vot,. XVI. 510. ao. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL 



vitality to the roots ; no young plants to fliovv 

 their heads undei- the protection of a stump, a 

 stone, or to peep through the crevices of a stone 

 wall, must be left to furnish the nucleus of a new 

 set of roots, and thus siuely overthrow the hope 

 of their extermination. Where but a small spot 

 of groutid is occupied by the thistle, the hoe, and 

 if a sharp and narrow edged one, so much the 

 belter, will be found usually sufficient to destroy 

 them ; but the infected district should be fre- 

 quently examined, and every shoot that ai)pears 

 instantly decapitated. Where large spaces are 

 covered, the plough must be relied on, but it must 

 be applied in a very different way from what it 

 usually is by our farmers, or ploughing will be an 

 injiM-y instead of a benefit, so far as the thistle is 

 concerned. If the land is intended for wheat, be- 

 gin in the spring, and follow the thistle with the 

 ; plough as often as it appears above the siirtiice, 

 through the summer, or until the time for sowing 

 arrives. One or two of the first ploiighiugs will 

 produce little effect, or rather they will do what 

 ithe common method of ploughing the thistle nsu- 

 jaily does, make them shoot np more vigorously ; 

 I but when the roots begin to feel the effects of ex- 

 jhaustion, ami there are no leaves to supply the 

 j want, the plants will grow fewer and less vigor- 

 jous at each ploughing, until all are dead. If you 

 jhegin with a fielil, do not sjiar« time nor team till 

 jthe work is done ; better to plough the land ten 

 Itimes, than to leave the field not purified, though 

 Ifroni four to seven times is usually effective in de- 

 jstrnying them. 



! Self-interest should induce us all, particularly 

 i'nnd owners and cultivators of the soil, to enter 

 i ipon this work with spirit and [lerseverance, as a 

 |;erlain and rapid decline in tlte price of lands 

 jjverriin with the thistle must ensue. Lands have 

 j)een sold for twenty-five dollars an acre, which, 

 if free from the thistle, would have commanded 

 forty. We should not deem it probable from the 

 iiscertained effects of freipient ploughing up the 

 j-arth, that a great crop of wheat, or any thing 

 ;Ise, could be reasonably expected from land trea- 

 ed so as to subdue the thistle, unless the soil was 

 ery rich and of good depth ; hut the question of 

 single crop should never for a moment be per- 

 iiitted to interfere with any process that promis- 

 s the destruction of the Canada thistle. We mucli 

 loubt whether a town in western or northern N. 

 fork Jias escaped invasion ; and in much the lar- 

 ;est part of this territory, there is scarce u farm 

 pen which it has not obtained a footliold. 



157 



BEES. 



Mr Havvlev, — Sir: As it is customary xvhen 

 otice of a marriage is sent to the jjrinter for in- 

 BrtioUjto accompnny it with a slice or loaf of the 

 ride's cake, I lately took some honey from a bee 

 ive, and I think there is no impropriety in offer- 

 )g a bit of honey to the printer. 'Iherefore I 

 ike the liberty of so doing. I compare the dili- 

 ent editor of a public newspaper, in some mea- 

 Lire, to the industrious honey-bee. By the as- 

 inishing'instinct in the nature of bees, they labor 

 II the day, and gather sweets from every o()ening 

 ower, and other things, and convert it into that 

 elicious article, honey. So the industrious and 

 iligent editor toils day and night, hot or cold, 

 tin or shine ; sometimes perplexed (I conclude) 



select and write such matter as may please 

 lose who patronize his paper ; and it seems to 

 le that sometimes they must hesitate to decide 



what will please, and what will not; and after all 

 the pains taken, and the best possible felections 

 made, there will be a small pack of grnmbli-rs, 

 condemning the i)aper ; — but I have noticed that 

 such characters are very tardy to pay for their 

 paper. 



1 took up a hive of bees nut long since ; the 

 swaim came out in July, and it was about eleven 

 weeks from the time it swarmed. The hive con- 

 tained sixty-three pounds of honey-comb, and all 

 of it, excepting four pounds of dry comb and bee 

 bread, was filled with as nice honey as I ever 

 saw. I do not know it to be au extraordinary 

 yield; but it seemed to be a large quantity for 

 a middling sized swarm to collect in less than 

 three months. I shall now briefly state, in part, 

 the method I pursue in the management of bees. 

 To secm-e and protect the bees from t!ie ravages 

 of the miller or bee-moth, which i»as been so de- 

 structive to them of late years : — Early in the 

 spring before the millers appear, the swarms that 

 I have kept through the winter, are placed on the 

 bare ground. I scrape the ground smooth in a 

 dry place, and there set the hive for the season. 

 When a hive is so situated, the millers do not de- 

 posit any of their eggs, either under or in the hive. 

 In that position the honey is also kept cool, and 

 I never have had any honey-cond) melt down in 

 hot weather, in a hive set on the ground. I have 

 oftentimes, when a swarm catne out, set the hive 

 on the bare ground under the tree where tliey 

 collected, and there let it remain all summer, se- 

 curing it from wet, by placing a piece of hoard 

 over the hive. In the fall, those hives of bees 

 that I design to keep over winter, are put in the 

 bee-house, (Apiary.) It is not inore than twenty- 

 five years since I first saw or heard of the bee 

 enemy, the miller, and for 22 years, or since I 

 have [iractised setting the bi\es on the ground, ] 

 have not lost a swarm, nor received any injury 

 from that mischievous insect. 



In former times, when the bees swarmed, cow- 

 bells, warming pans, fire-shovels and tongs, and 

 any thing else that would make a rattling noise, 

 were put in requisition to stof) them from going 

 off; and when the bees had collected into a bunch, 

 a table must be placed under the lindi, and cov- 

 ered with a clean white cloth. But ever since I 

 have kept bees, I have rattled nothing to prevent 

 them from absconding, nor set a table for them, 

 but whatever the swarm is attached to, I lay it on 

 the ground, and then place the hive, as far as I 

 can, over the bees, and it is seldom that I ever 

 lose a swarm. The greatest curiosity that I ever 

 witnessed in the movement of bees, was several 

 years ago. I had a swarm come off, and it gath- 

 ered on an ajiple tree limb in two bunches, about 

 three feet apart; the limb was cut off and laid on 

 the ground, and a hive fixed partly over the lar- 

 gest p.arcel. The bees, however, seemed not in- 

 clined to enter the hive. Some time in the after- 

 noon, I sat down near by, and watched them, sus- 

 pecting they might rise to go off. They were 

 quite settled down, and but very little movement 

 among them. Of a sudden there were a number 

 of bees, perhaps a hundreil, sallied out from the 

 bunch where I had set the hive. Tliey crept 

 along on the limb with a lively step, to the other 

 bunch. Instantly theie was quite a bustle, and 

 suddenly the queen bee (as it ia called) came out 

 from the bunch, preceded by an escort or front 

 guard of bees, as it appeared ; at the same time, 

 a sufficient number of them filed off to tlie right 



and left by an oblique step, .ns a flank guard; her 

 Majesty pas.sed along, slowly and gracefully on 

 the upper .»ide of the limb, and the bees in the 

 rear, all followed in close column, so the com- 

 mander in chief was escorted in fine style to the 

 hive, passed in, the followers displayed column, 

 (deployed) eniereil the hive in front, and on the 

 right and left side,and within a fi.-w minutes most 

 of the bees were in their new habitation, and out 

 of my sight. j). (j_ 



Soulh Hadlty, Out. 23, 1S37. 



[Hampshire Gazette. 



Smut. — Three years since, hearing much of tlie 

 skinless oats, and believing that if their growth 

 should be fontnl pracricable, they woidd be for 

 many uses, preferable to the common oat, I pro- 

 cured a quart or two of the seed at Albany, sow- 

 ed them on a favorable piece of ground and ob- 

 tained a fair yield of oats of good quality, wi;h 

 the exception that the heads were nothing but 

 smut. Last year ! sowed this product on a well 

 prepared piece of ground, and soon after the heads 

 came out of the sheath, I perceived that a large 

 proportion of the whole was smut. It was gath- 

 ered, but the quantity of sound oats was so small, 

 that I nid not <leem them worth thrashing, and 

 determining to discontinue raising them, I fed 

 them out on the straw to my calves and sheep. — 

 The fi-dd on which the oats were last year sown, 

 was, with the excefition of that piece, in barley, 

 and intended for wheat. The whole ground was 

 manured from the yard, the oat patch and all, and 

 sown with- wlieat of the white fiint kind, and en- 

 tirely fri-c-from smut. The wheat over the whole, 

 was somewhat winter killed ; not worse, howev- 

 er, on the oat ground than elsewhere ; yet when 

 it was eared out, 1 was surprised to find a large 

 part of the growth on that part was smut, and 

 thoiigb now anil then a head may be found on 

 that growing idler the barley, yet the proportion 

 on tlie oat ground is as ten to one. To what 

 cause is this singular residt to be attributed ? Tlie 

 smut wa.s not on the wheat sown ; it must have 

 arisen from some other source. Did the smut of 

 the oats, falling, in such quantities on the ground 

 impregnate the wheat seed, or plants that follow- 

 ed it? — or was the result the natural consjquence 

 of the unfavorable weather of the fall, which in- 

 jured the yiiung wheat materially, or of the wet 

 weather and low temperature of the present sea- 

 son. I incline to the first opinion, and shall find 

 in the occurrence, a new argument against allow- 

 ing the jiresence of smut in any form, unless we 

 intend to suffer serious injury to our crops in con- 

 sequence. — Genesee Far. 



A New Gr.4Pe. — The Buffalo Advertiser says: 

 A new grape has been announced at Rochester, 

 by JMr L. B. Langworthy. It ripens a fortnight 

 earlier than the Isabella, is devoid of pulp and 

 musk, or fox grape flavor, perfectly hardy, a 

 very prolific bearer, and strikes freely from cut- 

 tings. 



The clusters are of good size, pretty closely set, 

 the fruit round, and of a dark purple color, not 

 unlike in size and color to the Munier. They en- 

 dure cold well without dro|)ping from the vines ; 

 in fact, frost renders them particularly sweet, like 

 the fox grape, of which they are probably a hy- 

 brid. Mr Langworthy calls it the Clinton grape. 

 — A". Y. paper. 



