1084 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Sept. 1 



was looking at the team I carelessly stepped in 

 one of these spots, and soiled my shoes with an 

 awful-smelling stuff that looked something like 

 tar after it has been running out in the sun. This 

 was not one of my "pleasant surprises" like the 

 other. It was a rather unpleasant surprise. I 

 called out again to Mr. Weiblv, and said: 



" Mr. W., what does this mean.' What is this 

 stuff, any way, that I have just stepped into.?" 



" Why, Mr. Root, I think it must be where 

 somebody has emptied a load of poultry manure 

 that he cleaned out of Mr. Boyden's poultry- 

 house." 



"Do you know who it was that dumped a 

 wheelbarrow load of manure all down in one spot 

 like this.'" 



" No, I do not know who did it. I suppose 

 Mr. Boyden told one of the men to clean out the 

 poultry-house, and did not tell him where to put 

 it; so he just put it over on to your meadow and 

 dumped it all in a heap, or, rather, two heaps " 



Now, friends, here is a big moral. If I am 

 correct, the trade unions undertake to pay all 

 sorts of workmen the same wages, or something 

 like it, and there are some who think that those 

 who work on z. farm should all have the same 

 pay. The man who spread the poultry-manure 

 on the corn ground, and worked it in, even if he 

 was not told so to do, should surely have better 

 pay than the other one who just tipped his wheel- 

 barrow over and spilled the strong valuable ma- 

 nure where it killed the timothy and every thing 

 else. This strong manure was greatly needed on 

 the garden, that was much nearer t' the poultry- 

 house, than the timothy-field. But if he decided 

 to put it out on the grass land, why in the world 

 did he not scatter it around, or, better still, hunt 

 up a place where the ground looked poor. 



Now, there are just such people in this world 

 who are looking for a job. I think that in both 

 cases the owners of the poultry-houses were to 

 blame for not explaining further what the man 

 should do with the scrapings from the roosts. 

 Perhaps Mr. Cal.ert did explain — I do not know. 

 Mr. Calvert and Mr. Bo) den are both exceed- 

 ingly busy men. Very often they hardly have 

 time to give directions to the man who does out- 

 door work. Come to think, that is generally my 

 job, and I ought to have looked after both of 

 these men. But suppose the owner of the poul- 

 try-house did not stop to direct what should be 

 done with the accumulations from the poultry- 

 houses that had been left altogether too long. 

 The man who carefully put itwhere it was need- 

 ed, and did good, even if he was not told, gener- 

 ally speaking would be worth twice as much as 

 the one who obeyed orders and dumped the con- 

 tents in " any old place " in order to get it out of 

 sight. 



There, I almost forgot the moral to my story. 

 I guess it will be something like this: When you 

 set a man to clean out a poultry- house, be sure 

 to tell him what to do with the contents — to 

 spread them out over the ground where compost 

 is needed and where it will do the most good. 

 And, by the way, I do not believe I would let it 

 accumulate until there is even one wheelbarrow- 

 ful. Years ago we made a manure-shed accord- 

 ing to T. B. Terry's plan; in fact, he planned it 

 out for us; but the men who have the care of our 

 team never liked it, and said it was in their way; 



it got hot, and burned in spite of all the water 

 they put on it; and so they have, for some years 

 past, wheeled it out under an apple-tree. Just 

 lately I succeeded in getting them to take it from 

 the stables direct to the manure-spreader. When 

 it gets full it is hauled out on the meadows. 

 Now, the Ohio Farmer has recently had an article 

 wherein the writer said manure taken right from 

 the stables and put on to the fields with a spreader 

 is worth six times as much as it is where piled out- 

 doors and allowed to be leached by the rains un- 

 til it rots. It seems that six times must be an 

 exaggeration, but it may not be, after all. It is 

 certainly a great saving of labor to take manure 

 right from the stables to the manure-spreader, 

 all under cover. Now, I am satisfied that there 

 will be a great gain in handling poultry manure 

 in something the same way. Perhaps a small 

 manure-spreader, made for this purpose for es- 

 tablishments where poultry is kept by the hun- 

 dreds, might be a paying investment. In Florida 

 our poultry roosts up in the pine-trees; but even 

 then the manure should be carefully scraped up, 

 say before each heavy rain, or as near to it as you 

 can manage it. If you do not do it, it will kill 

 the tree and spoil the ground in time for any sort 

 of vegetation. Mr. Weibly, whom I have before 

 quoted, assures me he has known of apple-trees 

 being killed outright, and others nearly killed by 

 having a poultry-house under the tree year after 

 year. I suppose it works in the same way that 

 those wheelbarrow loads did that killed out the 

 timothy where they were dumped. 



A NEW KIND OF WHE.'^T THAT BEARS HEADS OF 



GRAIN AS LARGE AS EARS OF CORN, OR 



SOMETHING LIKE IT. 



1 was astonished (and pained) to find the fol- 

 lowing, given in the reading-columns of the 

 Manatee River Journal, Florida. I clipped it 

 out and sent it to our Ohio Experiment Station. 



MIRACLE WHEAT; NEW VARIETY PRODUCED YIELDING 277 

 BUSHELS OF GR.^IN TO THE .\CRE. 



Wheat with stalks like sugar cane and yielding 277 bushels of 

 highly nutritious kernels to the acre has been produced as a result 

 of experiments made in Idaho by Allen Adams, of Minneapolis. 



The new wheat has been named "Alaska" because of its har- 

 diness. It is either spring or winter wheat, just as the farmer 

 desires to sow. It is so sturdy that storms that ruin other stock 

 affect its giant stems but little, and the heads remain upright 

 through ordinary hailstorms. 



The yield shows that Adams has been able ta obtain an in 

 crease of 222 fold. One head of the giant wheat was planted in 

 the fall of 1904. The seeds from that head were planted the 

 next year, and seven pounds of seeds obtained. This was sown 

 in the spring of 1906, and from the seven pounds were harvested 

 1554 pounds that fall. In the fall of the same year he sowed it 

 as winter wheat, but conditions were adverse. .Almost all the 

 "blue stem" and "club" were destroyed, and only a third of the 

 crop of experimental wheat came to maturity, yet there was a 

 yield of 50,000 pounds. A heavy hailstorm in July was the 

 cause of the ruined wheat crop, which left scarcely any of the 

 ordinary wheat standing. 



Further experiments brought forth a yield of 277 bushels to an 

 acre. The Idaho College of Agriculture has made a laboratory 

 test of the wheat and reports the grain plump and sound, and thai 

 it should make better bread than does the ordinary wheat. — Beloir 

 Free PrfSi. 



Here is what Professor Williams says in re- 

 gard to it: 



Dear Sir; — Prof. Green's secretary hands me your letter of the 

 11th inst. regarding the Miracle wheat, otherwise known as Alas- 

 ka. We have received a number of inquiries within the last 

 week or two regarding this wonder; but our knowledge of it dates 

 back no further. On the face of it, it is, of course, a fraud of the 

 rankest kind. Wheats that do well west of the Mississippi have 

 never given satisfaction here; but it is open to doubt, of course, 

 whether the Alaska gives satisfaction anywhere. I shall make 



