1888 



gleani:ngs in bee cultuee. 



587 



fend the interests of any bee-keepers who were 

 not members of the Union before they got into 

 trouble. If, therefore, you are not a member you 

 can not expect assistance should you ever require 

 it. The financial statement submitted by the mana- 

 ger is as follows : 



From .July 1, 1887, to .Juilf .'iO, 1888. 



Balance as per last report $224 2.') 



From 97 members at $1.00 97 00 



From 194 members at $1.25 each 242.50 



$563 75 



Paid S.W. Rich'ssult $100.00 



Paid Z. A. Clark's suit 125.00 



Printing, stamps, .stationery, etc 80.48 



$305.48 



Balance on hand .July 1, 1888 $258.27 



It is now time for the election of new officers, and 

 voting-blanks have been scut out; and we sincere- 

 ly hope that our co-worker, Mr. Newman, will be 

 i-etained as manager, as we have no doubt he will. 



TESTING THE PUKITY OF HONEY BY CHEMICAL 

 ANALYSIS. 



Our good friend of the Bee-Keepers' Magazine, in 

 his July issue, takes us to task pretty vehemently; 

 and I am very glad he has done so, especially as he 

 has put it in such a friendly, good-natured way. 

 May be we are at fault; but before occupying more 

 space with the matter, I .should like to have our 

 State chemists get some hives of bees, and make a 

 careful analysis of the honey these bees gather. 

 The Agricultural College of Michigan has an apiary 

 already; so have some other colleges. Now, if it 

 has not already been done, let them test the honey 

 right from their hives, before they broadly declare 

 the honey found on our markets is adulterated. It 

 has been several times stated that it is an extreme- 

 ly difficult matter to detect adulteration in honey, 

 or, in other words, that expert chemists have pro- 

 nounced samples of real honey, taken from hives 

 in rural districts, adulterated, when nothing of the 

 kind had been done, and when no feed of any kind 

 had been given. 



" PATENT RIGHTS " AND " INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS." 



The Bee-Keepers' Review of July 10, after speak- 

 ing some very kind words for A. I. Koot, says: 



There is no misunderstuading him upon this 

 point, as he says right out and out that he considers 

 the sale of " rights " as "improper," etc. 



Now, dear friends, do not make me out worse 

 than I am. In speaking as strongly as I did against 

 the sale of individual rights on bee-hives, 1 think I 

 have been very careful to say individiuil rights 

 every time. I am sure I have never said any thing 

 to convey the idea that I thought it wrong for an 

 inventor to sell his invention to a manufacturer, 

 the latter, of course, expecting to manufacture the 

 article for sale. And there is a vast difference be- 

 tween a transaction of this kind and the one of ped- 

 dling individual rights on bee-hives, fences, or 

 lightning-rods, among the farmers or others, of the 

 rural population. I did not reply to Mr. Langstroth, 

 because be requested me to make no comment— at 

 least for the time being. And I said nothing, even 

 when he went back and quoted something that ap- 

 peared in Gleanings years ago, in a way that might 

 lead one to suppose that It was sometliing of 

 recent date. I appeal to the readers of G leani.ngs 

 if my advice is not safe and sound. And now / am 

 going to stop talking at present, about patent liee- 

 hives. If it is a bad place to stop, why — then we 

 shallhaveto stop in a bad place. Now, brethren, 

 let us talk about something else, and be good 

 friends. 



TURNIPS IN JUNE. 



Ever since I saw Landreths' mention of their 

 extra-early purple-toji turnip, I have had (juite an 

 ambition to raise them before anybody else had 

 turnips. Now, although I tried it three years, and 

 failed every time, I still stuck to it. Last fall I 

 plowed up a piece of ground, manured it, and sow- 

 ed it to rye, putting in phosphate so as to get a 

 good stand. As it was put in rather late for anoth- 

 er crop, the rye did not make a very good showing, 

 so this spring we gave it a good covering of fine old 

 manure with the manure-spreader. This had the 

 effect of reviving the rye so it covered the ground 

 pretty nicely by the time it was nearly knee-high. 

 Well, we gave it another covering of fine old ma- 

 nure, and then plowed the rye, manure and all, 

 under. After this, with our grain-drill I sowed 

 guano at the rate of about 400 lbs. to the acre. By 

 this time it was about the middle of April, and the 

 turnips were sown in every other drill-mark made 

 by the grain-drill. In about four days they were 

 up; and in a very few days more the ground was 

 green. Some of our small boys were then set to 

 thinning them, so that they should be from four 

 to six inches apart. After they got through the 

 thinning, it looked as if every turnip was killed, 

 and the patch spoiled. But in four days more the 

 ground was covered again ; and before I knew it we 

 had such a wonderful growth of foliage that people 

 began to stop their horses and look at it, and ask if 

 I had gone to raising tobacco. By the middle of 

 June we had beautiful little turnips, as big as a sil- 

 ver dollar. The boys did not thin them quite as 

 much as they ought to have done, and in ten days 

 more the turnips were pushing each other out of 

 the ground because they had not room to get big; 

 and at this date, J uly 13, they are about the size of 

 saucers, and not only cover the ground, but, in 

 many places, they are pushing each other out of 

 the ground, and standing up edgewise, and we 

 have the handsomest turnips we ever saw — enough 

 for the whole town of Medina, and, I am afraid, 

 more than the whole county will use, all on a little 

 patch of ground that I thought would just about 

 furnish us enough for extra-early turnips. You 

 may say that such an amount of fertilizing would 

 give a big crop of any thing, and I guess you are 

 about right; and it is my opinion, dear friends, 

 that it is about the w'ay you want to go to work to 

 get a crop of any thing, and make it pay. 



gPEci^ii piei^cEg. 



DR. martin's TURNIP-SEED, ETC. 



Wk have just received a nice supply of seed, just 

 gathered. It is the Purple-top Strap. Price I.') cts. 

 per ounce; (iO cts. per I lb.: or if 1.00 per lb. At this 

 price the ounces will be prepaid. Pounds and 

 half-pounds, 18 cts. per lb. extra, for bag and post- 

 age. For turther particulars in regard to this seed, 

 and cultivation, see page 304, GLEANi.N(iS for April 

 1. You will remember that friend Martin gives the 

 best time for sowing the seed as the two first weeks 

 in August. We are just now supplying our town 

 with the handsomest and sweetest Purple-top 

 Globe turnips I think 1 ever saw at any season. 

 They were raised in a little patch right beside the 

 extra-early turnips mentioned above. The Purple- 

 top Glolie are not so early, but they are very much 

 sweeter. 



TAKING CARE OK YOUR TIMEPIECES. 



In the couutry, where it is inconvenient to carry 



