704 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



them, and use the small ones, or sell as No. 2, same 

 as with apples. I got this year 15 cents at whole- 

 sale and a team came one mile to the house and got 

 them. 



Mulch is indispensable for strawberries; and a 

 good rule is, put on enough to just hide the plants; 

 and while some say apply it when the soil is well 

 frozen, 7 saj% as soon as hard frosts appear, or be- 

 fore the leaves are cut badly by it. The greener 

 the leaves are kept, the better the result. Instead 

 of removing this mulch I just work among it with a 

 little sharp hoc; and, my word for it, it will pay 

 three times all the bother. We need care as to 

 mulch. If we use late-cut hay we shall have lots of 

 gra^8 and weeds. Straw is good; and if piled up 

 ahead, and decayed a little it will work better in 

 hoeing. 



1 wish to urge one point: Where you have not 

 many stones, you don't know how much easier you 

 can work, if you have not kept a file in the field to 

 sharpen the hoe often with. Try it. If the hoe 

 stands out much, sharpen mostly on the outside; 

 if not, the inside. Keep it thin, also, or on a wide 

 bevel. A little scuttle hoe is far better than a com- 

 mon one for many uses. 



I find it is best not to get soil on the leaves while 

 wet. 



Why I say more of the Crescent than of the AVil- 

 son is, the former is the pistillate sort, and the lat- 

 ter is perfect. The cross is one of the best. The 

 Crescent is the rankest grower of any, and the 

 freest from rust, and one of the firmest and best to 

 hull. 



ABOUT BEES. 



Just a word. I have been for a long time trying 

 to get rid of so much sticking and snapping of hives 

 and cases where they come together. I keep a piece 

 of chalk around with me in the bee-yard. Just rub 

 it on the edges where they come together, and it is 

 grand; or one can use whiting, with a paint-brush. 

 Many.queens are balled and killed by these sudden 

 shocks, yet we think but little about it and wonder 

 why so many queens]fail. 



I love the garden and all of God's gifts. 



Hallowell, Me., Aug. 33, 1888. E. P. Churchill. 



Thanks for your hints, friend C. I am 

 afraid, however, if we should try to put all 

 the little plants close by the parent plants, 

 as you suggest, there would be altogether 

 too many in one place during the fore part 

 of the season. Where we wish to get plants 

 for sale, and for our own use, we set our 

 strawberries in rows 8 feet apart and 18 

 inches apart in the row. As we are in a hur- 

 ry to get little plants, we take the runners 

 as they come out, and spread them out like 

 the spokes of a wheel, laying a lump of dirt 

 on each runner as soon as it commences to 

 start a little plant. At this date, September 

 12, the ground between the rows (in rows 

 three feet wide) is a perfect swamp of great 

 stiong healthy plants. In fact, they are so 

 close together we can hardly set our trans- 

 planting-tubes over them without getting 

 more than one inside of the tube. Plants 

 tliat were taken up a month ago with the 

 transplanting-tubes have now sent out run- 

 ners that have already rooted sufficiently to 

 make strong healthy plants. Could tliis be 

 accomplished by any other method tlian by 

 tlie use of the transplanting-tubes? With a 

 strong-growing plant like the Sharpless or 



the Jessie, I believe I could, from one plant, 

 produce a thousand in a single season. If 

 somebody has a very valuable, high-priced 

 strawberry that he would like to have mul- 

 tiplied rapidly, I should like to try my hand 

 at it with the transplanting-tubes. Give 

 me one strong healthy plant in the spring, 

 and I think I can make it cover pretty well 

 a quarter of an acre in one season, especial- 

 ly if we have such abundant rains as we 

 have had during the present season. 



In regard to the use of hoes, we have 

 found the scuffle hoe a very great help, and 

 we also think a great deal of what we call 

 the six-tooth rake hoe. See cut adjoining. 

 For loosening the ground, M'e 

 use the rake side ; but for cut^ 

 ting up weeds we turn the oth- 

 er. It has a thin steel blade, 

 made very sharp, and so nar- 

 row that the dirt readily slides 

 right over it, much as it does 

 with the scuffle hoe. The labor 

 of using it is much less, and 

 you avoid moving the dirt when 

 "you do not want it moved, as is 

 the case with the common hoe. 

 Sometimes our men go out into 

 the fields with the old-fashion- 

 ed hoe, instead of these new 

 light rake hoes ; and I have oft- 

 en thought that using the 

 wrong tool for one single day 

 results in a loss of nearly half 

 the cost of the rake hoe. These 

 latter can now be bought for .50 

 cents, all made of finely tem- 

 pered steel. By all means keep 

 your tools sharp, friend C. — In 

 regard to mulch, I entirely 

 agree with you, that the more 

 green leaves we can keep on 

 our plants over winter, the 

 further along they will be in 

 the spring, lie careful, how- 

 ever, that your mulch contain 

 no weed seeds. Clean oat straw 

 is safest with us. If any grains of oats are 

 left in the straw, the frost kills them before 

 they can do much harm. 



TURNIPS THAT CAN STAND OUTDOORS ALL WINTER, 



ETC. 



Friend Root:~I see you are in the turnip-growing 

 and seed business. I, too, do a little at it; and as it 

 is now turnip-planting time, 1 send you a few seeds 

 of the best turnip I ever saw or grew, your purple- 

 top not excepied. They are the Southern Prize, 

 originated by a cross between the White Norfolk 

 Globe and Seven-top. They grow two-thirds in the 

 ground, and are the only turnip that will remain all 

 winter in the ground, j/cowuifif without freezing, here 

 with us. I want you to plant these seeds and report 

 on them. I saved 40 pounds of seed this spring 

 from a little patch, and I am preparing to plant one 

 acre next week in these turnips. 



RYE AS A MANURE. 



When plowed undergreen,this has proved a verita- 

 ble failure with me. I sowed ten acres of it last De- 

 cember,and plowed it in when just prejiaringtohead, 

 and planted it mostly in corn with about one acre 

 of the rye ground in cotton. On land that had no 

 rye plowed in, the corn is much the best, right by 



