638 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. I. 



to water their stock. Another thing. I believe 

 it is pretty generally conceded that rain water 

 is more wholesome for our stock than any other: 

 and friend Chamberlain declares that, if all the 

 water is carefully saved that falls upon the 

 roof that shelters the hordes and cattle, and 

 their hay and grain, it will give them all the 

 water they will ever need to drink; therefore 

 all that is wanted is the necessary spouting and 

 a cistern to hold the watei'. With this arrange- 

 ment, mind you, there is no pumping at all: 

 neither are you obliged to trouble yourself even 

 so much as to open a valve. The horse is sim- 

 ply led up to the watering-tub; and as it is lo- 

 cated right where he passes when he tui-ns 

 around to come out of his stall, when he is used 

 every day, he waters himself.o 



The farm is so rolling that most people would 

 think there was not any need of underdraining. 

 Some of the drains have been in use for 17 yeai's. 

 His orchard is underdrained, and this we ex- 

 amined hrst. On the underdrained portion very 

 few trees have evei' died out, while on the other 

 part a great portion of tiiem had to be replaced. 

 My impression has been for some time, that 

 more fruit-trees are killed by too much wetness 

 than by almost any thing else. On our own 

 place wherever, bv any accident, a puddle of 

 water has stood for even a few days near a 

 fruit-tree, it has been either injured or killed 

 outright. The most marked feature of under- 

 draining, however, was soon brought to our at- 

 tention by our enthusiastic friend in his own 

 peculiar and emphatic way. He took us to his 

 grass land, and where it was quite rolling, too, 

 and showed us how many kinds of weeds, es- 

 pecially plantain, had made their way on to 

 the farm, and crowded out the timothy and 

 clover. It were well to state light here, that 

 friend Chambeilain has been absent from his 

 farm for eleven years, and returned only last 

 fall. He was for many years secretary of the 

 Ao-ricultural Department of the State of Ohio, 

 and more recently President of the Iowa Agri- 

 cultural College. But last fall he came back to 

 his own farm, and has so far I'efused all ap- 

 pointments to leave it. He wants to be at 

 home. Well, during his absence of eleven years 

 many things had. as a matter of course, run 

 down He showed us the fields infested with 

 plantain— that is. in spots. This land was not 

 underdrained. Then he took us to the opposite 

 slope where it was und(^rdi-ained years ago, and 

 showed us a wonderful growth of clover and 

 timothy both, without any weeds or plantain 

 to be seen. The point is. that plantain survives 

 on wet places, vhere grass and valuable crops 

 are killed out by wet. I had suspected this l)e- 

 fore but was not i)i-epared for such a wonder- 

 fully marked exhibition of the good effects of 

 underdraining. Perhaps I should mention that 

 our little pai'tv included Mr. L. B. Pierce, of 

 Tallmadge, O.. who is so well known as a writer 

 for our agricultural papers, and our good friend 

 Gould, who has for so many years written for 

 the Ohio F<inncr as "Sam.'" Sam is a dairy- 

 man, and, of course, was alive to every thing 

 pertaining to growing cow-feed. Some of those 

 present suggested that perhaps the two pieces 

 of ground had different care. It could not be 

 called two pieces of ground, however, because 

 it was one large held of timothy; and in order 

 to demovstnitc the advantage of underdrained 

 ground, they had for years worked and sowed 

 the ground in strii)s or lands running directly 

 across both pieces; so the drained and under- 

 drained had precisely the same care and treat- 

 ment in every respect. It would seem that, no 

 matter how sloping the ground, if it be thought 

 desirable to plow it to put it into crops, it i.s also 

 desirable, to have it underdrained. and this in a 

 soil that is consider; 'My more gravelly and 



porous than our Medina clay. Friend Cham- 

 berlain uses phosphates largely on his land; 

 and lie has been in the habit for years of run- 

 ning the drill once or twice through a field with 

 the phosphate shut off'; and this year the effect 

 of shutting off the phosphate through a strip of 

 wheat was so marked that friend Pierce sug- 

 gested his hired man must have made a mistake 

 and shut off' not only the phosphate but the 

 wheat also. I have seen the same thing on our 

 own grounds. Shutting off the phosphate on a 

 piece of poor ground was almost equivalent to 

 shutting off' the grain also. In fact, it made a 

 clearly detined lane all through the held. 

 Friend C. keeps cows, and. of course, has im- 

 mense quantities of manure to spread on liis 

 land: and we saw great flat-topped pyramids al- 

 ready deposited in the lield, ready to be put on 

 the wheat with the manuie-spreader when 

 springtime comes. Friend C. is also a strong 

 advocate for osage oraug(^ for hedges. This was 

 a little surprise to me, for so much has been 

 said about robbing the soil of its fertility near 

 the hedge, and the lalxir of keeping them in 

 trim, that I had begun to think they were most- 

 ly .abandoned. In reply to my question, our 

 host called us to a hedge along the roadside, 

 that had been there more than a dozen years. 

 It was. perhaiis, 3 ft. high, or may be a little 

 more in places, and not more tlian 2 or -').< 

 through. It certainly did not occupy very 

 much room above ground: and as a proof that 

 it did not below ground, we saw good wheat 

 growing so close that the well-tilled heads were 

 right lip against the hedge. And so it seems 

 that hedge fences, like many other things, need 

 only a little care, if that care be given at just 

 the right time. I have forgotten how many 

 rods he trimmed with a sickle, before break- 

 fast; and this trimming is needed so seldom 

 that ii certainly could not be considered a very 

 great bill of expense. There are no posts to rot 

 off', no boards to be blown down by the wind, 

 no sharp wires to injure animals. Besides, the 

 fence is exceedingly pretty, and more ornament- 

 al than any other fence I know of. and by no 

 means "as homely as a hedge fence." The 

 trouble with all these fences is like the trouble 

 with a great many other things, only it works 

 the other way. If you neglect a hedge fence it 

 gets bigger and bigger (and homelier and home- 

 lier), instead of tumbling down and going to 

 decay as most other fences do. A landscape 

 gardener has been at work at friend C.'s door- 

 yard, and a great variety of shrubs and plants 

 are making an excellent growth, and giving 

 pi'omise of future usefulness and beauty. As 1 

 shall probably have occasion to refer to this 

 visit a good deal in the future, 1 shall say noth- 

 ing more about it just now. 



Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.— Ex. 

 2U:8. 



This subject has been again brought to my 

 mind by the Sunday excursions that are being 

 pushed, not only inour ow n county, and on our 

 own railroads through our county, but even 

 abroad and all over our land, to a greater 

 or lesser extent, judging by the advertisements 

 I see in the papers; and. by the way, I have 

 been surprised and astonished that editors of 

 home pai)ers should permit a railroad company 

 or anybody else to advertise broadly and un- 

 blushinglya pleasure-excursion to some plea- 

 sure - ground oa Sunday. Very Ijkely more 

 than one good friend of mine who J.;eads. Glean- 

 ings will feel like saving something like this: 



"Look here, friend Root; you have your 



