1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



67 



away when that steamboat proved a failure. 

 As we returned we passed the oldest 

 orange-orchard in Riverside. The owners 

 hauled water in barrels from the river to 

 irrigate them, before the canals were con- 

 structed. Some of the trees have borne 20 

 boxes of oranges in one season; and at $2.00 

 per box it is not strange that, with 75 trees 

 to the acre, he should make them average 

 $1000. Now, dear reader, don't get excited. 

 Riverside is perhaps the best orange district 

 in the world, and this man is an expert. I 

 have passed thousands of acres of oranges 

 that are not paying the interest on the mon- 

 ey, and many are abandoned in disgust by 

 their discouraged owners. One of the most 

 beautiful features of Riverside is the bright 

 sparkling water, as it hurries over its grav- 

 elly bed through the immense irrigating 

 ditches that traverse the land. Some of 

 them are big enough totake quite a pleasure- 

 boat. At one point, where there is a fall of 

 about 30 feet, they are talking of a water- 

 motor to run an electric motor, to carry a 

 train of motor cars through their beautiful 

 valley. What do you think of such an in- 

 dustry as that, ye scientific mechanical 

 geniuses who read ({leanings ? I tell you, 

 friends, no one knows what a people may do 

 who can say to the saloon-keepers, " Get 

 thee behind me, Satan." " No good thing 

 will he withhold from them who walk up- 

 rightly." 



Mrs. Keeney informs me that the temper- 

 ature is about 10 degrees cooler in summer 

 on their mountain, and nearly 10 degrees 

 warmer in winter. This specially fits it for 

 friend K.'s business of raising orange-trees. 

 He uses cheap cotton cloth to protect them 

 from the sun or from the frost, as the case 

 may be. Frames made of lath are also used, 

 and these answer perhaps better than the 

 cloth, for they give the plants sun half the 

 time. In California, all the greenhouses are 

 made with spaced lath instead of glass. 

 Our friend ('. O. Rerrine made the only 

 greenhouse, covered with glass, 1 have seen ; 

 and he says it was money thrown away, for 

 they make no use of it. 



Now a word about being out of work. 

 My two friends Keeney and Woodberry are 

 both carpenters, and both get $3.50 per day, 

 and I believe both now have more work than 

 they can do; but when they were out of 

 work they w r ere never idle. Each one look- 

 ed sharp for the chances. One took hold 

 of strawberries and the other seedling 

 oranges. Before leaving Riverside I went 

 into the fruit-packing establishment. After 

 the raisins are dried in the sun, as I have 

 explained, on wooden trays, they are sorted, 

 and the poor ones are put through a machine 

 that breaks them from the stems. Then an 

 ordinary fanning-mill is used to clean the 

 fruit from the stems, when it is ready to be 

 pressed into boxes. Before putting on the 

 cover, however, a lot of the very largest are 

 used to cover the top. I didn't like this ; 

 but when I saw every one of the thousands 

 of boxes marked, in large plain letters, 

 " London," I felt like saying, "0 Riverside, 

 Riverside ! ye who have banished the sa- 

 loons, have you yet to learn that truth is 

 always better than untruth?" 



Friend Keeney has invented, and got into 

 practical use, a machine that sorts the 

 oranges into H different sizes, putting each 

 size into a box by itself. I saw the machine 

 at work, and it does it rapidly and surely. 

 A stencil on the outside of the box then tells 

 how many and what size each box contains. 



I can not drop Riverside without a word 

 more in regard to her wonderful irrigating 

 canals. One of them is right beside the 

 railroad track, just in front of the depot. 

 The water moves so fast one can hardly run 

 as fast as the bubbles on the surface. One 

 evening I walked out to find the rooms of 

 the Y. M. C. A. Along every street, even 

 in the darkness, I heard the ripples of the 

 happy brooks as they hustled by on their 

 happy errand. 



Continued Jan. IS. 



JAPANESE BUCKWHEAT. 



THE PROFIT MADE IN RAISING IT, ON PAPER. 



J' BOUGHT one bushel of Japanese buckwheat 

 ; of you last spring, and I was in hopes of send- 

 i ing a good report; but the frost came too soon. 

 • I sold half a bushel to my neighbor, who sowed 

 it about the first of July. The frost came and 

 killed it before one-fourth of it (so my neighbor 

 thought) was ripe; but he secured 25 bushels. My 

 own was sown about one week later, and the frost 

 spoiled it. The bees worked on the Japanese about 

 the same as on the common that was planted beside 

 it, so far as I could ascertain. My neighbor had 

 both kinds in one Held, and the common was not 

 worth harvesting, while the yield of the Japanese 

 would have been, but for the frost, 40 bushels at 

 least. I have been thinking of renting land within 

 a mile or two of my place, and sowing it with buck- 

 wheat, for the profit I should derive out of it from 

 the grain alone; then the honey I would get from it 

 would he clear gain. 1 could get the land to plant 

 on shares, or hire it cheap (waste land for $2.00 per 

 acre). I would figure it in some such way as this: 



Dr. 



10 acres of land at $2.00 per acre $20 



For plowing, at $1.50 per acre 15 



Getting in the seed, at $1.00 per acre 10 



Seed (I think I can get Japanese seed at $1.50 



or $1.00, with freight) 1V 2 bushels 12 



Cutting grain and setting up, at $1.00 per acre 10 

 Thrashing, 4 cts. per bushel, 25 bushels at 



$1.00 Id 



$77 



Cr. 



250 bushels of buckwheat at 60 $150 



77 



$73 

 That makes 73 dollars out of the operation. 1 

 figured buckwheat at 60 cts. per bushel. It sells 

 here at the mill in Danielsonville, 5 miles from my 

 place, at 65 cts., but it would cost about 5 cts. to 

 market it. I think I could raise 25 bushels per acre 

 without any fertilizer; but if I should put $50.00 

 worth of fertilizers on the 10 acres, I should get 

 enough extra buckwheat to more than get my mon- 

 ey back; but even if I get but 25 bushels per acre, 

 then it would more than pay me. i know I might 

 fail, and not get one-half the above amount, or per- 

 haps not even 5 bushels; but there is risk in all busi- 

 ness. J. L. Hvde. 

 Pomfret Landing, Conn., Dec. 13, 1888. 



