954 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



loads of luscious fruit. And that was not all. 

 The berries had been dead ripe, evidently, for 

 some little time, and the fruit had dropped on 

 the ground and almost covered it. One of the 

 trees bore berries of a jet-black color, not as large 

 as the ones we have in Florida, by considerable, 

 but I do not know but they were just as delicious. 

 The other tree, the weeping mulberry, was a sur- 

 prise. The fruit was of three different colors — 

 black, pink, and white; and the berries of all 

 these colors seemed equally ripe and delicious. 

 Why, I would not take ten dollars apiece for 

 those two mulberry-trees, and yet I had been 

 cherishing unkind thoughts all these years toward 

 the man who sold them to me. 



Of course, the boys made haste to appropriate 

 their share of the fruit, even if they had just had 

 a treat on strawberries. I think, while I am 

 about it, I will finish up what I have to say about 

 the fruit of that region right here. 



The next day we walked over through the 

 woods to a neighbor's house, that of Mr. Wer- 

 ner, a good farmer. He always has good crops 

 of every thing, no matter what the weather is. 

 On the side-hill close to his house were some o^ 

 the finest-looking cherry-trees I ever saw in my 

 life; and when we passed there the trees were lit- 

 erally black and red and yellow with their loads 

 of the choicest and most luscious cherries I ever 

 saw. The foliage on the trees was of a bright 

 rich green that indicated perfect health. I went 

 up to the house and asked permission for myself 

 and boys to sample the cherries — offering, of 

 course, to pay for them. The good lady said 

 we were quite welcome to all we wished to eat. 



I wish to stop right here to say that Mr. A. L. 

 Hatch, away up in the northern part of Wiscon- 

 sin, told me three years ago something 2bout 

 growing fruit. He said that wherever one can 

 get plenty of healthy foliage he will get nice 

 fruit sooner or later. 



As I began to wonder at the great luxuriance 

 of those cherries I looked at the ground beneath. 

 It was a rich sandy loam. It probably had been 

 improved by turning under clover or stable ma- 

 nure, or perhaps both. The boys all agreed 

 with me that they had never tasted any cherries 

 equal to those. As the trees were small, corn 

 was planted between the trees, but not very close 

 to the trees ; and that corn, even away up there 

 in the north, was about equal to any we have in 

 Ohio at the same time. Of course, every thing 

 is much earlier here in Ohio than there. 



Perhaps I should explain that this visit was 

 made just after we had eaten so many mulber- 

 ries and strawberries. Later on we visited Mr. 

 James Hilbert's cherry-orchard, containing over 

 400 trees. Before we got in sight we heard the 

 laughter and voices of the pickers, for most of 

 them were girls and women. About thirty were 

 at work. While the cherry-trees did not all 

 show the careful and thrifty appearance of those 

 of Mr. Werner, the crops were literally wonder- 

 ful. Owing to the recent heavy rains the fruit 

 on some of the trees had become overripe ; and 

 Mrs. Hilbert pointed out a tree of Black T'lrta- 

 rians that she said they would not pick because 

 a large part of the fruit was too ripe to bear 

 shipping. She told the boys and myself that we 

 were welcome to all we cared to eat or carry 

 away from that tree. \^'ell, now, I specially en- 



joy fruit that most people consider too ripe. It 

 agrees with my digestion better. As we were 

 two and a half miles from home (through the 

 woods and over the hills) I told the boys I 

 thought they could eat just as many of those 

 fully ripe cherries as they chose, without endan- 

 gering their health. I know I ate a tremendous 

 lot of them, but not one of us four experienced 

 any bad effect from them whatever. I was anx- 

 ious to see if those young growing boys could 

 bear a great quantity of ripe fruit just as I do 

 when tramping through the woods over hills. 



After we had satisfied ourselves with Black 

 Tartarian cherries Mrs. Hilbert told us we must 

 be sure to look through another cherry-orchard 

 over the hill. Oh dear me! I do wish the read- 

 ers of Gleanings could get a glimpse of that 

 cherry-orchard. My good friend Hilbert had 

 ordered all sorts of cherries in order to test them 

 in his locality, and so there were black and 

 white, yellow and red cherries, big cherries, 

 mottled cherries, and cherries of every descrip- 

 tion; and as we went from one tree to another 

 and tested one and then another, we were tempt- 

 ed to say every time that the last was the best. 

 If you like a cherry that is rather tart, I would 

 recommend the one they call the Dyehouse, es- 

 pecially as it is found in the Grand Traverse re- 

 gion. I bought six Dyehouse cherry-trees some 

 years ago and planted them here in iVIedina; but 

 we decided 1iere they were rather inferior ; and 

 this emphasizes the importance of growing any 

 kind of fruit in a locality where it thrives the 

 best. The Grand Traverse region of Northern 

 Michigan is emphatically the place for strawber- 

 ries, currants, cherries, peaches, and (I think we 

 can add) apples. Last year they had an enor- 

 mous crop, but there was almost none through- 

 out the rest of the United States, and they are 

 expecting to have another pretty fair crop this 

 year. Everybody grows strawberries in that re- 

 gion, especially of late ; and carloads and car- 

 loads of strawberries, cherries, and other fruit are 

 constantly being rushed to Chicago and other 

 great cities. 



Just now they are also having a wonderful 

 crop of huckleberries. These latter grow wild, 

 without any care or attention whatever; and the 

 yield is so great that wagonloads of people come 

 from miles around and camp out to gather huckle- 

 berries. Some of our neighbors near the cabin 

 drove fifteen or twenty miles and brought home 

 loads of berries. Carload after carload of huckle- 

 berries are now being shipped from various parts 

 of Northern Michigan to the great cities; yet. so 

 far as I can learn, no attempt whatever has been 

 made to cultivate this luscious fruit. Indeed, I 

 believe the greater part of it grows on land that is 

 considered of no value otherwise, or at least is 

 uncared for by anybody. 



Now that we have finished the fruit I wish to 

 say something about the " crop of boys " growing 

 up in our country. The two younger boys of 

 our crowd had never before been away from home. 

 I do not know that they had ever been away 

 from their parents over night. About the second 

 day while we were busy at dinner (I think I shall 

 have to digress enough to say that we had black 

 bass for dinner, besides all the fruit I have men- 

 tioned) one of the boys stopped eating suddenly. 

 I began to fear he was sick, and was going to 



