1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



743 



keeper was short but brilliant. He now rests 

 in peace. His sorrowing brother, 



Pii. J. Baldenspekger. 

 Jaffa, Syria, Aug. 10. 



STANDING CLOSED FRAMES. 



I have put all my new swarms this year on 

 closed-end frames, and I am so well pleased 

 that I will never put any more bees on the old 

 swinging frames or any other frame that works 

 in a tight box. I have handled bees for thirty 

 years, and I am sure I never had any frame 

 that killed fewer bees. 



I put some hives in the sun and some in the 

 shade, and left the winter cases on in the sun, 

 and left them off in the shade. One comb 

 melted down in the shade, while those in the 

 sun have not. I used full sheets of foundation, 

 and I have combs exactly alike, and are inter- 

 changeable without any trouble. Fixed dis- 

 tances for me from now on. J. F. Morrow. 



Stromsburg, Neb. 



[Closed-end frames are all right when made 

 to sPind on a bottom-board, a la Quinby and 

 Hetherington; but it is questionable whether 

 they will work in a closely fitting hive; i. e., 

 no bee-space back of the end -bars. See page 

 ■699, Sept. 1st issue. We should rather account 

 for the comb melting down in a shaded hive to 

 some defect in putting in the foundation, or to 

 small entrances.! 



SPECIAL DEPAETMENT FOR A. I. EOOT, AND HIS 

 FRIENDS WHO LIKE TO RAISE CROPS. 



WHAT WE CAN PLANT DURING THE LAST OF 

 SEPTEMBER; BY A. I. ROOT. 



Well, we can plant spinach; and as it is a 

 dif^cult matter to get good strong heads, just 

 before the fi'ost hinders them from running up 

 to seed I would advise making several plant- 

 ings. Last winter and spring we could have 

 sold barrels and ban-els of spinach at tremen- 

 dous prices had we only planted enough of it. 

 During severe freezing weather without snow, 

 it is .very liable to be injured during the spring; 

 but we have never succeeded very well with 

 any kind of mulching. Evergreen boughs, 

 where they can be procured, have been highly 

 recommended, and 1 should think they would 

 be about the thing. Perhaps some coarse 

 mulching like tomato-vines, bean-stalks, etc., 

 might answer nearly as well. The idea is, to 

 get something that will make the snow bank 

 around the plants, and keep them frozen, or, if 

 you choose, to prevent so much freezing and 

 thawing. The American P(^arl onion-sets can 

 also be planted any time this month. By the 

 Avay, it seems a little singular that no s<^edsmen 

 besides Johnson iSt Stokes have discovered that 

 many kinds of onion-sets may be planted out 

 in the fall. W^e have also been told through 

 our agricultural papers for years, that onion- 

 sets of the hardier kinds can be put out in the 

 fall as well as in the spring. I suspect it must 

 be a matter largely of soil and locality. Egyp- 

 tian onion-sets, of course, succeed everywhere. 

 In fact, I never heard of a failure. And. by 

 the way. as we are sold out, perhaps it would 

 be a good thing for somebody to advertise both 

 top sets and bottom sets. Oh, yes! there is one 

 more thing that we can sow in September, 

 October, and November, or, in fact, any time in 

 the fall when the ground is not frozen. It is 

 winter rye. And I think it will pay market- 

 gardeners exceedingly well to get in rye just as 

 fast as they can get oft' a ciop of any kind. It 

 will hold the ground together, prevent wash- 



ing, prevent the manure from getting away; 

 and the ground will be dry quicker, and be 

 sooner ready to plow, wlaere your rye is than 

 where it is left bare. Add to all this the value 

 of the fertilizing material of a heavy crop of 

 rye plowed undei-. In the spring, plow the rye 

 under just as fast as you need the ground, and 

 no faster. 



SPINACH FOR poultry; A CAUTION AND A 



SUGGESTION. 



If you keep poultry, and they find yotir spin- 

 ach, good-by to at least a portion of it. And 

 this reminds me that, if you have vacant 

 ground near their quarters, it will pay well to 

 sow a good long strip purposely for them. Then 

 give them a sti'ip of rye. and if you have any 

 old cabbage seed you do not care much for, 

 sow that for them, and the same with lettuce. 

 A good generous feed of lettuce at a time when 

 the fowls have been somewhat short of green 

 food will often of itself start them to laying 

 briskly. 



CABBAGE, LETTUCE, CAULIFLOWER, ETC., FOR 

 COLD-FRAMES. 



Now is the time to sow seeds of the above to 

 get plants to put out in your cold-frames a 

 month later. By the way, if you can afford 

 the sash and the handling of it, it is the nicest 

 way in the world to raise spinach and be sure 

 that the frost does not injure it. The rest of 

 this space I have left for one of our gardeners 

 to till, as the doctor does not allow me to dictate 

 or write much. 



OUR GARDEN, SEPT. 10. 



Come down across the creek and railroad, and 

 see the strawberry garden. The long rows, 

 about three feet wide, are a dense mass of foli- 

 age; the leaves of the old plants in the middle 

 a dark brown; the young plants on the sides 

 bright green, and all just reveling in the soft 

 rich soil. It is enough to arouse an enthusiastic 

 love for nature in any one who can see beauty 

 at all. Who can help admiring the bright 

 beautiful things, fresh from the Father's hand '? 

 The American Pearl onions are down here too. 

 They are just coming up: and the long straight 

 rows reach from the west fence away down to 

 the old railroad. The little whi.e throats, 

 showing above the dark soil and under the 

 green tops, assure us tliat we can depend on 

 them to help furnish us with money, and that 

 means work to keep all the boys busy. The 

 blackberries on the side hill don't seem to 

 "weary in well-doing." though their time for 

 fruit is long past. While there are not enough 

 to send many of them on "the wagon," we do 

 get enough to delight Mr. Root's eyes and help 

 make him hungry. Then down in the corner 

 by the railroad is the tomato-patch where we 

 are testing the dift'erent kinds that the many 

 friends have sent us to try. 



Henderson's new No. 400 that has no name 

 yet is the only one which has attracted any 

 attention so far. Its color is pink, like tlie old 

 Mikado, and it is an immensely large tomato. 

 I picked one this afternoon that weighed a 

 pound and eleven ounces. This was not one of 

 the largest by any means; but it was one of the 

 smoothest and most medty, or thickest— that is, 

 through the tomato from the stem to the blos- 

 som end. It is quite solid, also, but has more 

 seeds than the Ignotum, and does not ripen well 

 down around the stem. 



Our people think that the Shoepeg corn is 

 about the richest and best corn we have ever 

 had. It is not very early, and does not have 

 very large ears; but there ai'e two, three, and 

 sometimes four of them on every stalk, even 

 when the stalks are only three or four inches 

 apart in the row. We have ti'ied the new 



