862 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



Dec. 



barrel, sunk it half way in the ground, and 

 filled it half full of round cobble-stones. 

 On top of the cobble-stones was placed 

 brush, then some straw, then a good deal of 

 manure, mixed with nice rich earth. On 

 this earth the cucumbers were planted in the 

 ordinary way ; and when the roots were long 

 enough to go down among the cobble-stones, I 

 the barrel was kept constantly filled with 

 water. Several conditions were necessary i 

 to insure the greatest success, so he made i 

 several trials of the process before he sue- i 

 ceeded in getting nearly half a barrel of pick- 

 les from the plants that grew in a single 

 half-barrel of compost. I presume the bung- 

 hole of the barrel was left open, to guard | 

 against hurting the plants by too much wa- | 

 ter. In that case, if the earth should be | 

 soaked, no matter how w^et, the surplus | 

 would flow out of the bung-hole, leaving the [ 

 soil like any nicely underdrained soil, while 

 the roots of the plants would always be able j 

 to help themselves to any amount of water 

 required, by simply going down among the 

 wet stones. 



By the way, there seems to be something 

 particularly attractive to the roots of plants 

 in wet stones or damp gravel. Many of the 

 friends who have practiced underdraining 

 know how tlie roots will go down into these 

 underdrains, and follow them for many feet. 

 Friend Peirce, in his carp-book, speaks of 

 the trouble he has had with outlets to carp- 

 ponds, by the roots of the trees getting into 

 the pipes, and filling them up. Well, there 

 is nothing particularly strange about this 

 experiment of raising great quantities of 

 cucumbers with a little very ricli compost 

 and plenty of water. But here is the strange 

 part of the experiment, and the one which 

 fixed the attention of young Cole, and made 

 this matter his life-study. That one hill of 

 cucumbers in the barrel, during the hot 

 days of July, when the plants were making 

 their greatest growth, actually drank up 

 half a barrel of water, in only three days! 



Does it astonish you? Well, it astonished 

 me somewhat ; but when I gave our people 

 at the noonday service an outline of friend 

 Cole's wonderful invention, one of our men 

 told me after dinner that he himself had 

 done the same thing ; but that, although he 

 had not measured the quantity of water 

 needed, he had no doubt that very rank, 

 thrifty-growing vines, would take quite the 

 amount mentioned. That is over 10 gallons 

 of water a day, for a single hill of cucum- 

 bers. In other words, this one hill of plants 

 drank up over three patent pailf uls of water 



every 24 hours, or nearly half a gallon an 

 hour ; or, to get it right before us, a pint of 

 water every 15 minutes. As it is likely that 

 more water was used in the daytime than 

 after nightfall, at some hours the amount 

 perhaps exceeded even this. I have before 

 called your attention to the fact that 

 much of our garden stutf is largely com- 

 posed of water. Green cucumbers may be 

 80 or 90 per cent water ; and if the plant is 

 going to yield bushels, of course it must 

 have water to drink. Do you feel like say- 

 ing, " Well, who wants so many cucumbers, 

 any way?" I reply, strawberries, during 

 the height of the fruit season, use almost as 

 much water as cucumbers do ; and friend 

 Cole has been selling strawberies at a penny 

 apiece, because they were as large as ordi- 

 nary peaches ; he did not raise them in bar- 

 rels, though, and this brings us to the dis- 

 covery. 



A few pages back I talked to you about 

 saving the rain and the snow, as well as the 

 sunsliine. Well, friend Cole has just " gone 

 and done it." His garden is on a hillside, 

 and he has made it to bud and blossom in 

 such a way that the people of the surround- 

 ing country have got in the way of calling 

 it •' The Home on the Hillside.'' Our place 

 is called '' The Home of the Honey-bees,"' 

 so you see there is something a little parallel 

 in our experiences. For several years the 

 idea has haunted me, tliat we ought to save 

 the water that Comes down from the clouds, 

 store it up somewhere, and use it during 

 our dry summers to give drink to our straw- 

 berries, cucumbers, etc. I talked about 

 constructing a reservoir upon the hill near 

 our house ; but our land is so expensive 

 here close to town that I could not well spare 

 the room it would occupy. Besides, after I 

 had got it made into a pond, it is expensive 

 business running it over the land, even by 

 the best system of irrigation. To see what 

 had been done in the matter, I sent and got 

 the little book, entitled '• Irrigation Applied 

 to Farms, Gardens, and Orchards ;" but aft- 

 er studying the book for two or three years 

 thoroughly, I became discouraged before I 

 ever set about it. The author discouraged 

 me by giving actual facts from experience, 

 of the expense of irrigation after the water 

 was obtained. You can not do it in one 

 season so it will last, but it has got to be 

 done cojitinually. Friend Cole started out 

 with the bold idea of covering up these reser- 

 voirs to hold the rain, and raising garden 

 stuff right over them. 1 had thought of this 

 too ; but the expense required to cover a 



