1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



(.45 



the fact that the railroad companies charge 

 high rates for carrying the grain across the 

 country I do not believe there would be a 



THE RAMBLER RAMBLING ON HIS BICYCLE. 



blade of wheat raised in the East; so there 

 is some comfort, at least, in high freight 

 charges. 



But to show you what this soil will do, 

 let me give j'ou a few figures of how alfalfa 

 will grow in this central portion of Califor- 

 nia. From eight to ten tons of it, I was 

 told, could be cut in a season to the acre; 

 and cattle will thrive better on a ton of al- 

 falfa hay than they will on an equal weight 

 of timothy. If it were not for high freight 

 rates, just imagine the farmers of the East 

 trying to raise beef in competition with the 

 West! and were it not for freight rates, and 

 the fact that Eastern consumers prefer 



Eastern honey, how would our Eastern bee- 

 keepers compete with their Western breth- 

 ren? 



But suppose the day should come — and I 

 think it will — when freight rates will be 

 lower — would it stop wheat-raising in the 

 East? Possibly. But no great calamity, I 

 imagine, would follow from this. The 

 great West can not raise many of our East- 

 ern crops. Timothy will grow only in 

 places in the West, and for the growing of 

 fine horses timothy hay is preferred, be- 

 cause alfalfa "pods " the animals too much. 

 For this reason there will always be a 

 strong demand for timothy. 



There are certain fruits in the rain belt, 

 certain grains, and certain vegetables, that 

 will not thrive westward; and the time will 

 come, I verily believe, when the West will 

 grow one kind of crops and the East an- 

 other. In those elysian days which we hope 

 for, when freights will be reduced down to 

 the point where perhaps they ought to be, 

 there will be an interchange of commodities; 

 and the farmer of the East and the ranch- 

 man of the West will both thrive, and this 

 country will grow richer, and the people 

 happier and more contented. 



RAMBLE 207. 



A Visit at Qlen E. Aloe's Bee-yard. 



BY RAMBLER. 



Thirty kilometers further on the calzada 

 we find another progressive bee-keeper in 

 the person of Glen E. Moe. This gentle- 

 man and his wife came to Cuba in the win- 

 ter of 1900, and for a greater portion of the 

 time have lived in army tents. Mrs. Moe is 

 living a sort of heroic life, like Mrs. Som- 

 erford and Mrs. Hochstein — quite thorough- 

 ly isolated from the 'society of American 

 ladies. Mr. Moe and the other bee-men 

 often have Americans of the masculine gen- 

 der call upon them; but it rarely happens 

 that an American lady finds her wa3'^ into 



FOUR MEN HARVESTING AND THRASHING 1500 BUSHELS OF WHEAT IN A DAY; HOW 'TIS 



DONE IN CALIFORNIA. 



