1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



301 



Our tinner says these feeders can be sold 

 for 35 cents. If some of our large stamped- 

 ware establishmenis would make them, and 

 have them dipped in melted tin, so as to fill 

 the crevices and prevent rust, it would be a 

 beautiful arrangement to put on the market. 



In gardening and small-fruit raising, it is 

 just as important that the work be done de- 

 cently and in order. • Just one illustration. 

 It is so much the custom to set currant-bush- 

 es up by the fence somewhere that the word 

 " currants" has become suggestive of some 

 disorderly corner by the pigpen, probably 

 filled with rubbish, heaps of ashes, brush, 

 old boots and slioes., etc. Now, the currant 

 is a beautiful fruit, and there has neverbeen 

 a time since we have been running our 

 market- wagon when we could not dispose of 

 currants at good prices— all that we could 

 get hold of. I do not know that I ever saw 

 a currant-plantation laid out and kept de- 

 cently and in order ; but I have one of my 

 own where the cherry currants are set out 

 like an apple-orchard. There are five rows, 

 and about twenty-five bushes in a row. They 

 are far enough apart so that one can readily 

 walk all around each bush, no matter if they 

 get to be as large as the currant-l)ushes 

 used to be in grandfather's garden. They 

 were put out only a year ago, so tliey have 

 not made much growth yet. The rows are 

 seven feet apart, and between each two rows 

 we have a row of Jessie strawberries. This 

 6th day of April, almost every bush has new 

 shoots an inch or more in length, and the 

 sight of my little ciu-rant-orchard made me 

 feel so happy this morning when I was out 

 among them that I have been happy all day. 



Now, after you get your currants, rasp- 

 berries, strawberries, etc., set out, and bear- 

 ing nice crops, unless you do your work 

 decently and in order you will not be happy 

 then. In setting the average boys and girls 

 to picking strawberries and raspberries, I 

 have had about as much annoyance and 

 perplexity as in any other one thing. Every 

 season more or less boxes of berries have 

 been left out in the sun or rain until they 

 were spoiled. Our young friends w^ould get 

 so much excited about making money fast 

 when the berries were thick and large, that 

 they would lose their berries, tip them over, 

 or step on them, and some of them would 

 come to me, saying they did not have pay 

 for all they picked. Sometimes the pickers 

 would quarrel. Any of these troubles indi- 

 cate a want of the spirit of our text. One 

 great trouble is to know what to do with the 

 boxes of berries when they are picked. For 



selling them around town from the market- 

 wagon, the arrangement shown below is the 

 best of any thing I have seen. 



A BASKET OF BOXES FOR STRAWBERKIES. 



The above basket holds two tiers of quart 

 boxes, and there are eight boxes in a tier. 

 When the pickers go into the field, each one 

 is to get as many baskets of empty boxes as 

 he will probably need. As fast as they pick 

 them, they are placed back in the baskets. 

 When they are done, all incomplete baskets 

 are filled out with the empty boxes remain- 

 ing, so that, when the work is done, each 

 basket is as full and complete as it was when 

 they started out into the field. When they 

 are delivered at the fruit-house, each one re- 

 ceives credit for what he has picked. If any 

 boxes have been lost or left in the patch, 

 there will be a vacancy in the basket ; and 

 this vacancy is supposed to be occasioned by 

 losing a box of berries. The picker must 

 then hunt it up or pay for it. A great many 

 other systems have been given, I know ; but 

 this pleases us best of all. It insures the 

 work being done decently and in order. 



What is more unsightly in a garden than 

 to see vegetables eaten up and disfigured by 

 insect-enemies? I have sometimes thought 

 I would give considerable to see a cabbage 

 without a blemish or spot on a single leaf. 

 Leaves eaten into shreds and strings, or 

 even punctured with holes, always make 

 me feel despondent and dismal ; and every 

 hole that is made by a worm or insect in a 

 cabbage-leaf is more or less a damage to the 

 cabbage. The inventive genius of mankind 

 is just now making greater strides in suc- 

 cessfully fighting insect-foes than ever be- 

 fore. Convenient bellows for dusting the 

 poison not only on cabbage, but trees, are 

 now in common use ; and if these imple- 

 ments are used just as soon as an insect 

 makes his appearance, and the practice is 

 followed up, we can have beautiful fruits 

 and vegetables. Toward the close of our 

 last chapter I made meution of the Wooda- 

 son bellows, for blowing sand on the paint 

 used to fasten the glass in sash. The same 

 implement is used for destroying insects by 

 means of slug-shot, pyrethrum, or other dry 

 powders. 



