Gun 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sei't. 



tween two rows of cabbages. At the very 

 first trial he succeeded in getting a splendid 

 crop when cabbages were a failure every- 

 where else. How I have often longed and 

 wished for a spring like friend Green's! But 

 ours is a clay soil, and no sandy hills or 

 great rocks are in our vicinity to make it 

 even probable that such a spring was to be 

 found. Year after year I longed for a 

 spring ; but although 1 had carefully scanned 

 every foot of ground that we called our own 

 I could think of no way to get water from 

 that source. The matter was, however, 

 very much on my mind ; and although I 

 often thanked God for the gifts that had 

 been discovered on our ten acres of ground, 

 I had never yet quite faith enough to ask 

 him to give us a spring. I bad, however, 

 often come around to the conclusion that a 

 spring that would give even a slender 

 stream of water continuously and daily 

 would be worth more than a great reservoir 

 to hold the waters that come sometimes 

 with such superabundance. 



^A'hen I first came on our grounds I notic- 

 ed that the stream we call Champion Brook 

 occupied perhaps ten times as much ground 

 by twisting back and forth across the lot as 

 it would if made to go in a straight and nar- 

 row channel ; therefore one of my first pro- 

 jects was to cut this straight and narrow 

 channel, from the point where the stream 

 enters our lot, to a culvert under the railroad 

 where it .escapes. Now, this culvert, al- 

 though it is large enough for a two-horse 

 wagon with a big load on it to drive through, 

 at certain seasons in the year, during heavy 

 freshets it was in the habit of getting filled 

 up so the water covered several acres of my 

 low ground ; while during dry seasons like 

 the present one, Champion Brook is nothing 

 but a dry bed of stones and gravel. Just 

 now I suppose you might follow up this bed 

 a mile and not find enough water for a cow 

 to drink. So you see the great amount of 

 water that does so much damage at one 

 season affords us no relief at another. By 

 making this straight channel, however, so 

 as to shoot the water perfectly straight to- 

 ward the culvert, I found that it passed 

 through so much more rapidly that there 

 has never been a back-up since it was cut 

 through, unless it was caused by the ice ; 

 and at such times a couple of men with 

 poles can stop its damming up. even then. I 

 want to say to you right here, that if any 

 of you have similar plans of making a 

 stream go straight through your lots, don't 

 fall into the error that I did, and imagine 



that you must dig a channel wide enough 

 and deep enough to carry all the water. Let 

 Nature do the work in this way : First cut 

 a ditch, just as you do to lay tile, in a per- 

 fectly straight line, where you want the 

 channel to be. Make this ditch deep enough 

 to start the water through it, and no more ; 

 then dam up the old channel and all the low 

 places along the margin of your new water- 

 course, so as to force all tlie water that 

 passes, to go in the new channel. Now keep 

 an eye on it, and after every freshet dig out 

 and dam up and repair, and pretty soon 

 Nature will have formed the channel at a 

 comparatively small expense. Of course, 

 you are to assist Nature by deepening it 

 over hard spots of clay, or by cutting out 

 stones, until you have a regular slant from 

 where it comes on to your land to where it 

 goes out. When there is very little water 

 running, watch the ripples and you can see 

 where there is too much fall and where 

 there is too little. Get some old-country- 

 man who is skillful with spade and pick, 

 and he will fix it nicely for you. The sides 

 of the bank should be just sloping enough 

 so it will not cave in. The idea is, to have 

 them sod over eventually, and this will keep 

 your channel where you want it. If in cul- 

 tivating crops your rows run toward this 

 ditch or channel, you can make the bank 

 sloping enough so that the horses, in cul- 

 tivating, can walk down the slope and have 

 your turning - around ground along this 

 slope. This utilizes room, and such a slant 

 will not cave in, especially if you keep the 

 bottom cleared out. The sides of the ditch 

 should be something like the sides of a let- 

 ter V. Perhaps you had better have enough 

 room on the bottom to make a comfortable 

 footpath in dry weather. Well, last spring, 

 in my anxiety to save my crops from a 

 freshet, I directed Mr. Walker to clean it 

 out and make a very nice straight channel 

 for the water to run in. Along a good part 

 of the stream he went down to the rock, or 

 a sort of slate or shale. In order to get a 

 regular fall I directed him to cut into this 

 rock with a stone-mason's pick, .and he did 

 it so nicely that it became a favorite place 

 for the children to play, on this clean rocky 

 bottom. 



Some time in July it became evident that 

 a planting of celery would die unless we 

 watered it. We did not want to take the 

 water out of the carp-pond ; and as none 

 was running in the creek, we decided to 

 scoop out what we could in the low i)laces. 

 There was one spot in particular where 



