1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



501 



fesspcl at the very eai'liest moment. But he was 

 crazy and foolish. So is every one foolisli and 

 crazy wlio gets into the toils of Satan. Almost 

 every one who commits crime loses his good 

 common sense, and insists that lie can not stay 

 at home and live it down. Although it is the 

 blackest lie that Satan ever gotuj). poor human- 

 ity insists on listening to Satan and not to good 

 common sense. Perhaps friend Mason wcmld 

 not he (illowed to set foot again in his own 

 home. Well, even if this be true he should 

 make the attempt, and do the best he can to undo 

 the mischief. It takes only a little while, com- 

 paratively, for the worst criminal to regain the 

 conlidence of the friends he has lost, and tore- 

 gain the confidence of the whole world. I have 

 sometimes thought that mankind are only too 

 ready to for-get and to forgive, and to take back 

 every truly penitent sinner. The tirst requisite, 

 however, to being thus taken back, is to own np 

 and confess. An attempt to evade or slip out, 

 or to make believe that the thing is not so very 

 bad after all. does not answer. A discriminat- 

 ing public detects the difference between true 

 penitence and make believe, with a keen and 

 unerring judgment. 



I w(>ll know, however, how loth those who 

 hav<' fallen into crime ar'e to believe what I say. 

 May God in his infinite mercy and goodness 

 bear me out in it. May the Holy Spirit attest 

 the truthfulness of what I say. There are no 

 exceptions: there are no possible conditions 

 that should prevent the prodigal from going 

 back at once. Christ Jesus himself, the Lamb 

 ■of God that taketh away the sin of the world, 

 has left a standing invitation, and the promise 

 of pardon. He says, " Come unto me, all ye 

 that are bowed down by the burden of sin and 

 crime. Come unto me, and I will give you rest. 

 My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Oh 

 that the penitent sinner could know Jtoio light 

 and liow easy, compared to carrying through 

 life those burdens that are not only a sni 

 against (?o(? but a crime against humanity! 



SPECIAL DEPARTMENT FOR A. I. ROOT, AND HIS 

 FRIENDS WHO LOVE TO RAISE CROPS. 



GAKDENING FOIJ FEUKUAKY. 



I presume that many of our readers think 

 there is not much to be done in the month of 

 February; but where the heart is full of love 

 for working in the soil, I tell you there can be 

 found plenty to do. In the tirst place, you can 

 do underdiaining; and it is not often that the 

 market-gardener has nothing to do in that line. 

 Just across the street from where I am writing 

 is an acre of ground newly purchased. It was 

 bought with the view of putting on buildings, 

 and for use as a lumber-yard; but the boys say 

 they are not ready to use it yet, and may not 

 for' a year or more; therefore I am going to 

 make garden on it— yes, even though the land 

 cost me more than |!.3(X)0 an acre. Of course, 

 some may say, "Why, can you make it pay to 

 garden in land that cost so much as that?" 

 My reply is, "How can we afford to let groiuid 

 lie idle that cost so much as that?" Peter 

 Henderson tells us of gardening close to the 

 city of New York, wliere they pay more tlian 

 this amount et'ery year for re7U. This is close 

 to the highway, right where there is a large 

 amount of traffic. Some beautiful beds of cab- 

 bage, tomato, and celery plants, right where 

 crowds of people are obliged to see them, will 

 make a better advertisement of our plants and 

 gard<!n-stuff than the most expensive sign— yes, 

 or advertisement in the papers. My friend, if 

 you wish to sell garden-stuff, remember there 

 is no sign or advertisement equal to the stuff 

 itself. If you put it in front of the groceries, 



without care, it w ill be w ilted in a few liours; 

 but in neat beds, growing right by the highway, 

 especially if you have water in abimdance, as 

 we have, you can make an adverfisement that 

 will not only be a thing of ])eauty and a joy for 

 ever, but it will pay you in dollars and cents. 



Well, the first thing to be done is to under- 

 drain this piece of ground. We are putting the 

 drains 'M inclies deep, and only 20 feet apart. 

 They are to run up and down the slope the 

 steepest way. All The l)ooks and agricultural 

 papers teach that the quickest way to get water 

 off from ground is to take it straight down liill; 

 and I guess they are right, although I have felt 

 lilie objecting a good deal. 1 am willing that 

 the underdrams shall go straight down hill, 

 but the surface drains must go diagonally to 

 the slope. Tlie Rural New-Yorker recently 

 had a series of articles, in regard to wliich way 

 tire furrows should run on a sidehill. I was 

 deeply interested in those letters; and I believe 

 the general decision was, that straight up and 

 down the hill is not the best way for tlie fur- 

 rows, aeitlier is it best to have them at right 

 angles across the slope. The furrows sliould 

 have fall enough to carry off' the water when 

 there is a great excess ol rain, and no more. 

 Tliey ouglit to run so as to carry the water with 

 a very slow current off the land, when it is fully 

 saturated. At the same time, there should be 

 no hollows wliere water will stand, even for a 

 few hours, in a low place in the fun-ows. If it 

 is left tills way during a very heavy rainstorm, 

 it will be likely to break through and cut gul- 

 lies across the furrows. Underdrains running 

 at right angles, or nearly at right angles to the 

 furrows, would be likely to take the water off 

 unless the amount of rain were very great. I 

 think we may learn a lesson in this matter fi'om 

 our friends in the far West, in the way they 

 work for irrigation. When in California I set 

 out a thousand straw berry -pi ants for ray broth- 

 er. I was going to set the rows up and down 

 the slope. 



•'Oh, no, Ame!" said my brother Jess; " that 

 won't do at all. The ground lies too steep. 

 The water will run right straight down the liill, 

 and not wet the roots of the piants at all." 



As the soil was a good deal sandy and quite 

 porous, I was inclined to think tnat I knew 

 uetter than he did; and you ought to have seen 

 the laugh they liad at my expense, to think tliat 

 a ■■ tender- foot," who hadn"t been in California 

 two weeks, should attempt to teach them any 

 thing about ii-rigation. Now, their strawberry- 

 beds, gardens, and every tiling else, are so laid 

 out that the water has just enough fall to run 

 slowly. If the fall is not enough, it would soak 

 into the ground before coming to the end of the 

 furrow; if too great, the water would run oft' the 

 ground and get away without soaking down to 

 the roots of the plants. The golden mean of 

 fall must be arranged according to the porosity 

 of the soil. Well, m fixing our grounds so as to 

 avoid the disastrous ett'ect of drenching rains, 

 we want to have our furrows run on just the 

 same kind of plan we have them run for irriga- 

 tion. Last season we had our furrows up by 

 the windmill run straight up and down the hill. 

 During a very heavy rain I watched how it 

 worked. The ground had just been cultivated 

 and worked up fine, and the rain was needed. 

 For an hour or two it seemed to work just 

 right; and while the water was coming down 

 the sides of the road like a small millrace, evei'y 

 particle disappeared in the freshly worked soil, 

 to my great satisfaction. Finally, however, 

 the shower closed with a tremendous dash. 

 The underdrains and the soft loose ground took 

 it all for a while, but finally every thing was 

 saturated and soaked, and the water commenced 

 going down the furrows where there was a 



