202 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



March 16. 19C'S. 



PATCH OF MILKWEED BY THE ROADSIDE. 



In some parts of Northern Michigfm milkweed furnishes an abundance of pasturage. In 

 1902, Mr. Ira D. Bartlett secured 75 pounds per colony from milkweed alone. The plant grows 

 freely by the roadside, in openings, and really becomes a weed in crops that can not be culti- 

 vated — oats, for instance. It is about as difficult to eradicate as a Canada thistle. The honey 

 is of good body, light in color, and has a flavor similar to the odor from the blossom— some- 

 thing like vanilla. 



three magnificent bounds, and disap- 

 peared in the pines. Over all was a 

 stillness that could almost be felt. It 

 seemed as though I had never been 

 nearer Nature's heart. The peace, the 

 joy, the reverence, that came over my 

 soul, is beyond my power to express. 



SOIL AND CROPS— GINSBNG CULTURE. 



But, to return : A large portion of 

 Northern Michigan, that portion I am 

 describing, from Traverse City north 

 to Petoskey, is hard-timber land — the 

 grandest beeches and maples that I 

 have ever seen— and the greater por- 

 tion of the land is still uncleared. The 

 best of the timber is being cut for lum- 

 ber, then the small and crooked trees 

 are cut up into furnace-wood. Some 

 two years ago, or thereabouts, Mr. 

 Chapman's son bought a tract of wild 

 land just across the road from his 

 father's, paying $4.00 an acre for it 

 The timber, fit for lumber, had been 

 cut. Last winter he was cutting up 

 what was left into furnace-wood. After 

 paying for the cutting and hauling the 

 timber was netting him $16 an acre. 

 Such land is now worth about $10 an 

 acre. The soil is a sandy loam, which, 

 aided by the cool, moist climate, pro- 

 duces the finest potatoes in the world. 

 No other portion of the country is bet- 

 ter adapted to the production of winter 

 apples ; and, while I am about it, I may 

 as well describe a somewhat novel in- 

 dustry that flourishes here — the raising 

 of ginseng for market. 



Originally the plant grew wild, in 

 great abundance, in these north woods, 

 but men made a business of hunting 

 for and digging it for the market 

 (sometimes making $3.00 or $4.00 a 

 day), until it is now very seldom that a 

 plant is found in the woods, but I 

 visited several gardens where it was 

 under cultivation. The plants to start 

 these gardens were dug up in the woods 



and set out. The natural home of the 

 ginseng is in the deep woods, and in 

 order that it may flourish under culti- 



vation, the same conditions must be 

 supplied. Leaf-mold is brought from 

 the woods for use in making beds, and 

 a shade is furnished by an immense 

 frame-work 6 or 7 feet above the 

 ground, upheld by stout posts, and 

 covered with laths nailed on about an 

 inch apart. The sides of the enclosure 

 are also covered similarly with laths. In 

 short, one way of describing the shade 

 would be to say that a huge box was 

 made of laths placed about an inch 

 apart, and then turned upside down 

 over the garden. The plants are set 

 in rows about a foot apart, in beds 5 

 feet wide and about 100 feet long, and 

 the dark, rich green of the leaves, 

 growing in that semi-darkness, like 

 that of a deep woods, is something de- 

 lightful to behold. The dried roots 

 are worth about $7.00 or $S 00 a pound, 

 while the seeds are sold at such a fabu- 

 lous price that I would rather not men- 

 tion it. I was shown one bed of old 

 plants, bearing aloft their bright- 

 green seed-pods (and turn to scarlet 

 when ripe), and told that if those roots 

 should be dug and marketed, after the 

 seeds had ripened, that the seeds and 

 roots would bring $500 ! Just think of 

 it, a piece of earth 5 feet wide and 100 

 feet long, bearing a crop worth $500 1 



The market for ginseng is in China, 

 where it is regarded with a sort of 

 superstitious reverence — supposed to 

 possess unusual curative virtues; in 

 short, a cure-all and a charm combined. 

 Ginseng is a perennial of slow growth ; 

 the root continuing to increase in size 

 for several years. Making a fortune 

 raising ginseng is rather slow at the 

 start (it takes a year and a half for the 



HOME-APIARVr OF S. D. CHAPMAN, OF ANTRIM CO., MICH. 



Mr. Chapman winters his bees in the cellar, and this view was taken in March soon after 

 they were put out. There were still patches of snow in the edges of the woods. Years ago Mr 

 Chapman had fine crops of honey from basswood. When this was lumbered off, there was 

 scarcely anything left to produce honey, as the country was nearly all forest, and he seriously 

 contemplated abandoning bee-culture. Finally lumbermen began cutting off the hard timber, 

 and this left the land so nearly unoccupied that red raspberries sprang up and changed the 

 location to one of the best for bee-keeping. From 150 colonies in 1903, Mr. Chapman secured 

 $1000 worth of raspberry honey. In 1903, from 190 colonies, in two apiaries, he secured 23,000 

 pounds of extracted honey. 



