308 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



Apr. 



a bright side to it, even, as tliere is toalmost 

 every thing else, if you talce it in a bright 

 and iiopeful spirit. If apples are cheap, 

 think of the number of juveniles that re- 

 joice over healthful fruit in the spring of the 

 year. At the time I was telling you how 

 low apples were, I did not say any thing 

 about the price of potatoes, although I 

 thought of it. Potatoes bring readily 20 cts. 

 a pecfc at retail, and the price will very soon 

 be 25 cts., or a dollar a bushel, probably, for 

 there are no potatoes in our town, of any ac- 

 count. I need not tell you that, at these 

 prices, potato-raising is a very profitable 

 business. It is true, that eggs are only 8 cts; 

 but at the same time, butter is from 20 to 2-5 

 cts.; and I have just been informed there is 

 no butter in our town. Do you see the point ? 

 You are to make it your business to fill up 

 these gaps or vacancies. If your crops are 

 nicely cared for, and nicely husbanded for 

 safe keeping, and a scarcity occurs, you will 

 get good prices ; and even these same apples 

 that have been begging customers at cO cts. 

 a bushel may bring a dollar in a few weeks. 

 The roads have been bad, and farmers have 

 been saving their api)lcs for better prices. 

 Pretty soon they will all be gone ; then with 

 the inquiry for them comes a scarcity, and 

 good prices for the lucky ones. Eggs, as a 

 rule, are low in the month of April, and the 

 prudent poultry-keeper should bear this in 

 mind. The turnips will probably soon bring 

 a dollar a bushel, if they can be prevented 

 from growing and becoming pithy, ^'ery 

 likely some of my readers know how to do 

 this better than I do, and may be we raised 

 more turnips for our market last fall than 

 was wise. Last summer, turnips were quite 

 a hobby of mine, and Ave had th.e first in 

 market — yes, the first by several weeks. 

 Shall I tell you what the result was ? Why, 

 we got a dollar a bushel at retail for our 

 whole crop of yellow ruta-baga turnips for 

 table use; so if we overdid the matter a little 

 for turnips in the fall, we hit it exactly in 

 tlie spring. It requires experience and brains 

 to hit these things just right. 



In regard to the price of wheat, the man 

 who has but a few acres of land near a town 

 or city should never think of raising wheat. 

 Nobody ever pays extra for the first wheat 

 that is brought into the market, and the 

 wheat business properly belongs to the great 

 prairie lands of the West. To compete with 

 them would be folly, and it is much the same 

 with corn. You can raise roasting-ears for 

 market, it is true ; but you can not raise 

 corn by the carload at 25 cts. a bushel, un> 



less that is your business. If you can raise 

 potatoes, and have them on the market by 

 the -1th of July, so as to get two or three dol- 

 lars a bushel at retail, of course it will pay 

 you to raise potatoes. 



In regard to poultry. We have sold great 

 numbers of Stoddard's book, entitled "■ An 

 Egg Farm ;" but although I have been wait- 

 ing for, and watching reports anxiously, I 

 have never heard of an establishment that 

 raised eggs on a large scale, so they could 

 sell them at 8 cts. a dozen at a profit. It 

 may be done ; but my impression is, it is a 

 pretty difiicult matter. Shall we give up 

 poulti-y V Surely not ; for every market gar- 

 dener, or every small farmer as well as large 

 farmer, needs poultry to gather up all sorts 

 of waste food that would ordinarily be lost 

 without them. " Gather up the fragments 

 that nothing be lost," is a wise proverb. 

 Last summer we had a hen that was pretty 

 wild, and she was allowed to hatch a brood 

 of Light Brahmas. Well, just as soon as her 

 coop was turned over so she was at liberty, 

 she took those Light Prahmas down to the 

 creek ; and when she got them there she just 

 kept them there. I used to go down morn- 

 ings and see them start out just after sun- 

 rise. How they did enjoy themselves among 

 the corn and squashes, and rambling over 

 the grounds ! Did we feed them ? Not at 

 all. They fed themselves, and benefited our 

 crops greatly. No one knows what those 

 two broods of chickens were worth on our 

 crops down by the creek. They cost noth- 

 ing in the way of attention, nothing in the 

 way of feed. When the old hen weaned 

 them they roosted nights under the maple- 

 tree ; and when it came cold weather I had 

 quite a time to get them to come up to the 

 poultry-house and avail themselves of the 

 advantages of civilization. People saw them 

 as they were passing by ; and before the 

 roosters were full grown I sold them at a 

 dollar apiece, and some of my customers 

 went away chuckling, to think I didn't know 

 any better than to sell them so cheap. The 

 eggs were from a choice strain of Light Brah- 

 mas — that is all. 



Now, every good-sized farm would sup- 

 port quite a large lot of chickens, and the feed 

 in summer need cost nothing ; in fact, you 

 could afford to pay something to have the 

 hens pick it up. Sunday evenings we used 

 to take a walk down by the carp-pond, and 

 it was one of my delights to point out to my 

 wife and children my fiock of Light Brah- 

 mas that " worked for nothing and boarded 

 themselves." Perhaps some of the poultry- 



