106 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1. 



with those who profess to have great secrets to 

 sell for a cenain stim of money. 



John Flatten, Universal Farmer, Fort How- 

 ard, Wis.. Is the man who professes to be so 

 abundantly able to teach agriculture to the 

 present age. If the Agricultural Experiment 

 Station of Wisconsin has not already tried to 

 teach our friend that wheat never turns tochers, 

 even during a wet season, perhaps they had 

 better take him in hand. Although this little 

 book costs so much money for a few small pages 

 of matter, yet the Professor finds space in it for 

 "swear words," and that, too, when he is un- 

 dertaking to teach a class of children. 



SOME NEW TRANSPLANTING MACHINERY. 



Till recently we have used iron frames cover 

 ed with poultry-netting, tnostly, for putting out 

 celery, cabbage, and other small plants. A 

 year ago we substituted notched boards for 

 plants further apart. The notched boards do 

 the business all right, but they are rather too 

 slow, and they do not make a hole in the ground 

 right where the plant is to be put. The poul- 

 try-netting frame is open to the last objection; 

 and where two or more are at work with one 

 frame, there is confusion and delay in moving 

 the bars the boys use to sit on while doing their 

 work. 



The arrangements figured bilow enable us to 

 work faster than any thing else we have yet 

 used. Sticks with wooden pegs on at fixed dis- 

 tances are largely in use in the South for trans- 

 planting tomato-plants, and we have Illustrated 

 these in the tomato bnok. The objection is, 

 they make but one row of holes at a time, and 



FIG. 1. 



SPACING -BOARDS. 



they also bother about dirt sticking to the 

 wood. Forsome time I have been thinking of 

 something made of glass or porcelain. The 

 stopper of a vinegar-bottle (beg pardon for the 

 illustration) answered very well, but they were 

 expensive, and not easy to fasfn in a board. 

 Finally I found on our counters a little white 

 glass drawer-pull. These can be put on with a 



screw; and by turning them upside down they 

 make a nice imprint in the soil, and the dirt 

 sticKS to them very little. In the cuts below, 

 at A you see one of these knobs screwed fast to 

 a stick. 



In Fig. 1 we have a board 6 inches wide and 

 5>^ feet long. This is just right to mark out a 

 bed covered by ordinary 6-foot sash. There arc 

 3 rows of the knobs. They are spaced so that 

 each one is the center of 6 others at equal dis- 

 tances from those around it, and they stand just 

 3 inches from each knob, froiu center to center. 



Fig. 2 is a similar board for knobs just? inches 

 apart from center to center; while Fig. 3 marks 

 out the places 13 inch(>s apart. We use Fig. 1 

 for transplanting radishes, cabbage, cauliflow- 

 er, celery, onions, onion-sets, peppers, and to- 

 matoes. We also use them for lettuce where 

 it is twice transplanted. 



Fig. 2 is used for transplanting all the above 

 where they are tivice transplanted. It is just 

 right for (irand Rapids lettuce where it is ma- 

 ture — 7 inches apart from center to center. It is 

 exactly right for extra large cabbage, beets^ 

 celery, peppers, and tomatoes; also for spinach 

 when grown under glass. 



No. 3 is right for wax beans under glass; ex- 

 tra large cabbage- plants; celery to be banked 

 up by putting boards between the plants while 

 putting in the dirt; corn grown under glass; 

 cucumbers; extra large Grand Rapids lettuce; 

 melons; peppers under glass; potatoes ditto; 

 spinach, for extra large; squashes: and toma- 

 toes where you raise plants that bring a nickel 

 apiece. It is exactly the thing for strawberries, 

 while bearing in the plant-beds, or where you 

 force them under glass in order to get runners 

 extra early. In fact, you can get a crop of al- 

 most any thing by putting them a foot apart 

 from center to center, except vines that run. Of 

 course, to do this the ground has to be very 

 heavily fertilized. We have had considerable 

 crops of extra early corn when put in our plant- 

 beds exactly a foot apart from C(mter to center. 

 I should have said that No. 2 was designed es- 

 pecially for the new celery culture, where the 

 bleaching has to be done without banking. If 

 you do not find the knobs at your hardware 

 store we can furnish them in quarter-gross 

 packages at 40 cts. per package. 



In using the spacing-boards there should be a 

 boy at each side of the bed. The ground is 

 nicely prepared by spading or forking; then the 

 soil is sifted through a sieve such as I have de- 

 scribed, putting the coarse portions and the- 

 coarse manure at the bottom. The fine clean, 

 soil is then leveled with a rake, then patted 

 down evenly with the back of either boards 1 or 

 2. When the surface is as smooth and level as 

 a planed board, you are ready to mark out the 

 place for the plants. The two boys, one on each 

 side of the bed, take hold of the board and 

 press it into the soil the full length of the 

 knobs; then lift it out carefully, and move it 

 over until one of the knobs goes into the last 

 row of holes, and then move right along, and' 

 the whole bed is very quickly spaced, and the- 

 holes made for the plants. With a bundle of 

 plants in one hand they can b(! di'opped and 

 pressed in with the pojnt of the finger faster 

 than yoti would believe unless you had seen it- 

 tried. All the covering needed for most plants 

 is to give the bed a thorough drenching with 

 the sprinkler, or a hose with a sprinkler on its 

 end. Settle the dirt thoroughly around the new 

 plants. If your plants are taken up right,, 

 quite a lump of rich soil will adhere to the roots.^ 

 This lump of soil will drop right into the hole 

 made by the knobs. Not one in a thousand 

 should fail to grow if every thing is right; and 

 the appearance of a plant bed with the ground 

 thoroughly covered, and no vacancies, the 



