1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



689 



the land back to fertilitj^; and he believed 

 that iu time, when the country became 

 more populous, some sort of plant life would 

 be found that would grow, and redeem the 

 land. He mentioned in this connection the 

 fact that pear-trees would {^row on some 

 alkaline lands where nothing- else but the 

 salt-weed and sage would live. 



About this time we wei-e nearing Han- 

 ford, and coming to the region of the im- 

 mense pear-orchards — orchards having as 

 much as 120 acres of trees. It was a sight 

 I shall not soon forget — those thousands and 

 thousands of trees blighted almost to death; 

 and then to think the bees were accused of 

 bringing on all this fearful mischief! But 

 I have spoken about the pear-blight situa- 

 tion, and I will not take any space this 

 time to go into the details. We will here 

 dismiss the redoubtable Rambler and our 

 friend J. C. McCubbin. 



J. F. flory's .section-case. 



We will now jump clear past the pear- 

 blight regions, and visit our friend J. F. 

 Flory — one whose name is reasonably 

 familiar to our older readers. Mr. Priory 

 was one of the old pioneer bee-keepers who 

 came to California years ago. He made 

 his start with his bees; but now he is more 

 of a fruit-grower than bee-keeper, although 

 he still retains some interest in the bees. 

 At the time of my visit he had 50 acres of 

 fruit ; and the year before, he sold $4500 

 worth from those orchards. He took 13 tons 

 of dried apricots, 14 tons of dried peaches, 

 18 tons of raisins, and one ton of prunes, 

 or 46 tons all told. When I saw the quan- 

 tities of beautiful fruit on the trees yet to 

 be harvested I could not wonder, consider- 

 ing the uncertainty of bee-keeping in Cali- 

 fornia, that Mr. Flor}' had taken up fruit- 

 growing. 



A "tenderfoot" from the East can scarce- 

 ly conceive the immense business of grow- 

 ing and putting up dried fruits. Dried 

 apricots are delicious ; but the fresh ones 

 right from the trees in the cool of the morn- 

 ing are far better. In driving out to Mr. 

 Flory's home we passed some immense vine- 

 yards. Some of them were a mile square. 

 I attempted to photograph one of those vine- 

 yards, and I reproduce the picture here- 

 with ; but — my, oh my I one can get no con- 

 ception of the immensity of the field from a 

 miserable little photo. 



The vines are not trained in trellises as 

 with us in the East; and the culture of the 

 raisin grape is quite different from the 

 growing of ordinary grapes with us. They 

 are cultivated and handled just about as we 

 would cultivate fields of potatoes. 



The grapes, when ripe, like other fruit 

 in this portion of California, are set out in 

 wooden trays, and exposed to the direct 

 rays of the sun. So dry is the atmosphere 

 that the fruit is soon dry enough for pack- 

 ing. 



As to the possibilities of growing raisin 

 grapes, I may mention one or two extraor- 

 dinary cases that must not be taken as an 

 average. Mr. Flory drove me by one raisin 

 vineyard of three acres, that, without 07ie 

 stroke of work put on it, yielded its owner 

 that year $1000 in clear money. Another 

 vineyard, with vines only one year old, 

 made a net return of $50.00 per acre. But 

 these figures are far above the average; but 

 they illustrate the possibilities of this land 

 only a few miles, comparatively, from the 

 alkali land of which I have been speaking. 



I have said that Mr. Flory was a bee- 

 keeper. I show you his small apiary under 

 some little (?) ten-j'ear-old trees that were 

 anywhere from twenty to thirty inches in 

 diameter. These, I think, were the cotton- 

 wood, but they looked very much like a 

 species of willow. These trees will give 

 one a fair idea of how immensely produc- 

 tive this land is. 



But let me give you a "pointer" right 

 here. Do not imagine that you can pick 

 out land like this everywhere in California; 

 and do not be deluded by statements of or- 

 dinary real-estate sharks. If I were going 

 to California to "invest" I would make 

 some plan whereby I could stay a year or 

 two and study the conditions, without tr3'- 

 ing to make a "big scoop" in real estate 

 the moment of arriving, with the probabil- 

 ity of being "scooped" myself. 



Referring to Mr. Flory's bees, he has only 

 a few colonies, as you will see; cmd while 

 he is one of the pioneers, if not t/ie pio- 

 neer bee-keeper of this locality, he has sons 

 and sons-in-law who are very extensively 

 engaged in the industry. I will also show 

 in this connection one of Mr. Flory's sec- 

 tion-cases, something like our D case for 

 the production of comb honey. Its manner 

 of use will be apparent from the illustra- 

 tion. 



RAMBLE 208. 

 An Interesting Visit at Mr, Moe's ; his Large Crop. 



BV RAMBLER. 



Soon after my arrival in Cuba, in Novem- 

 ber, I made an accumulative call upon Mr. 

 Moe. I went out from Havana to Mr. Som- 

 erford's 30 kilometers, and accumulated 

 him. Then we wheeled 25 kilometers, and 

 at Artamisa accumulated the two Harrj^s 

 and Fred Munson; and five of us swept 

 down the calzada 30 kilometers more, and 



