THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



207 



once in 3 or 4 years. The old system ofcultivaiion 

 wiih the hoe is improper ; and I have no hesita- 

 tion in saying that the hoe crops of eastern Vir- 

 trinia have exhausted our best lands. Where is 

 the fine soil of eastern V^irixinia now? Much of 

 it has been carried down hills, branches, creeks 

 and rivers by the hoe crops, leaving nothing be- 

 Jiind but galls, gullies, and the sub-soil. It is lime 

 they were given up except in a hmiied way ; and 

 let us make more small grain and grass in order to 

 secure the soil we have remtiiiiing. Such a system 

 ofagriculture, assisied by lime, deep ploughing, and 

 hill-side ditches, will renovate the worn lands of 

 . eastern Virginia, in four years. Then let us go 

 to work in good liiith, and use lime alone on our 

 lands, tree from the carbonic and sulphuric acids, 

 and it will peribrm the work ol' dissolution in the 

 earth, until the great destroyer becomes neu- 

 tralized. 



ON THE MANAGEMENT OF BEES. 



By Thomas 



Ward Jestoti, 

 Thames. 



Esq., Henley-on- 



Froni the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. 



I have found by experience my plan for the 

 management of bees, and mode of taking their 

 superfluous honey, without destroying the parent 

 hive, fully to succeed : in a bee-country it will 

 afford the cottager a very ample return for his 

 trouble, and not require so much watching as the 

 old plan — lor the older the hive is, the less chance 

 will there be of swarming, but a greater chance 

 of a large deposite of honey. I have kept bees 

 more than twenty years; have tried Huish's, 

 Null's, and various other plans, but the one sug- 

 gested by this industrious insect itself I have 

 found to be the most simple, cheap, and success- 

 ful, and will not cost the cottager more than six- 

 pence to adopt, in addition to his old hives. 



Some years ago 1 placed an empty butter-tub 

 under the board on which the hive rested ; the 

 sun cracked the board, and the bees enlarging the 

 opening, took possession of the tub, and, after 

 filling their own hive, deposited 26 lbs. of honey 

 and comb in the tub below. This I took jiosses- 

 sion of for my own use, leaving their hive full of 

 honey for their winter's consumption. By im- 

 proving on this simple plan, 1 have carried ofT the 

 prizes lor honey at the Henley Horticultural So- 

 ciety for the last (bur years. A board, half an 

 inch in thickness, 18 inches in width, and perfora- 

 ted with two holes, each an inch in diameter, is 

 placed between the hive and the butter-tub. The 

 ^^^ should be placed under the hive as early as 

 March ; the bees having a great dislike to any 

 disturbance of their arrangement. I last year 

 took upwards of 40 lbs. of honey in this way, 

 althouffh.ihe season was so bad, and an ample 

 supply of food was left for the bees to subsist on 

 during the winter. This plan will prove a good 

 substitute for the "rear" used to enlart^e the 

 common hive ; with ihis advantage, that a supply 

 ol honey can be obtained from the stroncr swarms 

 as well as the old hivea. 



I have never found occasion to feed the bees 

 from which honey had been taken in the mode 

 cescnbed ; but previously to the adoption, I was 



in the habit of feeding them with coarse euo'ar 

 boiled in beer, and a little old wax-comb, to the 

 consistence oi' a syrup. As an experiment I once 

 led some bees with treacle, made from graiinw 

 112 lbs. of beet-root, pressing Irom ii one gallon 

 of juice, and boiling this with one tea-spoonful of 

 sulphuric acid (commonly called oil of vitriol) and 

 three lea-spoonfuls of common chalk, or whiting 

 in powder, which will clarify it and throw off all 

 impurities, leaving, on evaporation, a clear syrup 

 fit for feeding b^es. 



There is little or no gnrse or heath near Henley, 

 and the character of the country is arable. The 

 market-price of virgin honey (such as is obtained 

 on my plan) is in the town from Is. 6d. to la. 8d, 

 per pound, and the wax from Is. 6d. to 2s. 



The following are the weights of seven hives, 

 taken in April 1838, from which honey had been 

 taken in the previous autumn, and yet the season 

 of 183S proved so bad that I obtained no honey 

 that autumn, and two of the hives perished in the 

 following winter: 



Hive No. 1. - - - 28 lbs. 



" 2. - - - 28 " 



" 3. - - - 25 " 



" 4. - . - - 25 " 



" 5. - - - 24 " 



'• 6. - - - 23 " 



" 7. - - - 22 " 



This season my five old hives, and Nutt's hive 

 also are in full vigor and operation. 



Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, May, 1840. 



ON PREPARING NIGHT-SOIL. 



From the (London) Farmer's Magazine. 



Sir — I observed a {'e.w days ago in one of your 

 late periodicals, an inquiry, by a correspondent, 

 for the best method of preparing night-soil for 

 manure. He said " he had mixed it with lime, 

 and a very strong smell of ammonia was evolved, 

 whereby he feared the eflicacy of the manure 

 might be impaired. These conclusions are per- 

 fectly correct ; its efficacy as organic manure 

 would be destroyed by the use of lime. 



When an organic body containing nitrogen 

 undergoes putrelaction, and moisture present, the 

 nitrdgen unites with tfie hydrogen of the water 

 and forms ammonia ; the oxygen, the other 

 element of water, unites with the carbon of the 

 putrifying oody, and forms carbonic acid ; both 

 these transformations, in their nascent state, com- 

 bine and form carbonate of ammonia, a volatile 

 salt, which is always evaporating with water, as 

 long as the decomposition continues. Such inva- 

 riably takes place in nitrogenous bodies. 



When lime is added to a body holding carbo- 

 nate of ammonia in solution, as in night-soil, the 

 ammoniacal salt is decomposed ; the lime robs it 

 of its carbonic acid, and caustic ammonia, a still 

 more volatile compound, fllies off in gas : thus we 

 have got rid of all the nitrogen the organic com- 

 pound contained. 



Organic manure, without nitrogen, is of very 

 little value. It pervades every part of the vege- 

 table structure, and no plant will attain maturity, 

 even in the richest mould, without its presence. 

 The relative value of manure may be known by 



