604 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURB 



chickens, which, perhaps, would be the best 

 way. I suppose these boy corn-gTowers 

 have been all over the above, and are prob- 

 ably better posted than I am. 



There is one more point that might be 

 considered right here. One of our experi- 

 ment stations, by means of a suitable sieve, 

 or by hand sorting, picked out the largest 

 seed corn, wheat, beans, and a whole lot of 

 other things. They tested the large seed 

 side by side with the small or inferior seed. 

 If 1 recall correctly, the big seed by the 

 same treatment gave almost double the 

 crop. I think there were some exceptions 

 to this result ; but the decision was strongly 

 in favor of using the very best seed obtain- 

 able whatever you undertake to grow ; for 

 '•' whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 

 also reap." 



FETERITA AS CHICKEN PEED. 



Since the article on page 558 was printed 

 I have received pictures of my feterita in 

 Florida. One of them shows the feterita 

 liigher than a man's head, and yet the seed 

 had been planted only about 45 days; and 

 I think that in 60 days, with good warm 

 weather, especially with good warm weather 

 nt the start, you can have grain lit to feed 

 to the chickens; and if you have a hot dry 

 time the feterita will not mind it very much. 

 The other non-saccharine sorghum (kao- 

 liang) may do better still, but the seed is 

 much smaller. It is now making a tremen- 

 dous growth here in our Medina soil. From 

 the above you will see there is plenty of 

 time now to sow or plant either of the above 

 and get a crop of grain before the frost 

 will hurt it. Feterita seed is advertised in 

 our various catalogs. If you want just a 

 few grains for experiment I will send you 

 some of either, free of charge. 



SQUASH-BUGS — ESPECIALLY THE YELLOW 

 STRIPED VARIETY. 



This year, as well as last, we have had a 

 regular pitched battle for the last two weeks 

 in ti-ying to save our melon and squash 

 plants. Just as it was last year, the first I 

 saw them was on Sunday morning. They 

 came in a swarm, and would have had my 

 nice thrifty vines, just coming out of the 

 ground, chewed up before night. I went 

 and got my wire-cloth baskets, such as I 

 used last year, and pushed the edges of 

 them down into the gi'ound, and made every- 

 thing tight, as I supposed. But the bugs 

 were either hidden down in the dirt, near 

 the roots of the plants, or they hatched out 

 in the ground. Perhaps some of our read- 

 ers can tell me if the latter is possible. As 

 I did not have baskets enough to cover them 

 all, I ti'ied moth-balls, which seemed to suc- 



ceed so well last year. But this time they 

 ]iaid but little or no attention to them. 

 After the vines — especially the squash-vines 

 — got so large they were cramped and 

 crowded in the wire baskets, I was obliged 

 to take them off, and then I commenced 

 picking by hand. The bugs fly so quickly 

 that it is a pretty hard matter for an old 

 man to catch them before they are gone. 

 But I crushed them up between my thumb 

 and fingers, and dropped their mutilated 

 bodies among the plants, hoping the rest 

 would take warning.* Finally I read in 

 one of the seed catalogs that tobacco dust 

 would do the business. At first it seemed 

 to keep them away; but they soon became 

 used to the tobacco, and I was afraid the 

 tobacco dust would eventually cost almost 

 as much as my melons and squashes would 

 amount to. 



AVell, my plants were finally so badly 

 mutilated that I decided they would never 

 amount to much unless they had some extra 

 care and manure. So I procured some old 

 black rotten stable manure containing quite 

 a little cow manure. I scraped away the 

 dirt from the plants so as to get down near 

 the roots; and, even if my compost was 

 rather bad-smelling, I spread it around all 

 ray plants, then covered the manure with 

 nice mellow soil in order to prevent evapo- 

 ration. What do you think? There was no 

 more trouble from the bugs; but in going 

 over my twenty or thirty hills, by mistake I 

 missed one. Next daj^ there was not a bug 

 on any of the plants where I had placed the 

 manure; but on the one plant that was 

 skipped by accident it was almost literally 

 alive with them. 1 think somebody said a 

 while ago, thr-ough Gleanings, that old rot- 

 ten cow manure (or it may be fresh ma- 

 nure) would keep off the bugs; but I had 

 forgotten it. After I had got it all done, 

 Mrs. Root suggested that if I had put a 

 fair-sized shovelful of it into each hill, well 

 mixed with the soil before I planted the 

 seeds, i:)erhaps I should not have had any 

 two-weeks' fight on my hands. Summing it 

 all up, my experience is that these bugs are 

 repelled by any strong odor or perfume. 



* By the way, when you do not have very many 

 plants, hand picking is perhaps the surest and 

 simplest method. When the bugs are at their worst 

 it may be necessary to get around and pick them off 

 the plants every two or three hours; and if this is 

 followed up faithfully they will soon give up the job. 

 When they get the impression that the owner is go- 

 ing to get around about once in so often they will 

 soon decide that it is unhealthy business and move 

 off into some other garden. Some of you may recall 

 that in our potato-book Terry insists that hand pick- 

 ing is the cheapest and simplest way to get rid of 

 the Colorado potato-bettle, and that is just what I 

 am doing now. I caught the mother-bugs when they 

 first made their appearance, and it was not a big 

 (a.'-k either. I do not like poisons of any kind if 

 we can manage to get along without them. 



