392 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



purely agricultural periodical would not 

 sell the space for such a purpose at afiy 

 price. I hope our religious papers will 

 read the above letter. The writer has asked 

 us to withhold his name in print, but we 

 can furnish it whenever it is wanted. 



FARMING WITH GREEN MANURES. 



More and more attention is being paid to 

 this matter, especially since farm labor is 

 so high, and it is so difficult to get skillful 

 help at any thing like a moderate price. 

 Green manures are right on the land where 

 you want them. All that is necessary is to 

 plow them under. Then comes the problem 

 of getting as much humus as possible to 

 plow under the soil at once. The book I 

 have so often spoken of, " Farming with 

 Green Manures," gives several plans for 

 getting two or more crops to plow under 

 with only one plowing. From the Country 

 Gmtlcman for March 27 I clip the follow- 

 ing: 



Before July I cut a piece of hay land, then plow 

 down the sod or stubble ; then sow two bushels of cow 

 peas to the acre right on the furrows ; then put on a 

 disk harrow or a Clark's oitaway until I have a good 

 seed-bed for buckwheat ; then sow one bushel of buck- 

 wheat per acre ; harrow and roll ; then wait. The 

 buckwheat will make headway above the cow peas, 

 and, when in bloom, make one wonder where the cow- 

 peas are. Buckwheat ripens and comparatively disap- 

 pears. Now the cow peas a.sscrt thsmselves, and one 

 soon wonders where the buckwheat is. 



About the middle of .September I sow right over the 

 to/y of the cow peas two bushels of rj-e per acre. . The 

 shade and retained moisture of the cow peas cause the 

 rve to soon germinate, and with the first frost the cow 

 peas are killed. Now comes the time for the rye to 

 assert itself, which it does so well that, before winter 

 comes, there is a fine stand of rj'e, which is again pro- 

 ttcled during winter by the dead cow-pea vines. 



By corn-planting time next May I have a fine growtli 

 of rye, waist high. I now attach a heavy chain to the 

 beam of the plow and outer whifBetree and wrap un- 

 der the whole mass of vegetation completely out of 

 sight. If j'ou thinkit is easy fun, trj- it. It sometimes 

 gets to be such tough fun that I have to put on the cut- 

 away harrow and cut all up before plowing under 

 It has not interfered with capillary attraction. I now 

 plant my corn. 



With the above arrangement we get three 

 crops to plow under with only one plowing, 

 and would thus lose the use of the land 

 onl}'^ from, say, July 1 till corn-planting 

 time next season. I have not tried the ex- 

 periment, but I have grown cow peas, buck- 

 wheat, and rye all separatelj', to be plowed 

 under. I know from experience that the 

 buckwheat will outstrip the cow peas; and I 

 am pretty sure the cow peas will finally out- 

 strip the btickwheat; and I think I know, 

 too, that rye would come up and do grandly 

 if sown right in among cow peas and buck- 

 wheat ; but instead of planting corn the 

 next May I would plant potatoes. A good 

 growth of rj^e is the nicest preparation for 

 a crop of potatoes I know of. The only 

 thing that troubles me is that the buck- 

 wheat seed might come up among the pota- 



toes, and that would make as mtich work 

 as to cut out weeds. A faithful use of the 

 weeder might kill the buckwheat and not 

 injure the potatoes. I can tell best about 

 that by trying. I have seen buckwheat 

 come up in potato-hills so it had to be pull- 

 ed out by hand; btit I think it was because 

 the spring was so late we could not use the 

 weeder as we should have done otherwise. 

 The above arrangement would be the one 

 for the bee-keeper, becatise he would get a 

 full crop of honey from the buckwheat; and, 

 with a favorable season, quite a little from 

 the cow peas also. The best way to get 

 this tremendous growth of rye under is to 

 have a plow with a sharp revolving-disk 

 coulter to slice right through the rye so it 

 can not clog around the beam of the plow. 

 We used such a one last season. 



NITRATE OF SODA; CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS, 

 ETC. 



Mr. A. I. Root : — I have been reading 3'our book on 

 tomato-growing, and I see on p. 97 that your experi- 

 ence with nitrate of soda about coincides with mine. 

 How is it that men like T Greiner, Harris, and other 

 shining lights, recommend it ? In fact. I have not been 

 able to detect any diffei ence with any commercial fer- 

 tilizer as j-et, but have never tried guano. Now, Mr. 

 Root, please recommend to me some brand that you 

 know will be the best for extra early cabbage and early- 

 tomatoes ; also other very early truck. My soil is 

 sandy loam and clay loam'; also some black loam with 

 mostl3' clay sub-soil. I use a small greenhouse to 

 start my early plants. As for potash, I can get all the 

 wood ashes gratis ; but the little lot I have just pur- 

 chased is not very rich ; but I want to do the best I can 

 with earl J' truck this coming season ; and if I only 

 kncTF just what kind of fertilizer to use I would try 

 some. Any information you will impart will be thank- 

 fully received and duly appreciated. 



What book on gardening would you recommend f ir 

 me — one that is the most up-to-date? I have Hender- 

 son's Gardening for Profit, and Greiner's How to 

 Make the Garden Paj'. 



Of course, I know good stable manure is the best 

 thing ; but I will not be able to obtain enough for this 

 .season's crop at present, and will have to resort to the 

 next best fertilizer. A. S. Kittredge. 



Hamilton, Ind. 



Friend K., I have never been able as yet 

 to find any chemical fertilizer that did 

 enough good to warrant the expense — in 

 fact, I have hardly found any thing that 

 did any good at all. Stable manure is all 

 right, and pays every time. Guano is like 

 stable manure, only it is very much more 

 concentrated. It always produces a result, 

 btit it is too expensive to be even thought of. 

 I have used up a 200-lb. bag of nitrate of 

 soda, and have never jet been able to see 

 that it did any good anywhere — that is, on 

 my own ground. Poultry manure is all 

 right, and my neighbor Hilbert has bought 

 a 200-egg incubator, and is planning to fer- 

 tilize his peach-trees with poultry manure. 

 Of course, he expects the poultrj' to pay ex- 

 penses aside from the manure they furnish. 

 Hard-wood ashes have also, as a rule, prov- 

 ed beneficial on all kinds of crops. Where 

 we burn up a big stump or a log-heap, 

 there is always a marked improvement 

 with any crop on that spot of ground. In 

 conclusion, I believe our best authorities in 

 almost all of our agricultural papers tell 

 all questioners that one can not tell what 

 will succeed in a certain soil without mak- 



