656 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



more blessings. The extract I wanted to 

 take from the American Garden is as follows. 

 Perhaps it will make you smile a little to see 

 how much it sounds like the talk that friend 

 Terry and I have been giving you for a year 

 or two back. 



BY-PRODUCTS. 



In every home-lot garden there are by-products, 

 some worth money, others no money can buy. 

 There are early peas. The peas are the direct crop, 

 the empty pea-vines are the by-crop. Turnip-tops, 

 radish-tops, pea-pods, bean-vines, potato-tops, — all 

 these parts of our garden-plants that can not be eat- 

 en are by-crops worth real money. You can't ex- 

 actly sell them in the market, but you can sell them 

 to yourself by burying them as fast as they gather. 

 In this way they become fertilizers, and save money 

 in the manure-bill, and add money by increasing 

 future crops. In my own little home lot, every 

 thing, including all the waste from the kitchen, is 

 buried in the soil every day. In this way not only 

 is the troublesome "garbage question" settled, but 

 the place is kept neat, sweet, and clean at all times. 

 From a series of experiments I find that ordinary 

 kitchen waste disappears and turns into good soil in 

 about a week after it is buried in the ground. Thus 

 a troublesome domestic by-product is sold to the 

 garden, together with all the by-crops, from cabbage- 

 leaves to onion-tops. It pays to keep a home lot, if 

 for no other purpose than a bank in which to deposit 

 unsalable by-products -a bank, too, that pays good 

 dividends. 



One of the most profitable by-crops in my home 

 lot is red blood, which stands for good health. No 

 "hundred doses for a dollar" for me, thank you I 

 Does a cheerful headache rage by reason of much 

 labor at a desk ? Give me a hoe. It is the very staff 

 of life. The garden is the cemetery for headaches. 

 What if there be weariness of flesh after half a day 

 in the cabbage-rows ? It's only another name for a 

 gorgeous appetite and a big sleep, and a feeling 

 next day that the general universe has been made 

 over new. The onlj- way to treat illness is to nip it 

 in the bud. A slight indisposition may be the seed 

 of your very worst kind of a scrimmage with dis- 

 ease. Pure air, sunshine, labor with the hands on 

 the ground, will in many a case blast the bud of 

 sickness, and by filling the veins with good red blood 

 save weeks of pain and long bills from the doctor 

 and apothecary. Having been more or less of an 

 invalid all my life, 1 know fi-om actual positive ex- 

 perience that my home lot has this very year of 

 grace turned in a by-product that, while it can not 

 be measured in money, outweighs in value the en- 

 tire first product of my garden patch. If there be 

 any among you who rest in the shadow of imjiend- 

 ing illness, (and who does not '?) let him excuse this 

 preachment, for it is borne in upon me that good 

 health is the greatest crop dug out of the ground. 

 What if, by reason of mistakes, the home lot does 

 not pay ? This by-product will correct your ledger. 



In speaking of this matter of by-products, 

 I want to touch upon a subject that I have 

 mentioned several times before. I mean 

 the out-buildings adjoining our homes. 

 During the two dry seasons of '86 and '87, 

 the plan I described in the " New Agricul- 

 ture " has worked very well ; but this year, 

 when tlie ground has been soaked with water 

 all summer long, even during this present 

 month of August, it has not worked so well. 

 The crops over the covered reservoirs have 

 done splendidly ; but my good wife has ob- 

 jected most enipliatically to the bad odor 

 around our out l)uilding; and during the hot 

 July weat her it became so bad tliat it was 

 evident something must be done. Ashes 

 were thrown over the oifensive matter, but 

 that sent up great volumes of ammonia, 

 which discolored the woodwork of the build- 

 ing, and nuide additional cleaning and scrub- 

 bing for the women-folks. Business was 

 hurrying, and the liorses were busy, so the 

 matter was put off longer than it should 

 have been, until my wife really felt like stir- 



ring up a civil war. To avert such a calam- 

 ity, I dispatched the big wagon, with tlie 

 top box on, to the peat, swamp, for a great 

 load of soft spongy peat, or muck. It was 

 heaped up against the out-building, near the 

 door. Then the whole interior of the vault 

 was covered with several inches of the peat. 

 This sort of peat, or muck, can be found in 

 any swam})-hole in most localities. It dries 

 out very quickly, and, when dry, is as light 

 to handle as sawdust, or more so, and will 

 absorl) vast quantities of any liquid. The 

 effect was magical. The bad odor was gone 

 instantly, and now we keep a light tin pail 

 full of peat, with a small flre-shovel in it, 

 right convenient in the out-building, and the 

 whole arrangement so commends itself to 

 every member of the family, that there is 

 now nothing offensive to sight or smell at 

 any time. And what can be nicer for the 

 garden than this peat, or muck, after it has 

 served its ofticeV Now, then, if any of us 

 have not very much to do, let us see to our 

 out-buildings. You can certainly tind some 

 of this peaty ground near by your homes. 

 Pile it in a heap close by the door of your 

 out-building, and the sun and air will al- 

 ways keep tlie surface dry enough to handle 

 nicely. Teach the children habits of neat- 

 ness and siveetness in their youth, and when 

 they grow up they will carry those habits 

 along with them. When our good friend 

 Ivar S. Young came from Norway to pay us 

 a visit, lie said he expected to lind something 

 progressive here in America in the way of 

 out buildings, but he was a good deal disap- 

 pointed. I should like to show him now just 

 how the peat works, and 1 think he would 

 not be disapj)ointed any more. If you have 

 a bit of ground where you raise vegetables, 

 fruits, or flowers, the enhanced condition of 

 these products will amply repay all trouble 

 from collecting the peat. 



If we are going to claim the promise of our 

 opening text we must keep clean our spirit- 

 ual natures as well as the physical. Only 

 last week a well-dressed young man came 

 into our town with a horse and buggy, drove 

 up into the business part of the village, and 

 announced that he was going to sell some 

 jewelry. Nobody paid very much attention 

 to him, for Jew peddlers are rather at a dis- 

 count in our community. He held up some 

 sleeve-buttons which he claimed were worth 

 a dollar and a half. Some of the bystanders 

 perhaps smiled at his innocence in thinking 

 that anybody was going to buy sleeve-buttons 

 of him at any price. lie came down rapidly 

 in price, and 1 believe he finally sold a pair 

 for 25 cents. He then desired the customer 

 to stand near by and not go away. This 

 singular request attracted attention. When 

 he had sold three or four more pair he gave 

 each purchaser half a dollar as a reward for 

 helping him to start a trade. My friends, 

 what do you suppose the effect was V The 

 aspect of affairs changed immediately. Peo- 

 ple crowded in from every direction, wide 

 awake and full of enthusiasm at the prospect 

 of getting something for nothing. Our friend 

 explained that he did not expect to do much 

 Inisiness till evening, and that he proposed 

 to give away some money by way of an ad- 

 vertisement, to start the evening's business, 



