California Agriculturist and Live. Stock Journal. 



old linen or cotton cloth to the end of a stick. 

 Unless the disease has been present for some 

 length of time, nsnally but one foot on 

 each animal will be attected, though the sound 

 ones should be cleansed (never using the same 

 knife as ou the sore felt, ; and treated to an 

 apptication of the caustic as a precautionary 

 measure. But it few days should be allowed 

 to intervene before these invalids are careful- 

 ly examined — great care being exercised to as- 

 certain that the work has been thoroughly 

 performed, If any of the virus was over- 

 looked iu the first operation it will now be 

 apparent. The knife and caustic must again 

 be applied; and this vigilance continue to be 

 exercised until all the once aft'ected animals 

 are the possessors of sound, healthy feet, 

 when they may be turned with the flock. 



TSough, as above intimated, it has not been 

 demonstrated that certain floul and other- 

 wise unfavorable surroundings originate foot- 

 rot, there can be no doubt that such conditions 

 favor its rapid spread, and renders its eradi- 

 cation next to impossible. Such surround- 

 ings will be avoided by the experienced flock 

 master at all times. Even the instinct of the 

 sheep will lead them to shun such, while 

 seeking either food or rest. 



Precautions against contracting the disease 

 should be used by flook-owners when infected 

 animals are known to be in the vicinity. — 

 These may consist in gi-eat care that no ani- 

 mal from the infected flock be allowed to 

 mingle with or cross the range of the healthy 

 sheep; a rigid examination every few weeks, 

 of the feet of the entire flock, as indicated 

 above, and the passage of each animal through 

 the trough of diluted vitrol; and great care 

 that all additions to the number, such as stock 

 rams and choice ewes, are from flocks and 

 neighborhoods exempt from ihe malady. — 

 Here an ounce of prevention will be worth a 

 good many thousands pounds of cure; for 

 we esteem foot-rot the worst enemy the flock 

 master has to contend with when once it gets 

 headway. Its eradication from large flocks is 

 not an impossibility, but necessitates more 

 watchful care and persistent labor thau the 

 average farmer finds the time, or possesses 

 the disposition to bestow. 



SILAS HIVING BEES. 



How He Expected to Do It, .\xd How He 

 Didn't. 



("he old gentleman's name is Silas, and that 

 of his eldest son is George; his wife's 

 name is Matilda, and his three pretty 

 daughters are named Helen, Alice and 

 Susie; there is a little Silas, too, and an 

 older boy whose name is too queer to men- 

 tion. 



The bees had alighted in a great bunch, as 

 large as a half-bushel measure, on the limb 

 of a peach tree in the yard. A table is phic- 

 ed under the overhanging limb, spread with a 

 clean white cloth, and the hive placed theroeu. 

 Then one of the boys, one that is good for 

 nothing else, is sent into the tree to sever the 

 limb; the limb comes down slowly and easily, 

 and the old gent below, dressed in a great 

 coat, buckskin gloves, cowhide boots, and a 

 bed quilt tied around his neck and face, slvh" 

 manipulates a twig from the tree, and iu two 

 minutes has safely coaxed every bee into the 

 hive, during all of which time Matilda and 

 Helen and Alice and Susie pound the bottoms 

 out of just four tin pans; little Silas does his 

 prettiest yelling, while the boy with the queer 

 name is just old enough and shai-p enough to 

 slip behind the house and wait for the thing 

 to come to a point. That is the way the thing 

 ought to have gone ofi"; but that isn't the way 

 it did. Silas, the elder, was very comfort- 

 ably bundled up for so warm a day, and he had 

 his suit well arranged, only he forgot to tie 

 the strings around the bottom of his pants 



The bees had settled on the limb of a peach 

 tree, and Silas, when his table and white cloth 

 and his hive already, commanded: 



"Now, George, grab that old rusty saw and 

 climb; I guess you can cut that small limb off 

 easy enough." 



George was just home from a six month's 

 term of school, and he felt a great tenderness 

 for his father, and would have gone through 

 a patch of thistles bare foot to please the old 

 gent, and yet he had a particular dread for 

 the "business end" of a bee, and particularly 

 of such a crowd of them. But he obeyed, 

 and began to fiddle away cautiously upon the 

 particular limb. One little bunch of tees 

 dropped ofl' and w'ere caged; another, and 

 another small bunch dropped, and the i^ros- 

 pect seemed good, when suddenly an old hou- 

 ey-maker aijpeared, who had been in the bus- 

 iness, soared upward. George shut up one 

 eye quick, gave one terrific surge on the old 

 rusty saw, got out of that tree at one jump 

 and his anxious mother caught a glimi^se of 

 him as he flew around the corner of the barn 

 twenty rods away. 



But poor old Silas! The bees came down, 

 and he thought the bunch was as big as a 

 hay-stack now. They did not go into the 

 hive, but they went through his over-coat and 

 bed-quilt as if these had been only mosquito 

 bars, and they climbed wp his pants legs, and 

 the old gent danced as he had never danced 

 before; and he slapped his legs, as he had 

 never allowed any one else to slap them, and 

 his voice towered high above the clatter of 

 the tin pans and the shrieks of little Silas as 

 he yelled; 



"Throw water on me! throw water ou me! 

 soak me, wet me dowu!" 



He rolled three or four times over in the 

 grass, audspraugnp, shouting, "slap me! slap 

 me! Can't j'ou slap me'?" in the midst of 

 which little Silas crept up behind his infuria- 

 ted papa and dealt him a lively one with a 

 shingle; but poor little Silas landed the next 

 second against the milk-house, for his pa took 

 him and his shingle for a thousand bees, and 

 gently brushed them ofl'. 



Oh, the agony of that three mitutes jig! He 

 appealed to his wife. 



"Matilda, for heaven sake, bring me anoth- 

 er pair of jiants, won't you!" 



But these things don't last always, any 

 more than any other happiness, and after a 

 few minutes the old gent came limiiing out of 

 the cellar with the breeches on that Matilda 

 brought him, feeling quite easier, but certain- 

 ly much fatigued, just as George got back 

 from the barn and the boy with the queer 

 name slipped around the corner of the house. 

 Both boys were to anxious know how matters 

 stood, and asked; 



"Did you git 'em hived, pa?" 



But the old man was too mad to answer, or 

 even look at his boys. He turned to Silas 

 and said: 



"Little one you meant all right, and I'm 

 sorry I cuft'ed you so; next time don't slap so 

 hard." 



Then to his wife, "Matilda, to you I owe 

 everything. Accept my heartfelt gratitude. 

 ■We'll take no more stock in bees. I have 

 made up my mind, and its settled, May our 

 quiet, peaceful farm home never be so stii-red 

 up again. Seems to me I never had so much 

 of life crowded into a few short minutes 

 before. Kuu after the cows now, boys; be off 

 for its almost dark." 



AVhy Bees "Wokk ix the Dabk. — A lifetime 

 might be spent iu the mysteries hidden in a 

 bee-hive and still half the secrets would be 

 undiscovered. The formation of the cell has 

 long been a celebrated jn-oblem for the math- 

 ematicion, whilst the changes which the honey 

 undergoes ofler at least an equal interest to 

 the chemist. Every one knows what honey 

 fresh from the comb is like. It is clear, yel- 

 lew syrup, without a trace of solid sugar in it. 

 Upon straining, however, it gradually assumes 

 a crystalline appearance— it camlieg, as the 



saying is, and ultimately becomes a solid mass 

 of sugar. It has not been suspected that this 

 change was due to a photographic action; that 

 the same ageut which alters the molecular ar- 

 rangement of iodide of silver on the excited 

 eoUodian plate aud determines the formation 

 of champhor and iodine crystals in a bottle, 

 causes the syrup honey to assume a crystal- 

 line form. This, however, is the case. M. 

 Scheibler has enclosed honey in stoppered 

 flasks, some of which he has kept iu perfect 

 darkness, whilst others have been exposed to 

 the light. The invariable result has been that 

 the suuiied i>ortion rapidly crystallizes, whilst 

 that kept in the dark has remained perfectly 

 licjuid. We now see why bees are so careful 

 to work in perfect darkness, aud why they 

 are so careful to obscure the glass windows 

 which are sometimes placed in their hives. 

 The existence of their young dspends on the 

 liquidity of the saccharine food presented to 

 them, and if light were allowed access to this 

 in all probability it would prove fatal to the 

 inmates of the hive. ■ Workimj Farmer. 



t m » 



OcR Heavy Prodcct. — The Los .\ngeles 

 Express says: "It is stated that the honey 

 product of San Diego county this year will bo 

 fully six hundred tons. One million two 

 hundred thousand pounds of honey is prodi- 

 gious for an industry only about three years 

 old. Los Angeles county, also, is making 

 tremendous advances in honey culture, and in 

 a few years the two counties will supply the 

 world. The honey of Southern California is 

 without a rival iu quaUty and flavor in the 

 market. It is only during the last twenty 

 years that bees were known in California, aud 

 to-day the business of apiarist promises to be 

 one of the most important in the southern 



portion of the State.' 



♦♦♦ 



Feeding Bees. — J. F. Montgomery, of Lin- 

 coln county, Tennessee, tells the readers of 

 the Fayetteville Obstrcer that every person 

 owning bees, whether few or many, should 

 now commence feeding them with rye flour 

 ground fine and unbolted. This is done by 

 placing the floui- in a shallow box or trough 

 in the bee yard, where the sun can shine on 

 it. A. rag dipped into honey or sugar syrup 

 should be laid on the flour, t» attract the bees 

 to it. On warm days will see the little fellows 

 busily engaged rolling it up on their legs and 

 carrying it into the hive to feed the young 

 bees on. If rye cannot be obtained, unbolted 

 wheat flour is a good sustitute. If any one 

 disbelieves the above statement, let him get 

 the flour and try the experiment and he soon 

 will be couviced of the fact. 



Potato Blight rs Marix CorxTT. — The 

 loss by the potato blight has not been exag- 

 gerated. On many ranches the crop is a total 

 failure, and on others it is less than half. 

 John Griflin last year raised on -15 acres 3,000 

 sacks. This year he has 65 acres, and will 

 be glad to get" 1, -500 sacks. Mr. Mulvaney 

 has 30 acres and has turned his stock on 

 them. D. Callan has 20 acres not worth 

 digging. George Fieeman has 100 acres 

 which he will not dig. J. P. Whittaker wiU 

 get about •20fl sacks from 25 acres. W. K. 

 Fairbanks, George Dillon and M. Calliher, 

 with some others, will get a good average 

 crop. Those planted on low, moist ground 

 seem to escape the blight and do well, while 

 other fields that escape the blight are barren 

 from drouth.— -U"«rin County Journal. 



.. »i '• ■ 



The failures during the nine months of the 

 present year in the United States foot up the 

 enormous amount of 8131.172,503. Extrav- 

 agance has been the rule in the Eastern States 

 for the last ten or twelve years. The country 

 is now going back to first principles, and it 

 will be well for all classes to reduce expenses 

 as soon as possible. 



_ ' m ' m ' 



■Will some benevolently inclined friend 

 donate us a newspaper published this Fall 

 which does not allude to the fact that "the 

 melancholy days have come."— £ric-<(-!'rac. 



