498 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



could write such words unless he had pure blood 

 coursing through his arteries once more, and was 

 feeling the thrill of joyous health. V.'ith siich 

 health it is a real pleasure to breathe, eat, sleep, 

 work. We greatly like the tone of this letter. The 

 writer thanks us for making plain the simple laws 

 of health, which is all we can do, and praises God 

 from whom all blessing flow. How true, "He heal- 

 eth all our diseases" through his natural agencies 

 of air, water, sleep, food, exercise, etc. We thank 

 friend Peterson most heartily for the trouble he took 

 in sending this report. It certainly will be helpful 

 to some who read it. And we feel under deep obli- 

 gations to The A. I. Root Co., publishers of Glean- 

 ings IN Bee Culture. They are spreading our 

 efforts far and wide. May it prove "better than 

 finding a gold-mine" to every one of their readers. 



If our friend Terry had sometliing to sell 

 we might take such extravagant words with 

 a grain of salt ; but, may the Lord be prais- 

 ed, he does not advise any medicine what- 

 ever — simply nature's agencies, as he ex- 

 presses it, which are as free as the air we 

 breathe. 



POKEWEED FOR GREENS — SEE P. 389, 

 JUNE 15. 



A subscriber sends us the following: 



TWO GIRLS DIE OF POISONING. 



Miss Lavie Henshaw, 16 years old, and Miss 

 Sallie Pierce, 14 years old, died at Durwood, Ok., 

 May 12, after thev had eaten wild greens that con- 

 tained leaves of the poke plant. 



Three other members of the Henshaw family were 

 stricken, but are recovering. — St. Louis Republic. 



Now, it may be that jjokeweed is poison- 

 ous, especially if cut down close to the 

 root; but I am loath to believe it. Did not 

 those girls, in their search for "wild greens," 

 get hold of some other plant that was poi- 

 sonous? From the quantity we gathered at 

 different times down in our Florida home, 

 without the least unpleasant symptom, how- 

 ever, after eating it, I can hardly under- 

 stand it, unless there is some other plant 

 that goes by the same name. At any rate, 

 it is always wise to take a little at first of 

 something you are not used to, or not very 

 well acquainted with. This is especially true 

 in gathering mushrooms as well as plants 

 for "greens." 



CHUFAS. 



On page 388, June 15, I spoke about 

 writing to Mr. Hastings in regard to the 

 statement of growing 1000 bushels of chu- 

 fas to the acre. Below is his reply in re- 

 gard to the matter : 



Mr. A. I. Boot: — We have your favor making in- 

 quiry as to chufas, and would say that the writer 

 can not give the exact data from which this 1000- 

 bushel figure came; but he is under the impression 

 that it was a test yield with one of the Southern ex- 

 periment stations several years ago. The statement 

 has been current in Southern seed catalogs for years, 

 but the origin of it is lost. We are aware that 1000 

 bushels per acre of chufas would be an enormous 

 yield, but we do not consider it an impossibility. 

 There have been yields of potatoes approximating 

 1000 bushels to the acre, and the writer has personal 

 knowledge of one crop of onions in Texas some five 

 or six years ago that went slightly over 1000 bush- 

 els by weight; and under an intensive system of cul- 

 ture there is no reason why chufas should not make 

 an equally high yield. 



Atlanta, Ga., June 6. H. G. Hastings. 



As the above makes reference to the 

 Southern experiment stations I have writ- 

 ten our Florida station to learn if they 

 have tested chufas. I presume there have 

 been yields of potatoes (on small areas) 

 approaching 1000 bushels per acre; but 

 contrast the difference, please, between po- 

 tatoes and chufas. In order to get any 

 thing like this result the chufas would have 

 to be 15 inches apart in rows 2 feet apart, 

 and each plant would have to give at least 

 two quarts of nuts. 



CHUFAS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR COFFEE. 



Now, after finding so much fault I have 

 something jileasant to tell our readers^at 

 least those who have been testing chufas. 

 A periodical jjublished in the Everglades, in 

 telling the wonderful things that can be 

 grown there, mentioned chufas; and, while 

 they are very valuable for pigs, poultry, 

 food, etc., it is stated they make excellent 

 coffee. I at once ground up some roasted 

 chufas in a coffee-mill — the kind I have 

 written about. I would remark here that 

 they were baked or roasted in the oven, and 

 it was one of my happy suriDrises when I 

 tasted that chufa coffee. Huber happened 

 to come in at the time, and we gave him a 

 cup to sample. His first exclamation was 

 that it tasted like malted milk. Now, malt- 

 ed milk is one of the staj^le foods for inva- 

 lids or anybody who has weak digestion ; 

 but it is rather expensive. 



Just here let us consider the point that 

 vegetarians (and among them our good 

 friend T. B. Terry) have been for some 

 time suggesting that nuts are an excellent 

 substitute for meat or animal food; and 

 right here we have it — a substitute for milk 

 that is entirely vegetable, and I am sure it 

 must be nourisliing, and it certainly will be 

 far cheaper than any sort of stimulating 

 nerve-racking real coffee — even cheaper 

 than "postum cereal ;" and if we could raise 

 100 busliels to the acre (to say nothing of 

 1000), it would be cheaper than Terry's 

 v?heat coffee. The chufas should be roasted 

 just about as you would peanuts, may be a 

 little more, and then grind them in a coffee- 

 mill, and use one or two heaping table- 

 spoonfuls, say for five or six cups of coffee. 



Later. — Here is something from the Flor- 

 ida Ex^oeriment Station in regard to chu- 

 fas : 



Dear Mr. Root: — We have grown chufas from 

 time to time at the Florida Experiment Station, and 

 do not consider them the best thing possible for hog 

 feed or for cropping purposes. I think the claim of 

 one thousand bushels an acre for chufas is entirely 

 unreasonable. I did not see Hastings' statement to 

 this effect. 



We should be very glad to raise 100 bushels per 

 acre on the average. As a matter of fact, very few 

 farmers in Florida claim more than 75 or 80. Once 

 in a while we hear a man claiming to raise a hun- 

 dred bushels or over; but these are farmers who 



