m 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Ma\ 



Fn reply to your Letter about the smoker, I would 

 say that my friend would not let me send his name 

 lor publication, saying- he did not want it published 

 to the world that he had stopped using tobacco. I 

 do not know that it was entirely through Glean- 

 im;s that be stopped, but I have lent him numbers 

 to read, and I suppose the3 - influenced him. I did 

 not know that you required the name of the person 

 making the pledge, if he was not a subscriber. As 

 he will not let me send his name, and that is the 

 rule, I would by no means send him a smoker. He 

 iloes not deserve it, he is so cowardly. 



East Sydney, N. V. Lester Judson. 



Do not be too severe on yonr friend. Our 

 clerks, it seems, have been a little at fault. 

 Your friend need not give his name at all 

 unless he chooses (although I do think it a 

 much better way), providing somebody like 

 yourself will give his own name and go se- 

 curity for his friend. This Tobacco Column 

 seems to be pretty much all in line of w: I am 

 my brother's keeper.'" 



SPECIAL DEPARTMENT FOR A. I. ROOT, AND HIS 

 FRIENDS WHO LOVE TO RAISE CROPS. 



A1K-SLACKED LIME, APPLIED TO THE SOIL, 

 AN AN INSECTICIDE. 



|H N page 235 of our issue for March 15, 

 rj I mentioned the use of air-slacked 

 |U lime as a preventive of club-root in 

 ^* cabbages, and I also made mention of 

 its property of killing angleworms, 

 etc. I believe it has been well known to 

 gardeners, that lime-water, even a good deal 

 diluted, is sure death to angleworms in pots ; 

 and I have found that, say, ten barrels to 

 the acre will kill almost if not all of the an- 

 gleworms in very rich, highly manured 

 ground for market-gardening or for straw- 

 berries. Now, friends, I am pretty sure 

 there is something better still, right along 

 in this line. This spring our plant-beds 

 were all treated to a pretty liberal applica- 

 tion of guano and lime. They were sifted 

 on to the ground, and raked in, while the 

 mixture gave off a strong smell of ammonia. 

 Well, so far this spring we have not seen a 

 single specimen, on these beds, of the little 

 'Mumping jack, 1 ' or cabbage-beetle. It is 

 the same insect that damaged the Rural 

 New-Yorker folks in their potato experi- 

 ments ; and we have pretty good authority 

 for saying that the larva? of this same insect 

 causes the club-root in cabbages, and spoils 

 our radishes. Who has not tried to raise 

 radishes, and found them so scarred and 

 disfigured, and even eaten up with minute 

 maggots, that the crop was a failure? Well, 

 radishes raised on our plant-beds have per- 

 fectly bright, smooth leaves, with not a scar 

 from the jumping jack, and the roots cor- 

 respond exactly. There is no such pest in 

 our plant-bed grounds; but up in our 

 swamp, where we sowed some radishes in 

 the peat, the jumping jacks are just as bad 

 as they ever were, and more than half of 

 the radishes are eaten up outright. Now, 

 if air-slacked lime, put on strong enough, 

 kills the larva?, and thereby banishes the 



mature insert, why will not the lime, if used 

 strong enough, destroy all the bugs and in- 

 sects that harbor in the ground? Prof. 

 Cook will have to help me out here ; but I 

 am pretty sure that the striped melon-bug, 

 and perhaps our potato-beetles, may be 

 greatly injured if not banished by using 

 plenty of lime. I know they come out of 

 the ground, because I have seen them come 

 up under my plant-boxes. The office of the 

 lime, in liberating ammonia from any heav- 

 ily manured ground, I think will recom- 

 pense all it costs. Our plan is to spread the 

 lime with a manure-spreader, after the 

 ground is plowed and harrowed, and then 

 harrow it again, to mix up with the soil. 

 We have never seen plants injured by lime, 

 no matter how strong we put it on— that is, 

 where it is thoroughly pulverized and raked 

 into the soil to a considerable extent. I 

 want Prof. Cook, and W. J. Green, of our 

 Experiment Station, to tell me if I am not 

 at least partly right in this matter. 



SENDING OUT COMMON WEEDS As NOVEL- 

 TIBS. 



While I am exceedingly glad to notiee the 

 energy and zeal with which our seedsmen 

 bring out and have tested every thing 

 new and valuable in the vegetable world, I 

 do feel like uttering a venement protest 

 against the dissemination of weeds, espe- 

 cially where they are of little or no value. 

 1 have just now in mind the " upland water- 

 cress,"' advertised in many of our seed cat- 

 alogues. As we have not a running spring 

 suitable for water-cress, I hailed the advent 

 of an upland cress with much joy. They 

 were started in the greenhouse, and a long 

 row, put out in my best ground, only to 

 find, when they arrived at maturity, that 

 they are exactly the same thing as a weed 

 that is found all over this vicinity, and has 

 been for years. It sesms to be a sort of 

 cross between horseradish and wild mus- 

 tard. It tastes more like horseradish leaves 

 than any thing else. The leaf is rounder, more 

 like mustard. The root has no flavor like 

 the horseradish at all, and I have never 

 found anybody who cared to eat the tops at 

 any -stage, as a substitute for water-cress. 

 If you ask what seedsmen I am driving at, 

 my reply is, every seedsman who advertises 

 the upland cress. You may say that he 

 doubtless supposed it was all right. Well, 

 my friend, I do not think that any seeds- 

 man has any business to advertise any thing 

 he has not first tested on his own grounds. 

 If he has not any grounds to test things on, 

 then I should say he has no business being 

 a seedsman. 



QUESTIONS ON CARP-KAISING, ETC. 



What is the commercial value of carp, if any? 

 How many can be raised in a pond covering one 

 acre, if well cared for? Will they smother in win- 

 ter from ponds freezing? The same questions in 

 regard to catfish, if you can. 



Is Japanese buckwheat honey-producing-? 



Topeka, Kan. H. G. Lyons. 



Our new book gives you all the informa- 

 tion we have in regard to the ponds you 

 mention ; but I might answer briefly, by 



