256 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[May, 



Gallup Upon H, A, King. 



Some of the readers of the American IBee Jour- 

 nal may think that our departed friend, Mr. 

 Samuel Wagner, was too harsh with Mr. King. 

 We ask them to bear in mind that Mr. Wagner, 

 as well as Mr. Langstroth, and some others, was 

 perfectly well acquainted with the man. He 

 knew some of his saintly transactions carried on 

 under the cloak of pretended friendship, and Mr. 

 Wagner despised hypocrisy or rascality under 

 the pretence of religion so had that language 

 failed him to express his honest indignation at 

 such proceedings. I heard Mr. King tell us at 

 the Cincinnati convention of his exceeding great 

 love for Mr. Langstroth, and I thought at the 

 time that I understood that love. It was some- 

 thing similar to the love that the highway rob- 

 ber or i)ickpocket has for his victim. 



We too can read Mr. King, and it is sufficient 

 for us to say, that we have severed all our rela- 

 tions with him. During the time tliat we were 

 writing for his journal, he tried bribery on us, 

 then flattery and soft soap, and last of all, he 

 tried the driving process, and neither of them 

 worked to his satisfaction. We are not in the 

 market to be bought and sold by any one. Flat- 

 tery and soft soap always make our bristles 

 stand up the wrong way ; and perliaps he thinks 

 that we are too much of a hog to be driven. If 

 he had just asked us at tlie start, we could have 

 saved him all his trouble. Now, if Mr. King 

 has any doubts about this bribery, flattery, or 

 driving, all he has to do is to just ask for some 

 of his private correspondence to be made public. 

 We are aware that it is not manly to publish 

 private correspondence, therefore we leave this 

 matter with Mr. King, and shall govern our- 

 selves accordingly. 



In reply to correspondents who ask us why we 

 did not answer Mr. Quinby's article in ^Ir. King's 

 November lunnber, Ave state that Mr. King re- 

 fused to publish our reply, unless we withdrew 

 all our connections with the American Bee 

 Journal. He gave us his uliimatum : if we con- 

 tinued our relations with him, he would publish 

 our article, but if we continued our relations 

 with the American Bee Journal, why, then, all 

 our relations with him were severed. We can 

 assure our readers that it did not take us long to 

 decide. We believe we came to a decision in 

 that case the quickest of any case ever submit- 

 ted to us. Now we have just said as little about 

 this matter as we possibly could, and shall not 

 mention it again unless Mr. King pitches into 

 us, and then we shall defend ourselves to the 

 best of our ability. So correspondents will 

 please ask us no more questions on the above 

 subject. 



Let not the reader suppose for one moment 

 that we bear any jjersonal spite against Mr. 

 King, but when we have once found a man to be 

 of his stripe, we wish to have no more dealings 

 with him. Neither did I wish to mix myself up 

 with the controversy between him and Mr. Wag- 

 ner or Mr. Langstroth ; but his rascally attack 

 on Mr. Wagner, in the National Bee Journal, 

 through his partner, Mr. Williams, I thought 



called for Mr. Wagner's friends to speak out. I 

 certainly was a personal friend of Mr. Wagner, 

 and whatever others may say, lie was unselfish, 

 and had the interest of the whole beekeeping 

 fraternity at heart. The beekeepers of America 

 have met Avith a loss in his death that can 

 scarcely be estimated. 



Mr. King has seen fit himself to show that 

 Mr. Williams' statements about Mr. Wagner 

 improperly influencing the patent office exami- 

 ner, were falsehoods, and we presume if he had 

 called the whole article falsehoods from begin- 

 ning to end, he would have come very near the 

 truth. Elisiia Gallup. 



April 2, 1872. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Novice. 



Mk. Editor and Beekeeping Friends all : 

 — We are just now busy as bees planting out 

 the embryo basswood orchard, and this is the 

 way we work : 



After the trees are removed (with a generous 

 quantity of their native soil adhering to their 

 roots) from their native forests, we bring them 

 to our "ranche," as a friend calls it, when the 

 ground is prepared as for planting corn. In 

 order to occupy all the ground, we have them 

 planted in the form of the cells of honey comb, 

 with each tree the centre of six of its neighbors. 

 We believe this the most economical plan to 

 cover the ground with trees of any kind. Twelve 

 feet each way was our first decision, but finally 

 changed to sixteen feet. To get the desired 

 points, we stretched a long line, and on this tie 

 alternate pieces of black and white tape eight 

 feet apart ; when a tree is planted at all the white 

 knots, each end of the line is moved to the 

 next row fourteen and a quarter feet nearly, by 

 means of measuring sticks. Now plant a tree 

 on the black tapes ; the third row on the white, 

 etc., and you will have regular hexagons, with 

 a tree in the centre. 



A smart German with a fork removes the 

 earth, and i\\e\\find^, even if he has to go some 

 distance, a fork full of some nice fine soil to 

 sift over the roots when put in place (hy a 

 smart Englishman), while "Novice," Jr. (who 

 thinks this part of the bee business more free 

 from "onpleasant" peculiarities than some 

 other branches), carefully sifts in with the dirt 

 one ounce of ground bone, to give the young 

 trees a start. After the trees were ou the 

 ground, the three hands mentioned above (all 

 smart) put out in nice. shape five hundred the 

 first day. 



As to Novice himself, he and his colt were a 

 part of the time making the ground fine with 

 one of Thomas' patent smoothing harrows, and 

 then for a change, pruning most of the branches 

 (that is. Novice, not the colt, although she 

 seemed quite willing, and undoubtedly professed 

 excellent taste for the business) afcer the trees 

 were planted. 



For the first three or four years we expect to 

 give them careful cultivation, and shall this 

 season raise a crop of corn among them, three 



