1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



21 



Special Notices by A. I. Root. 



RADIUM STILL RADIATES. 



I can not see that the ray.s of this are any less bril- 

 liant or any fewer in number. They just shoot blaz- 

 inely out into space, and keep it up everlastinsily. 



THE SELF-WINDING CLOCK. 



The three little dry batteries that cost only 45 cents 

 are still keepintr that pendulum swintrintr. This is not 

 only a tribute to the manufacturers of the clock but to 

 the firm that makes the dry battery. Just think of 

 lockintr up in that little cell a force that keeps steadily 

 pushintr for more than a year and three-quarters! The 

 clock is made by the National Self-windintr Clock Co., 

 Champaitrn, 111.; the batteries, by the Nurs^'ersen Elec- 

 tric Battery Co., Cleveland, Ohio. 



PARCELS POST AND EXPRESS COMPANIES. 



A man in our neierhborhood wanted to send a rooster 

 to an adjoining town; but the express company de- 

 manded more for carryintr the rooster than the rail- 

 road company wanted for a ticket, so the man could 

 have saved money by takintrthe rooster under his arm 

 and srettintr on the train. Of course he would have lost 

 his time, and would have had to pay his passage back. 

 While I was sick with the fever I wanted a quart of 

 strawberries from Cleveland, 30 miles away. Now, 

 while we have Electric, American, and United States 

 Express here, none of them would bring me a quart of 

 berries for less than 30 cents— more than the berries 

 were worth. 



BI'LLETIN 353. 

 This is a 32-page pamphlet treating on a variety of 

 subjects. I was especially interested in the leading ar- 

 ticle on impurities and pernicious weeds found in clo- 

 ver seed in the market; also " Hens v. Incubators;" 

 "Preservation of Eggs;" "A Cheap and Efficient Ice- 

 box;" "Growing Potatoes under Straw," etc. While 

 the experiments seem to indicate that so far our incu- 

 bators are not equal to a sitting hen, I think the time 

 is fast coming when we shall have, if we have not al- 

 ready, incubators that do the work so nearly equal to 

 that of a sitting hen that we may say there is no practi- 

 cal difference. The above bulletin is, if I am correct, 

 mailed free on application to the Department of Agri- 

 culture. 



SWEET CLOVER; CAN IT BE SOWN AMONG CORN WHEN 

 CULTIVATING THE LAST TIME? 



A subscriber asks this question, but I can not answer 

 it. Unless the shade of the corn would be detrimental 

 I think it will succeed. Can somebody tell us about it? 

 I have seen other clovers put in in this way, especially 

 the crimson clover, very successfully; but whether 

 sweet clover would thrive under the same treatment is 

 more than I can tell. Neither do I know whether the 

 seed should be sown before cultivating or lin the soft 

 loose soil* just after cultivating is over. I have seen 

 it make a beautiful growth, when the seeds were sown 

 about the same time of the year, when it had all the 

 ground by itself. It is a plant that stands the frost 

 fairly well, as its roots go straight down, and with 

 favorable weather would make a good growth during 

 the fall. 



THE NEW MAP OF THE UNITED STATES. 



If you do not take the American Issue, by all means 

 send for the anniversary number, Chicago, 111., 162 

 East Ohio St., for in it you will find a map of the Unit- 

 ed States that tells a big story at a glance. The map is 

 nearly all white with the exception of five States- 

 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Mexico, Utah, and Ne- 

 vada. These are printed in black, indicating they are 

 under license. The rest of the States are either under 

 local option, county legislation, or, better still, entire- 

 ly dr>-. May God be praised that the United States is 

 so rapidly whitening out under prohibition. Nine 

 States are now entirely dry— Maine, Kentucky, North 

 Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, 

 Oklahoma, and North Dakota. Florida, our southern 

 home, is almost white, and the prospect ahead is for 

 making it entirely white like so many of the other 

 southern States. 



This anniversary number gives a history of the An- 

 ti-saloon League from its origin up to the present time. 



ANLMATED EGGS— A GREAT DISCOVERY. 



While Huber and I were watching the movements of 

 chickens inside of the egg see p. 384 1 he declared that, 

 in his opinion, the chicken not only had power to move 

 around in the egg. and. in fact, go over to the opposite 



side when the egg was up against some object that was 

 too warm, but he said it seemed to him also that the 

 chicken had power to turn a somersault. This move- 

 ment is particularly perceptible about the middle week 

 of incubation. Finally I took an egg with my new egg- 

 tester, sat down in an easy-chair, and turned the egg 

 up toward the sun and witnessed the chicken taking 

 exercise, even while inside of the egg. Well, while 

 we were commenting on this, Mr. R. R. Root communi- 

 cated to us something that is (at least to me), a won- 

 derful discovery. Take an egg from under a sitting 

 hen or from an incubator, say some time during the 

 last week of the hatch, and lay it on a ground-plate 

 glass — a fine quality of looking-glass or hand mirror 

 will answer nicely. Level up your glass so the egg 

 will lie on it without rolling. Now, if this is a fertile 

 egg, and contains a living chick, after a little interval 

 the egg will twitch about and sometimes roll around on 

 the smooth surface of the glass. This, in fact, might 

 be one method of telling a live egg from a dead one, but 

 you must remember that the chick in the egg has peri- 

 ods of sleeping as well as it does out of the egg, hence 

 you may have to wait some little time to see the move- 

 ments I have described. As soon as I can manage it I 

 want to see forty or fifty eggs spread out on some 

 smooth ground surface where the temperature can be 

 kept up to about 103 degrees. What a sight this would 

 be for some poultry show— a lot of eggs, say under a 

 glass case, with more or less of them wiggling about 

 and rolling over. Now, so far as I know, Mr. Root is 

 the original discoverer of this wonderful phenomenon. 

 If any of our readers can point out where this has ever 

 before been described in print, I should be glad to see 

 it. Gleanings claims to be the first magazine to ex- 

 ploit the great invention of the Wright Brothers; and 

 if no one comes forward to prove the contrary we shall 

 claim it is ahead of all other poultry books or poultry 

 journals in announcing that not only the chickens, 

 but the eggs themselves, may show " animation " before 

 the chick gets out into the world. 



THE LAND OF FRUIT AND FLOWERS. 



The above is what the Pere Marquette Railroad has 

 to say of Northern Michigan. See their advertisement 

 on page 24, April 1. About a year ago I told you about 

 their wonderful cherries up in Leelanaw Co. and Trav- 

 erse City, Michigan — not only wonderful in size and 

 beauty, but wonderful in quality and quantity ; in 

 fact, I never before saw any cherries like them, and I 

 very much doubt if there are any better cherries in the 

 world. But what made me think of those cherries just 

 now is a statement in a pamphlet sent out by the Pere 

 Marquette in regard to the cherry industry of that re- 

 gion. I knew cherries were going to Chicago, carload 

 after carload, but I did not have an opportunity then 

 to get hold of any figures. Well, what do you think of 

 this? 



" James W. Markham received 12154.60 for the cher- 

 ries that grew on five acres. Guy Tompkins, of Grand 

 Traverse Co., has two cherry orchards. From one of 

 them, containing two acres, he received $2118.80. From 

 another orchard, containing seven acres, he received 

 84625. These statements were sworn to before a nota- 

 ry public. If vou want further particulars address W. 

 C. Tousey, 423 Madison St., Toledo, Ohio." 



Just a word more about the fruit in that region. I 

 think the finest apples are grown there to be found 

 anywhere; and, better still, they often get full crops 

 there when we have very few around here further 

 south. While in Cleveland a few days ago I tried to 

 find a few nice apples. They wanted 40 cts. for ha|f a 

 peck, and the apples were small and not at all nice- 

 looking, even at that high price. I saw a few fine- 

 looking apples on a fruit-stand, but those were five 

 cents apiece. Now, what is the reason we can not have 

 decent apples the year round, and at reasonable prices 

 too? Apples are my medicine; and if I could not get 

 any otherwise I would pay a nickel apiece for them; 

 but last fall beautiful apples were allowed to go to 

 waste because people said there was no market for 

 them at any price that would pay for the barrel and 

 picking. What is the matter with the cold-storage 

 people? Can they not afford to buy up apples when 

 they are only 40 cts. a bushel, and keep them over un- 

 til April and May, when they sell for 40 cts. per half- 

 peck? Yes, we have a few that were picked in our or- 

 chard, and kept in the cellar in fair condition until the 

 middle of May. Then I had to go out in the market 

 and buy some. But when you get right down to it, 

 you do not often find apples grown here in Ohio equal 

 to the beautiful, perfect, luscious apples grown up in 

 Northern Michigan. I hardly need remind you that 

 our railroads make a low rate to the summer resorts in 

 Northern Michigan all summer long. 



