;5!J8 



GLEANINGS IN liEE CULTUUE. 



May 



l»e II > ))etter lliaii straw. Farmers used to 

 Hiiv lo mt', " Wliy. your hay will all dry away 

 cut-tiny; it so jfreeii', and tlieii yon lose, a p;ood 

 deal of weight Ity its not Ix-iuK mort; llian 

 two lldids jfrown." Tlu^y forgot that the 

 second crop (!anio ri^lit on as soon as I cut 

 tlie lirst olf, and ma(h', as much j^iovvth in 

 tlic sann^ time, perhaps, as Hk; lirst would if 

 1 had left it standing- If it did dry away a 

 little more, what was left was extra choice, 

 and more than made ii|) in (piality what it 

 lacked ill (piantity. .\l)out th(! first of Au- 

 gust lliH S(M;oiid crop was cut — aliout tlu; 

 time (iilnrs were seciiiing their first one; 

 ;in 1 some years three crops were cut. Ihe 

 last one ah;)Ul the first of Octoher. Souk; 

 laugliiiig was doiihtless dom^ at the town- 

 bred I k-farmer; luit when he began to 



inciease his sto(;k until, instead of nine 

 cows, forty to sixty were in the l)ain in win- 

 ter, it was evident that something was the 

 matter. We do not claim any credit; but 

 numerous mowing-machines are now run- 

 uing as soon, or sooner, than ours. Our 

 ijest farmers who raise wheat strive to get 

 their liaying all done before the; time of 

 Avheat-hiirvest. JJut in traveling over the 

 country, one ;,ees large (piaiitities of grass 

 standing for weeks after it ought to have 

 been cut. Then the farmer feeds grain- 

 bought, «u- of his own raising— with it, to 

 make it young again, or to make it as good 

 as it might have l)eeii alone without grain, 

 if it had been cut at the right time, and 

 ])roperly cured. Prol)al)ly its being more 

 difficult to cure is one reason why all do not 

 cut their grass earlier. It is some more 

 troulde to cure early-cut liay. Usually, the 

 Itetter a thing is, the more it costs. The 

 easiest way is rarely tlie best way. It is 

 easier to sliake apples from tlie tree than to 

 ]):ck them; but it is hardly the best way. 

 It is easier— takes less labor— to stack our 

 hay. and feed the stock around tfie stack; 

 but few faimers, however, can now be found 

 in tills jiart of the country who will advocate 

 the plan. It is easier to let the grass stand 

 until about ripe, and then cut it and follow 

 right up with the rake and get it right in. 

 There is no fussing or bother. One can 

 keep the men riglit at fiard work all the 

 time, and shove the haying right along. I 

 will admit all this; biit when your cows 

 look pinched and unthrirty next spring; 

 when their excrement is almost as hard and 

 dry as a stone; and when the first warm 

 days come along, and you have to begin 

 "shoveling the corn meal into them," and 

 everv now and then have to call in the 

 neighbors to help lift one up; when you 

 liave got a few liides on the fimce, and the 

 milk of your dairy will hardly pay the feed- 

 1)111; then, if you an^ not prejudiced, you 

 ought to begin to "see where you missed 

 it;" to see thtlt the easiest way is not al- 

 ways the best. What was tlu; trouble ? 

 Why. you had, for one thing, let your grass 

 stand until it had lost one-half of its value; 

 then you expected your cows to return you 

 full value oil it, but you couldn't cheat na- 

 ture. The effect follows the cause ; and for 

 every dollar you saved in trouble at haying 

 time, you may liave lost five. This you liave 

 a perfect ri^ht to do, if you can stand such 



business; but have you any right to half 



starve those Y)oor cows ? Think of the suf- 

 fV'ring they endured, which you could liave 

 prevented if you had (;iit that grass at the 

 right time; and then yon would like, would 

 you not, to see those cows all on their feet, 

 strong and healthy, the hides all animated 

 once more, their manure thin and healtfiy, 

 as in summer time, and a good flow of milk 

 coming from tliem without feeding them 

 much grain V Wouldn't your jirospect for 

 milk tills summer be much lictter than now V 

 Will you think of this, and hire an extra 

 hand, and begin your haying early another 

 year, and get it all secured, if possil)le, l)e- 

 fore wheat-harvest V Your cows will thank 

 you, and you will b;'gin to have more faith in 

 th(^ stories you liear of dairymen who make 

 SiiO.OO or $70. 00 from a cow in a single sea- 

 son. 



yVnother reason why hay is often left to 

 stand too long is, that the farmer has too 

 many irons in the fire, or too much to do. 

 Ills farming is not properly arranged so as 

 to prevent clashing. The farmer who under- 

 takes too much often loses by it. Home crop 

 must suifer. If tli<! hay can be secured be- 

 fore wheat-harvest, well and good; you can 

 raise wheat and not have any clashing. If 

 a part of it has to stand ov(!r for two weeks 

 while you are cutting and getting in your 

 wlii^at, you may lose as much on the hay as 

 you make on the wheat. 



MY REPORT FOR 1885. 



IS Tins A OOOU LOCALITY KOH HONEY? WHAT 

 SI7.K OF SECTION IS IIEST? 



fHK lust season horo was nKain short; at feast, 

 we call it short. Dooiittle would not thinlt 

 four or five weeks of good honey-How very 

 short, esllmatcd l>y his e.vporicncn of a good 

 yield. Tlie wliltc-clover liarvcst lasted alioiit 

 five weel<s, but it always takes lices here a week to 

 get started, so they stored all their surplus, I might 

 say, in four weeks. In that tinier I got 40 to .50 lbs. 

 from my strongest eoloiiies, togettier with a swarm. 

 After July 4th nothing was done, except that a few 

 managed to fill out a few sections already nearly 

 full. This is nothing to compare with Mr. Doolittle's 

 reports for 1HS.5; yet, so far as my experience goes,' 

 bees gathered honey as fast during June as they 

 ever do. ft was evidently drought that cut short 

 the wfiite-clover harvest. Later in ttie season tlieio 

 was a great deal of lutart's-ease, and the fields were 

 y(!llow with Spanish needles; yet I did not secui'c 

 :iO lbs. of honey from these flowers; and what I did 

 get was stored in empty combs. They stored in the 

 brood ch am tKM- enough to keep (iO stands until the 

 last of April, I think, but I shall have to feed some 

 to carry them till clover season, unless fruit-bloom 

 yields a great deal more than it has of late years. 

 This later season was not too dry; the blossoms 

 oujiht to have yielded honey. Why they did not, no 

 one here seems able to toil. 



TIIK SUMMINOIII'. 



I started into summer with 45 stands, which would 

 havi- made about ;iO good ones. I increased tp 75 l)y 

 natural and artificial swarming and uiiitingr, l)esides 

 a few swarms 1 lost. I obtained 9(J0 lbs. of comb 

 honey; onctcnth of it, perhaps, not very well filled 

 out, and 4(K) lbs. of extracted, all from Avhlte clover, 



