410 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



high or low, rich or poor, is permitted to ram- 

 ble at will all over the beautiful premises, 

 vilhout a cent of expense. 



Just now another magnificent structure, 

 employing a small army of mechanics and 

 laborers, is in process of construction. They 

 were just laying the foundation for this build- 

 ing at the time of my visit. I was told it was 

 to be the palatial residence for Mr. Flagler, 

 the owner of the East Coast Railway. He is 

 the owner, also, of half a dozen or more of 

 these palatial hotels that accommodate people 

 enough during the height of the season to 

 make a fair-sized city. 



DOES IT PAY TO HAVE SOME APPLE-TREES? 

 THE RAWLES GENET. 

 After planting an orchard of 100 trees we 

 waited almost ten years before we had apples 

 of any account; but now our orchard begins 

 to do us some good. Last year we had two 

 trees that gave us a heaping ten bushels each. 

 That is not very much; but these apples now, 

 toward the middle of April, are just as plump 

 and crisp as if they had just come from the 

 tree — yes, a good deal more so, because late 

 in the fall, when picked, they were too hard 

 to be fit for any thing. They are the variety 

 railed Rawles Genet. When the trees first 

 began to bear I thought so little of them I 

 wondered why anybody should want such a 

 miserable, hard, worthless apple. The value 

 of this apple, however, is something like that 

 of the KiefFer pear. The trees are loaded 

 down every season ( " Never-fail" is another 

 name for it), and the apple is a better keeper 

 than any thing else I know of. But I made a 

 big mistake last season that I did not pick off 

 more than half the apples. Had I sorted out 

 the gnarly ones, and small imperfect ones, 

 where there were too many on the limbs, I 

 think I should have more bushels, and all big 

 nice smooth apples. We have got to come to 

 hand-picking and thinning if we want to pro- 

 duce the finest high-priced fruit. Well, even 

 as it is, these two trees gave us pretty nearly 

 $10.00 worth of apples each. In fact, the 

 apples would bring more than a dollar just 

 now, and there is not a bit of trouble in keep- 

 ing them till May — at least, we have never 

 had any trouble. Another thing, will it pay 

 to plant fruit-trees when you are over 60 years 

 old ? I got to thinking of this because I have 

 just ordered a lot of trees from a nursery, to 

 be shipped to our Michigan ranch. 



MY NEW TRAP NEST. 

 On page 160 one of the friends, you may re- 

 member, asked me to "walk around the stair- 

 way " and study up a cheap and eflScient trap 

 nest. I have, therefore, given the matter some 

 thought, and have produced a very cheap one, 

 and one that works so nicely I feel like shout- 



ing " Eureka ! " as did the philosopher of old- 

 en times. Perhaps, however, I had better 

 hold back my enthusiasm a little until I see 

 how it works in the hands of others, and how 

 it stands the keen scrutiny of bona-fide poul- 

 try-men. 



In the first place, you want to get a light 

 box at the store or grocery. For small-sized 

 hens an oblong box a foot wide, a foot deep, 

 and 2 feet long, will do very well. But for 

 medium fowls it had better be 13 inches wide 

 and deep, inside measure, and 2 feet long. 

 For some of the large breeds, 14 inches wide 

 and 13 deep will be better. 



The diagram below will make it plain, I 

 think. 



A B 



TRAP NEST UNDER A GROCERY BOX. 



Let the dotted line AB represent the ground 

 or floor of the poultry-house. Now let CPSN 

 represent our drygoods box. Turn it upside 

 down and cut off the lower corner down 

 through on the line CR. Now fit a board in 

 this opening so as to take the place of this 

 dotted line CR. Now drop your box down 

 on to this cut-away corner, and it will stay in 

 position providing you put weight enough on 

 CR to hold it down flat. For illustration, sup- 

 pose we put a flatiron or a suitable-sized stone 

 right in on the line CR. In this position it 

 would be just the thing for a hen's nest or 

 just such a nest as any hen likes. Suppose 

 she is hunting for a nest, and walks along the 

 line AB until she puts her head under at P. 

 Of course, we have to make a bottom for the 

 nest, with a board nailed in so as to have a bot- 

 tom, IR, joining the dotted line CR. This bot- 

 tom of the nest need not be tight. In fact, it is 

 better to have cracks so the litter can sift out. 

 Put in some leaves, cut straw, or excelsior ; 

 then a nest egg, or two, if you choose, to get 

 her started. She walks up under P, looks 

 over the strip of board at I, and steps up on it 

 to get into the nest. As soon as she steps on 

 I, the box tilts and shuts her in. In the dia- 

 gram, I is shown higher up from the ground 

 than it really is ; because, when that corner is 

 sawn off, the dotted line CR rests on the dot- 

 ted line AB. 



Well, that stone or flatiron that I told you 

 to put on the bottom CR is rather in the way, 

 so we will have some iron rods for a weight, 

 and we slide them into a sort of shelf shown 

 at C. This shelf is made of a strip of tin 



