ties of pears and other fruits. He now 

 grows grapes and apples with a small 

 acreage of strawberries. Apples com- 

 bine very nicely with beekeeping 

 since the care of the orchard comes 

 ahead of the honey flow and the pick- 

 ing of the fruit comes after the honey 

 flow is over. With a suitable situ- 

 ation and a wise selection of varieties 

 the apple orchard is a dependable 

 source of revenue. While there are 

 often seasons when the crop is light 

 the average annual returns from ths 

 orchard will prove more satisfactory 

 than from field crops. Mr. Baxter 

 has a small orchard of seven acres 

 which began bearing four years ago. 

 f lis first two crops were good for such 

 young tree's, and for the last two years 

 the return has been about one thous- 

 and dollars net per year, or about one 

 hundred and fifty dollars per acre. 



In planting an apple orchard great 

 care shou'd be used in the selection of 

 varieties. There are many varieties 

 fhat are such shy bearers that the> 

 could never pay, while others are not 

 popular in the market and bring un- 

 satisfactory prices. It is important, 

 also, to buy the trees from a respon- 

 sible nursery to insure that they will 

 be true to name. It too often happens 

 that after caring for an orchard six 

 or seven years in the hope of realiz- 

 ing handsomely from later crops the 

 owner will find himself imposed upon 

 by the substitution of inferior varle- 



