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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Dec. 25, 1902. 



raised alfalfa successfully for many years without irrig-a- 

 ting. He has found that alfalfa is able to resist drouth bet- 

 ter than many other crops, and gets three cuttings nearly 

 every year. I also find that alfalfa is raised in many parts 

 of the West, without irrigation. I have also seen one little 

 patch near here which stands the winter well, but does not 

 seem to flourish as it should. Something seems to be lack- 

 ing, which is no doubt the bacteria spoken of in Bulletin 

 No. 76 of the Illinois Experiment Station. It is on high 

 land, not very rich. 



I have talked with mj- neighbors, many of whom are 

 cattle-raisers, and all agree that alfalfa would be a fine 

 thing here if we could grow it successfully. All seem 

 anxious to try it, and I have agreed to furnish them 1 to 5 

 pounds of seed each at 25 cents per pound. I shall also try 

 a patch myself. I shall send to my uncle for infected soil 

 from a successful alfalfa field, and furnish some free to my 

 neighbors so as to enable them to get their soil inoculated 

 with the necessary bacteria. If I manage this plan properly, 

 1 see no reason why I should not be able, in time, to find 

 myself surrounded by alfalfa fields, as my neighbors are as 

 eager to try the experiment as I am to have them, as it 

 would be a great advantage to stock-raisers. Any one in 

 Illinois, or the Eastern States, could try this matter for 

 himself with but little expense ; but he must persevere if he 

 wishes to succeed, as in other enterprises. 



I think the reason alfalfa has not been thoroughly tested 

 in the East is because we can raise many other forage crops 

 successfully. This they cannot do in the far West, and 

 therefore they have persevered because of necessity, and 

 have succeeded. No doubt any field of alfalfa would finally 

 develop this same bacteria, or germs, in time, but by inocu- 

 lating the soil from other fields we can hasten the matter 

 very much. On my own patch I shall sow infected soil, 

 and use either manure or commercial fertilizer. 



Now as to the honey : Alfalfa is a species of clover, and 

 very closely related to sweet clover, and I have always 

 found that sweet clover produces honey in dry weather, if 

 not too cool, but will sometimes fail in extreme wet weather, 

 and that is also more or less the nature of all clovers. 

 Alfalfa has roots that penetrate the earth deeper than any 

 other clover ; so, judging from other clovers, it ought to 

 produce as well, or better, than in the West. 



From both observation and what I can learn by corres- 

 pondence, I shall follow these directions : Sow on ground 

 well drained, not on low, wet soil. The soil should be clean 

 from weed-seeds, and be made very rich, but avoid any very 

 strawy manure. 



If I do not get a good catch the first year I will sow 

 again on the same ground, and furnish seed for neighbors 

 to sow again, if not successful the first time. Even a small 

 amount of infected soil scattered over the patch would no 

 doubt give good results in time, if the ground is made very 

 rich. Knox Co., 111. 



^ The Afterthought. * i 



Tbe "Old Reliable" jcen through New and Unreliable Qlassea. 

 By E. e. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



UNITING A LAYING WORKER COLONY WITH A NUCLBUS. 



If I understand correctly Mr. Baldwins' way of getting 

 something out of a laying-worker colony, it is simply to 

 unite it with a nucleus. Yes, that plan seems to be calcu- 

 lated to save whatever of value there is to save. On the 

 other side of the balance-sheet is the risk of getting a queen 

 killed; and, in fact, the existence of her little colony is put 

 at stake also. Six trials and success every time is a good 

 showing, surely. Page 699. 



NAMES FOR VARIOUS FORMS OF HONEY. 



Perhaps it would be nice if we could adopt Mr. Gary's 

 three terms — " section honey, " "comb honey," and "ex- 

 tracted honey" — as per page 700, but practically it is not 

 possible. "Comb honey" has been so long used, and so 

 often used, as an alternate term for section honey that if 

 we start in to use it for something else we shall for years 

 have a large share of our hearers and readers misunderstand- 

 ing us. The term " chunk honey " has the merit that it 

 goes right to the spot, and it is not to be misunderstood ; 



but confessedly it doesn't sound altogether alluring. Those 

 who produce the article are entitled to have a name that 

 doesn't insult their product, if they can discover and intro- 

 duce such a name. I believe the terms "bulk comb" and 

 " bulk honey " have been used to some extent. Those terms 

 rather convey the idea of large quantity. What's wanted is 

 a term that will fit a pound or a thousand pounds equally 

 well. 



SUCCESS WITH ALFALFA DEPENDS ON SOIL. 



" It beats the bugs 1 " Now it's not soil, nor climate, 

 nor irrigation, nor longitude, that forbids the growing of 

 alfalfa in our Central States, but lack of the proper miscro- 

 scopic bug in the soil. And you can introduce him by tak- 

 ing a ton of the soil he inhabits and applying it to an acre 

 — and then all will be lovely. And it's not Mark Twain, 

 nor a newspaper columnist, nor your humble servant, that 

 says this, but the Illinois Experimental Station. Page 709. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH PKAR-BLIGHT. 



False reports of important experiments — 



" What turpitude of art 

 .Can fitly barb the dart — " 



which is needed to transfix them ? Where shall we be if 

 that sort of thing is tolerated and allowed to spread ? Ac- 

 cording to page 709, the facts about pear-tree screened under 

 netting were that there was /ess blight than outside — re- 

 ported free from blight — but no more pears than outside — 

 reported full burden of fruit. That is, the netting was some 

 defense against blight, either by keeping off insects or 

 otherwise, but also hinders fertilization enough to about 

 even the thing up, so far as fruit is concerned. I do not 

 understand that it was any paid scientist in State or Na- 

 tional employ that made the false reports. 



" OUR SISTERS." 



"Our Bee-Keeping Sisters," eh? Well, they do say 

 that " right smart " of bee-men are bachelors ; and I venture 

 the timid conjecture that now and then one has had a — 

 somebody — offer to be a " sister " to him before. Page 713. 



STYLES OF QUEENS — AND OUEBN-REARING. 



Abbott E. Swinson's paper, page 716, gets in some live 

 ideas. Two styles of shape in laying queens, the beauti- 

 fully tapering kind, and the less tapering kind. Former 

 the best, but latter often decidedly the largest. I think lack 

 of taper and extra size in a queen are occasionally symp- 

 toms of disease. If so, we should not expect diseased queens 

 to be as good as healthy ones ; but, apart from this, quite 

 possibly Mr. S. is on track of an interesting and valuable 

 fact. 



To remove a queen-larva which swims in a very abun- 

 dant supply of food and put in a much younger one, is a 

 promising experiment. I feel interested in his experience, 

 that the resulting queen is extra large, but not valuable. A 

 calf two days old is best on the milk of a cow only two days 

 in milk, rather than on the milk of one a month progressed 

 in milking ; and something analogous to this may affect 

 the above experiment just a little. 



MOVING BEES ON A HAND-SLED. 



Fifty miles travel with a hand-sled is what George 

 Hodges had if we accept the text on page 717. Must send 

 him to try for the North Pole. Text doubtless has some mis- 

 take in it — 200 rods too long for a field, exeept on the plains. 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is made to take all the 

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 thought by some to be the best bee-song yet written by Mr. 

 Secor and Dr. Miller. It is, indeed, a " hummer." We can 

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