GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



For power these principles to teach 



To every soul we chance to reach. 



Dear friends, when next in prayer you plead, 



Remember this — our greatest need. 



I was pleased to note what you have to say about 

 voting for men in public place who wish to guide 

 the great ship of state. Surely 'tis time to draw 

 the line. See the Roosevelt edition of Clean Politics; 

 and editorials in the Outlook. For myself I deem 

 T. R. one -of the most dangerous men before our 



people. His military sentiments and cowboy cruelty 

 will leave a great stain on the churches of the world 

 that will not soon be removed. 



Well, cry aloud and spare not. The old prophets 

 are not any more popular than they used to be; 

 but I am glad to believe they have still a message, 

 and a goodly number are willing to hear and heed 

 it, and some of the prophets will brin% forth theii 

 best fruit in old age. 



May the Holy Spirit lead you ever. 



Boulder, Colo., May 23. A. P. FOSTKE. 



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A. I. Root 



CHUFAS, OR EARTH ALMONDS. 



Perhaps some of the friends will wonder 

 if my enthusiasm has all evaporated in re- 

 gard to the above ground nut. Not at all; 

 but my enthusiasm for 100 bushels an acre 

 has received a severe shock. Down in Flor- 

 ida, I had a yield in spots that might have 

 been thirty or forty bushels to the acre. 

 Here in Medina (see picture, page 598, Oct. 

 1, 1911) the fine stand I had was frozen 

 out during the past severe winter. The 

 reason I did not dig them before I went to 

 Florida was on account of the prevailing 

 wet weather. We dug a few; but the task 

 of picking and washing them out of the 

 mud was, I decided, more than they were 

 worth, even if they did bring $4.50 a bush- 

 el. And by the way, there is one draw- 

 back in growing chufas; and that is the 

 difficulty of harvesting them. Suppose you 

 had a lot of white beans scattered all 

 through the ground like potatoes. How 

 could you harvest them? how much would 

 it cost? In the Florida sand it is quite a 

 little easier; but even then they have to be 

 hand-picked, so far as I can see, in order 

 to have a clean crop. 



Well, I am just as fond of roasted chufas 

 as I ever was. There is no nut to compare 

 them Avith for myself. We had a good 

 many that were self-soAvn, or "volunteer- 

 ed," as some would call it. in Florida; but 

 the moles or mice, or something else, ate up 

 a great part of them before we got around. 

 Now, in view of the above, imagine my sur- 

 prise to see the following in Hastings' 

 (Atlanta, Ga.) seed catalog: 



The South buys more than a hundred million dol- 

 lars' worth of meat every year. How many of your 

 dollars help swell that enormous meat-bill ? With 

 chufas and peanuts you can grow meat just as 

 cheaply as the Western farmer. Chufas can be 

 planted as late as June 15, and make anywhere 

 from 200 to 1000 bushels per acre, maturing in the 

 fall, and can be left in the ground until you are 

 ready to turn the hogs in on them. Highly recom- 

 mended by the experiment stations of Alabama, Flor- 

 ida, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Exceptionally plump, 

 sound, recleaned seed. Pound, 35 cents postpaid; 

 peck, $1.25; bushel (44 lbs.) $4.50. 



What do you think of the above — 1000 

 bushels per acre? If they were all sold at 

 $4.50 they would bring $4500. Surely that 

 amount would pay for fertilizer ad libitum, 



the best kind of underdrained and irrigated 

 soil, and plenty of labor. Will the readers 

 of Gleanings please tell me if they ever 

 saw, not 1000 bushels, but even 100 bushels 

 grown on one acre? The above advertise- 

 ment is clipped from the Southern Rural. 

 They recommend chufas for producing 

 pork cheaply. Of course the hogs would do 

 the "harvesting," so all the farmer would 

 have to do would be to raise the crop. I 

 did not know but they might stand freez- 

 ing like artichokes, so they could be dug in 

 the spring. I know they sometimes winter 

 over in the ground here in the North, be- 

 cause I have seen them coming up the fol- 

 lowing spring where thev were grown the 

 year before. I am going to write Hastings 

 and ask if the printers did not put in one 

 cipher too much in the above estimate. 



SWEET CLOVER FOR INOCULATING SOIL WHERE 

 EITHER RED CLOVER OR ALFALFA IS TO 

 BE GROWN. 

 Mr. Root : — I have just read about sweet clover in 

 your May 15th issue. Nothing was said concerning 

 inoculation of the soil with bacteria suitable to sweet 

 clover. Several years ago I LOwed red-clover seed 

 in the corn in July, and got a fine stand. A strange 

 p'ant (strange to me then) showed itself quite plen- 

 tifully among the clover plantv;. This plant proved 

 to bo alfalfa, and came because in souie way the 

 dealer from whom I purchased the seed had gotten 

 the two kinds of seed bally mixed. The alfr.lfa grew 

 and thrived best near the road. The further awav 

 from the road, the less alfalfa. The road alongside 

 the field lias grown wonderful crops of SM'eet clover 

 for a very long time. A young neighbor, who has 

 It'tely taken a short agricultural corrse at Cham- 

 paign, 111., told me the reason the alfalfa grew best 

 near the ro&d is hcrause the dust from the road 

 blew into the field and inoculated the soil best near 

 the road; ard the further away from the road, the 

 less inoculation. The soil bacteria for alfalfa aud 

 sweet clover is one and the same. 



Peru, III., May 21. E. H. Whitaker. 



Friend W., you have furnished us a high- 

 ly important fact. Our Ohio experiment 

 station at Wooster has for some time rec- 

 ommended getting soils from the roadsides 

 where sweet clover grows, to inoculate fields 

 for alfalfa. I have .just been looking at 

 about the finest stand of sweet clover I 

 ever saw. It is on a piece of ground near 

 our largest warehouse, where hard yellow 

 clay was spread, that was taken out in ex- 

 cavating a basement. This hard yellow clay 

 would ordinarily not grow any thing at all, 



