()8 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jax. 15. 



wanted those little ones in the fall, so be fed 

 them to his cows, and they were probably worth 

 .?!5.00 to him. Had they been the real Fottler's 

 Brunswick, he would i)rohably have received 

 S2.5.00 or .?30.(X) for them. I think his estimate 

 of only .?.5.00 on a tine ci-op of Jersey Wakefield 

 cabbage, even in the fall, was very low, for we 

 often raise them for winter cabbages, and nev- 

 er had any to keep better, or give better satis- 

 faction to our customers. But,, of course, we 

 did not get as many pounds of cabbage to the 

 acre. Did our clerk n^ally make a mistake and 

 go to the wrong bag? Well. .s7)r thinks it next 

 to impossible, and I do not see how it /•».• possi- 

 ble. An ounce of seed costs just 20 cents, and 

 the ounce packages are all put up, a lot of them 

 at once. What is to be done? Candidly, I do 

 not know. If I am to pay §<~'5.00 damages to a 

 man who bought only ;iO cents" worth of seed. I 

 think I should prefer to give up the seed busi- 

 ness entirely. I would buy seeds to plant, of 

 course, but 1 should be afraid to offer seeds for 

 sale. I mention this little incident to illustrate 

 why it is that most seedsmen decline to be re- 

 sponsible for the crop. If it were possible that 

 a peculiar state of thi^ soil and weathei- should 

 make Fottler's Brunswick look like Jersey 

 Wakefield. I should say this was the explana- 

 tion of it. I have not had experience enough to 

 know. 



OUR I>IST OF SEEDS FOR 1891. 



You will remember how determined I was to 

 cut the list down. Well. I have cut it down 

 some. I have cut off all our long string of to- 

 matoes but three, and some other things in pro- 

 portion. But the correspondence tliat was 

 brought out in regard to the subject rather dis- 

 couraged me. For instance, I was going to 

 drop Louisville Drumhead cabbage: but this 

 brought a wail from a good friend who had 

 been buying of us for years, who said there 

 was nothing like it for his locality. Last sea- 

 son we tried dropping Early Summer, in order 

 to get rid of so many varieties: but we had 

 more Early Summer plants ordered than al- 

 most any other kind. The biggest and finest 

 cabbages on our grounds were from a few Early 

 Summer plants left ov^er after filling orders. 

 They looked so fine that we just put in a couple 

 of rows, and so it has transpired with other 

 things. We also dropped the White Egg tur- 

 nip in our 18ttO catalogue: but the White Egg 

 was, during this past season, called for all over 

 town, and was the best early turnip we ever 

 raised. Our Experiment Stations have certain- 

 ly done a very wonderful work in weeding out 

 duplicates. Friend Green, in this issue, says 

 that Shoepeg corn is the same thing as Ne IMus 

 Ultra and Banana: and we had some on our 

 grounds that was called, I think. Sugar Cream.* 

 We compared it in looks, and put it on the ta- 

 ble, and it was so near like Shoepeg that cer- 

 tainly there is no reason for cataloguing the 

 two under different names. This makes live 

 different names for one kind of sweet corn. 



The Osage melon was introduced with quite 

 a flourish, and it is really worthy of adoption; 

 but it is now pronounced the same thing as 

 Miller's Cream, which came with an equally 

 great flotirish. and some of the catalogues have 

 described both without any intimation that 

 they are even alike. 



Where are we going to get our seeds the com- 

 ing season ? Well, this also becomes complicat- 

 ed and complex. It would save us a good deal 

 in freight and express if we could buy all or 

 nearly all of one seedsman; but we can't do it. 



*Burpee's catalog-ue is just at hand, and he grives 

 stUl another name to the Shoepeg-; namely, Quaker 

 Sweet. He also pronounces tlie much-lauded Polaris 

 potato the same thing- as the Puritan— u^Ticii;.' 



As I get acquainted with our various seedsmen. 

 I rejoice to see that they are, for the greater 

 part, good, honest, faithful, hard-working men. 

 We find excellent reasons for getting a certain 

 line of one man and a certain line of another, 

 and so on. There are certain seeds we greatly 

 prefer to raise our.selves. Others come from 

 men who. we know by past experience, raise 

 exactly what we want. Some might happen to 

 come from one and some from another. If you 

 wish to intrust your ordeis to me, I will do "the 

 very best I can for you: but I can not, under 

 any consideration, undertake to guarantee that 

 the seeds we furnish will (ilwans give a crop. 



RAISINCi I^ETXrCE IX A (JREEXHOUSE, AXD THE 

 LETTUCE DISEASE. 



I built a small greenhouse, llj<$'x48 feet, last 

 fall, to grow lettuce in, but my first crop is 

 nearly all gone by damping off. I understood 

 that the Grand Rapids lettuce was proof against 

 that fault. There must be something wrong 

 with the treatment I give them. What do you 

 suppose is the matter? Jxo. Major. 



Cokeville. Pa.. Dec. 24. 



[Friend M., for several years back there has 

 been universal trouble in raising lettuce in 

 greenhouses, in just the line you mention. But 

 the Grand Rapids lettuce is so little affected in 

 this way that it has been called rot-]jroof. My 

 opinion is. that it is mainly caused by imper- 

 fect drainage, and too much dampness in the 

 atmosphere. The trouble occurs mostly in De- 

 cember or January, when we have the least 

 sunshine. Sudden drafts of chilly air also — at 

 least at times — have something to do with it. 

 Opening the ventilators so that frosty air may 

 strike directly on the plants will cause them to 

 begin to damj) off', say the next day or two, or 

 three days afterward. Taking the sash off en- 

 tirely when we have a spell of warm \veather 

 seems to do the plants a great deal of good. 

 One kind of dampening off is often caused, evi- 

 dently, by having the plants too close together 

 —say where they are crowded in the seed-bed. 

 I have had the opinion that plenty of air, so as 

 to dry the plants and the soil out, just as they 

 will get dried out between showers outdoors in 

 summei'. might remedy it, and I have wondered 

 whether warming the greenhouse by a blast of 

 heated air might not help to get rid of damp- 

 ness in the winter time. Now, if some of the 

 veterans in growing winter lettuce will tell us 

 more about it, I shall be glad to give them space. 

 When I last visited Peter Henderson he said 

 his neighbor John Hudson, who built six large 

 greenhouses, mostly for lettuce-growing, had 

 been obliged to give it up on account of the 

 dampening-oft' and rot. He could grow rad- 

 ishes, without any trouble: but he could get 

 lettuce only by making hot-beds in the old- 

 fashioned way, in the open air, stripping off 

 sash to give them sun and rain when the 

 weather permitted. You can get a glimpse 

 from the above of what I expect to do with my 

 new-fashioned greenhouse when I get it figur- 

 ed out. I have already ever so many plans, but 

 they cost too much money for theordinary mar- 

 ket-gardener.] 



WHAT IS THE CAUSE OR ORIGIN OF A " SI'ORT " 

 IX VEGETABLES? 



For the last five years I planted but one kind 

 of pumpkin. In 1889 one vine had an entirely 

 different kind from the parent stock, and, being 

 better. I saved seed from the best one to plant 

 in 1890. This year I had at least six or seven 

 distinct varieties from the seed of that one 

 pumpkin, and only one vine from 80 or 90 had 

 fruit like the one "saved from. If I plant seed 



