OCTOBER 15, 1913 



Stray Stra^vs 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



R. F. HoLTEKMANN^ you woiider, p. 651, 

 why the capacity of smokers for fuel is not 

 iiieater. so as to save more time. The an- 

 swer to that is easy, friend H. It's because 

 we're not all great big fellows like you, with 

 strength to burn. I'd rather waste time to 

 load up two or three more times in a day 

 than to waste a good deal more in the way 

 of strength by lugging around too heavy a 

 smoker. The cliief objection to the average 

 smoker " in this locality " is that it wastes 

 strength by having the spring unnecessarily 

 stitf. We'll let you get big smokers to save 

 your time, if you'll let us save our strength. 



That talk, p. 660, about selecting the 

 right seed to improve the corn crop, thus 

 adding thousands to the general wealth, is 

 caijital. And it forms a fine text for the 

 improvement of bees. If every beekeeper 

 in the land would take as much pains in 

 selecting the right stock to breed his bees 

 from as A. I. Root advises about corn, it 

 might easily increase the total of honey 25 

 per cent, and that without increasing tlie 

 labor of beekeepers. I think it would be a 

 gain to beekeepers, and I know it would be 

 a gain to the consuming public. And there's 

 another thing I know, and it's this : That so 

 long as the great mass of beekeepers are 

 so listless about it, the few who do make a 

 business of improving stock will gain by it 



A Roadside Weed of Worth is the cap- 

 tion of an item in The Country Gentleman, 

 in which the editor says : " Farmers are 

 learning that fields too dry, too stony, too 

 hard to groAv any thing else, will become 

 green and valuable with sweet clover; and 

 they are learning that stock relish it as 

 much as alfalfa. [Yes, and the farmers of 

 the semi-arid West, in parts of Kansas and 

 Nebraska, are discovering that their up- 

 lands that are too hard and too di-y to grow 

 alfalfa will grow sweet clover luxuriantly. 

 Pigs and other kinds of stock are now being 

 well fed on these same kinds of waste lands. 

 The time is coming when the Eastern farm- 

 er as well as the Western rancher will grow 

 sweet clover on certain of his lands as he 

 now does corn, grass, and other clovers on 

 good land. — Ed.] 



Raising hives on yg-in^li blocks is a help 

 toward the prevention of swarming, but in 

 this locality it is by no means so effective 

 as described on page 593. I practiced it on 

 a large scale years ago, but had to cut cells 

 all the same, and at that had a good deal 

 more than three per cent of swarms. [Lo- 

 cality may make a difference. Mr. Vernon 



Burt is a \ery successful beekeeper, and 

 conservative in his statements. We are 

 sure the plan works with him. Possibly the 

 strain of bees may have something to do 

 with it. While you have been breeding to- 

 ward non-swarmers, Mr. Burt has given his 

 attention largely to honey-producers. We 

 shall be glad to get reports from others in 

 regard to the success or failure of this 

 scheme of putting hives up on four blocks. 

 Almost any plan will work successfully 

 during a poor season; but Avhen honey 

 comes in with a rush, preceded by a gentle 

 flow, just enough to start brood-rearing at 

 a good i^ace, it is not always easy to control 

 swarming by orthodox methods. — Ed.] 



" There is absolutely no harm in saying 

 in one's advertisement, ' I have the finest 

 queens ever produced.' Such a statement is 

 a general one, and can be accepted as such 

 when summing up," p. 607. But if the ad- 

 vertisement reads, " My bees are all free 

 from foul brood," then the advertising 

 manager must dem.and proof. Wouldn't that 

 make it a little hard for both the manager 

 and the advertiser? But saying nothing 

 about that, the whole tenor of the thing 

 sounds a good deal like saying, " There is 

 absolutely no harm in lying in general, but 

 you must he careful about lying in partic- 

 ular." If two different advertisers say, " I 

 have the finest queens ever produced," one 

 or the other must be lying. Indeed, I can 

 not conceive how any one can truthfully 

 say, " I have the finest queens ever pro- 

 duced " unless he has actual knowledge of 

 all queens ever produced, and who has that 

 knowledge? The fact is, and it is a lament- 

 able fact, that one does not expect the exact 

 truth in advertisements. A lie is a lie, wheth- 

 er general or particular, in an advertise- 

 ment as well as elsewhere. It is gratifying 

 to know that at a late meeting of the 

 national association of advertising men, 

 " Truth " was adopted as their motto. Let's 

 have the truth, both in particular and in 

 general. [We sometimes say a horse goes 

 by "like lightning;" and the same kind of 

 hyperbole seems to have crept into muil; 

 of present-day advertising; but the time 

 has come now when an exact and honest 

 statement without exaggeration will bring- 

 in larger returns of money than boastful 

 advertising that tries to make the buying 

 public believe what it knows is not true. — 

 Ed.] 



Frank A. Gray asks how to pack a sec- 

 tion or more of honey for parcel post. 

 Doubtful if comb honey can yet be sent by 



