Jan. 1. 1912 



ago, I realized the imi)ortance of this very 

 thing; and under no circumstances was a 

 single number allowed to go to press before 

 I myself had carefully scanned every page 

 and every line. I sat uj) nights and got up 

 early in the morning; and when I was oblig- 

 ed to leave home, i)roofs were mailed me, 

 and a boy often rushed over to the cars just 

 as 1 was getting on, to give me a i)roof-sheet 

 which I corrected on the train and mailed 

 back. The reason why ( Ileanings was a 

 success from the very start, and kei)t in- 

 creasing and spreading every year for almost 

 forty years, is just because we have taken 

 such scrupulous pains to have it clean, cor- 

 rect, and reliable; and I am glad to add that 

 l^erhaps no other one has stood by me and 

 helped me in this work as has my good 

 friend W. P, Root, who is now taking down 

 these words stenographically. He has been 

 my right-hand man in this effort to have 

 our journal fully up to the standard of our 

 first-class magazines for over thirty years. 

 Just a few days ago I laughingly told some 

 of our friends in the printing-office that I 

 had for the first time in my life found our 

 old friend at fault in spelling; but a more 

 careful investigation showed that he was 

 not entirely at fault after all, as the mistake 

 was in the choice of a wrong word. 



And now I wish to say again to the edi- 

 tors of the poultry-journals, this one thing I 

 have been talking about may turn the scale 

 between success and failure. If you expect 

 your respective journals to win a place among 

 the journals of our land you must have them 

 clean and readable. I know it takes good, 

 earnest, faithful work, early and late; but 

 that is the price of success, and the only 

 price. 



By the way, with the present enthusiasm 

 for poultry a new poultry-journal starts 

 about every month;* but I am sorry to add 

 that a poultry-journal dies about that often. 

 So far as I know, there is not a single poul- 

 try-journal published at the present time in 

 the whole State of Florida, with all its pos- 

 sibilities. «')ne was started a few years ago, 

 but it failed. ])rincipally, I think, for the 

 very reason I have mentioned. 



I am pleased to add, in closing, that our 

 foreign journals are beautiful specimens of 

 accurate and fine mechanical work; in fact, 

 it is rather proverbial that the English, espe- 

 cially, neverjiermitany thingtogoout to the 

 reading world unless it is first-class in regard 

 to typography; and they really have some 

 reason for calling us, as they often do, "a 

 lot of shiftless Yankees." 



CHUFA8, .'^OV BEAN.S, DANDELIONS, PARCELS 

 PO.>=^T, ETC. 



Mr. Root: — I have read what you say on pages 

 608. 609, on soy beans and chufas for chickens, etc. 

 I have never succeeded In getting ray White Wy- 

 andottes to eat either soy beans or chufas. and 



* Perhaps you will excOse me for saying right 

 here, that during the past forty years a dozen or 

 twenty bee-journals have been started: but sooner 

 or later most of them have gone under, principally 

 because of their carelessness along the line I have 

 mentioned. 



have offered them on a few occasions. 1 have had 

 chufas dug up and lying on the grass two or three 

 weeks, with alternate rain and sunshine, where 

 the chickens could help themselves (sixty, old and 

 young), and have not mis.sed one nut. 



You quote an advertisement of soy-bean meal 

 and seem to infer tliat it is merely soy beans ground 

 up. I believe this meal is a by-product from the 

 soy-bean oil-mills of China or Manchuria, just as 

 our linseed meal is of our linseed-oll mills. This 

 meal is imported very largely in Europe for feed- 

 mg stock, as our linseed meal is. 



You say chufas, like other nuts, are rich in pro- 

 tein and carbo-hydrates. You should have said 

 rich in protein and fat. Chestnuts are, I believe 

 the only nut rich in earbo-hydr.ates, while nearly 

 all are rich in protein and fat— especially the latter 

 I notice you are getting out a booklet on buck- 

 wheat. I should like to suggest that you get some 

 one well informed ou the subject to write on the 

 use of buckwheat for green-manuring, killing per- 

 sistent weeds, and as a nurse crop for sowing alfal- 

 fa, crimson, and other clovers. I have seen It ad- 

 vised very strongly for the latter purpose — in the 

 Rural New -Yorker, 1 believe. Summer is deemed 

 by many the best time to sow alfalfa, red and alsike 

 clover, and crimson clover can be sown only then 

 I note in Ohio Bulletin No. 207 that cotton-seed 

 meal is rated on the favorable side as stock feed; 

 and in my reading 1 notice a flour is being made 

 from cotton-seed for bread-making. We have need 

 of just such a product for mixing with our one- 

 sided acid-producing white flour to make health- 

 ful bread. 



Another thought on buckwheat. May it not be 

 sown early, allowed to blossom for the bees to gath- 

 er the honey, then turned under, and another crop 

 of buckwheat sown for grain, honey, and as nurse 

 crop for clovers? Too much can hardly be known 

 by bee-keepers about buckwheat and clovers. 



Would it not be feasible to sow buckwheat in the 

 buckwheat belt, sowing alsike at the same time, 

 then let the bees gather the buckwheat nectar, you 

 harvest the buckwheat, then let the bees gather the 

 alsike nectar the following June, cut a crop of hay, 

 possibly a crop of seed, then repeat the process, 

 getting two crops each year, and two gatherings of 

 nectar, while enriching the land with nitrogen at 

 the same time? I believe it can be done, and bee- 

 keepers are the ones to do it. Buckwheat is quite 

 profitable where conditions are favorable, and al- 

 sike for seed is very much so. 



As stated above, I have about sixty W'hite Wyan- 

 dottes, and can not notice that apiece is missing 

 from a single leaf of the dandelions growing all 

 around my grounds. Possibly the reason is that 

 my chickens have full lilierty, and thus may obtain 

 what they like better — insects, grass, etc. They do 

 eat great quantities of grass, I know, as I see them 

 doing so, much of the time: and a hawk killed one 

 and tore open its crop, which seemed to be stuffed 

 with grass .solely. Is it not likely that your Leg- 

 horns found what suited them? I am very fond of 

 dandelion greens, and consider them healthful. 



I note you advise cooking ground wheat thor- 

 oughly before eating. I believe this to be an error. 

 It is apt to encourage too rapid eating, and cook- 

 ing seems to necessitate the use of sugar to some 

 extent, and tliis. 1 feel certain, is wrong. Our nu- 

 trition .scientists have found that the average 

 American dietary is about 17 per cent protein, 25 

 per cent fat, and 58 i)er cent carbo-hydrates — more 

 protein for growing children and those at hard la- 

 bor, and less for the aged and inactive. By looking 

 at a table in my letter published on p. HOii. 1910, you 

 will see that wheat has protein. 11.1 per cent: fat, 

 1.7 per cent: carbo.. 75."). (iranulated sugar is 100 

 per cent carbo-hydrates. Thus wheat is 30 per cent 

 above a balanced ration in carbo-hydrates, and 

 every grain of sugar makes it more so. while It has 

 only about one-tenth the fat it should have. There- 

 fore butter or cream, not sugar, is tlie proper thing 

 to add to help balance it. Xuts. cheese, or other 

 foods rich in fat or protein, should go with wheat : 

 sugar, never. Kolled oats are much better bal- 

 anced, but need fat to balance. Americans con- 

 sume an average of about >5.()fl worth of sugar per 

 capita per year, and great iiuaiilitles of molasses 

 and syrup In addition. If this were reduced to one 

 dollar, and the remainder expended for milk or 

 butter or cheese, or even for honey, we should be 

 Infinitely better ofT. 



I note what you say about i)arcels iiost. Too 

 much can not be said for this great boon to our 

 producers and consumers. The middlemen are the 



