860 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



derful fertility? Many of you have doubtless 

 read Terry's articles in regard to the prepara- 

 tion of his wheat-ground. You know how he 

 keeps at it until the lumps are all mashed, and 

 the whole surface thoroughly fined up and all 

 alike. Well, in riding across the country and 

 looking for wheat-fields without lumps, what 

 do you think I saw? Oh dear me! In some 

 places the lumps were as thick as they could 

 fie, and some of them almost as big as your 

 head. How should one expect" to get a paying 

 crop of wheat under such circumstances ? This 

 getting a perfect seed-bed, I suspect, is a work 

 of years. In the first place, we must have per- 

 fect underdraining. Then no stock must ever 

 set foot on the ground when it is soft; neither 

 must tools be allowed on the ground when it is 

 too wet to work. After this, turn under regu- 

 larly great rank growths of clover, and your 

 soil will begin to get mellow and soft and fine — 

 yes. even though it is naturally some of the 

 most unpromising land to be found. 



FINDING WHERE YOUK UNDERDRAINS ARE. 



Much has been said about keeping a map of 

 all drainage, that the owner may at any time 

 know where to dig to find a tile. We have al- 

 ready experienced considerable trouble, and 

 sometimes wasted several hours of hard work, 

 in finding a certain line of tile. I think it was 

 the Ohio Farmer that said lately it is a good 

 plan to mash up all the broken tile, and strew 

 the bits along the top of the drain after it is 

 filled up. No matter how much you cultivate 

 and plow the ground, these bits of broken tile 

 will, more or less of them, be visible, and indi- 

 cate where the tiles are laid. There will al- 

 ways be more or less broken or soft tile, and I 

 do believe this is the very best use that can be 

 made of them. 



STARTING A BOOM ON CERTAIN PRODUCTS BY 

 LOWERING THE PRICES. 



Where one sells things at retail by sending a 

 wagon around town as we do, a little decline in 

 prices may make a big difference in the amount 

 of sales. Lima beans have lately been going 

 slow at 10 cents a pint. Well, the frost has not 

 killed ours yet, even up to this late date, Oct. 

 32; therefore I told the boys two days ago that 

 we had better put the price down a little, and 

 directed those on the wagon to carry the beans 

 in at every house whei'e they stopped, and an- 

 nounce that they wei'e only 8 cents instead of 

 10. How much "difference do you suppose a 

 drop of 2 cents made? Why, they sold four 

 times as many, and came pretty near stripping 

 the poles of all that were lai'ge enough. Per- 

 haps showing people clean boxes of beans just 

 shelled, good measure, had much to do with it; 

 for we often push any thing we happen to have 

 a surplus of in just this way. 



TEN CENTS A POUND FOR SPINACH. 



A few days ago I asked them why they did 

 not carry any spinach on the wagon. They 

 said nobody wanted it at this season of the year 

 because tliere was so much othei' stuff. Last 

 Friday, the 16th, however. I noticed our Extra 

 Curled Bloomsdale spinach was growing so 

 very thrifty that some of the heads with their 

 rich dark green were really a sight. By the 

 way. a few seeds were in the seed-drill when 

 we made our last sowing of bush lima beans. 

 It was on a piece where we had plowed under a 

 heavy growth of strawberry-plants; and this, 

 perhaps, accounts for the great luxuriance of 

 the spinach. A basket was fixed in neat order, 

 and put on the wagon, and I told them to try it 

 at 10 cents a pound; and if it did not bring 10 

 cents to come back to the old price of .5. Its 

 beautiful attractive appearance and rank luxu- 

 riance did the business. It was gone at 10 cents 



a pound in a twinkling, and this in the middle 

 of October, when, if we had only taken the 

 pains, we might have had an acre of it that 

 could have been sold at a profit at half a cent a 

 pound. Of course, a town like ours would not 

 take very much of it; but if such spinach could 

 be put into the city markets, I feel certain that 

 vast quantities could be sold at tremendous 

 prices. I begin to suspect that no ordinary 

 grounds will produce spinach up to its highest 

 notch of excellence. Like many other foliage 

 plants, it wants the richest kind of soil. And, 

 by the way, we always get an enormous crop of 

 anything after we have turned our strawber- 

 ries under. 



LINSEED OIL-MEAL AS A FERTILIZER. 



Our Ohio Experiment Station has just been 

 making some experiments with linseed oil-meal 

 and nitrate of soda as fertilizers for German 

 millet. Both give an improvement over the 

 unfertilized plants; but the nitrate of soda, as 

 heretofore, not enough improvement to pay 

 cost. The linseed meal, however, went away 

 ahead of the nitrate of soda, and this was when 

 it was applied directly to the soil. Now, they 

 say that not more than a third of the fertilizing 

 value of the meal is lost in feeding it to stock; 

 therefore, to use their own words, " Linseed 

 oil-meal oflfers a far cheaper source of fertility 

 to the Ohio farmer than any of the so-called 

 commercial fertilizers or phosphates." 



•^HE OREGON EVERBEARING STRAWBERRY. 



Friend Root: — About a yeai' ago I was fool- 

 ish enough to invest i2.00 in a dozen of AVin- 

 quist's Everbearing strawberry-plants. Under 

 the best of care they proved far inferior to 

 common sorts for the first crop, to say nothing 

 of there being no blossoms or berries later in 

 the season. There were no indications of the 

 everbearing property about them. Now, I was 

 led to make this investment from the fact that 

 I knew you had had these plants upon your 

 grounds for some two or more years; and hav- 

 ing seen no warning (except a very mild sen- 

 tence or two in Gleanings of two or three 

 months back) I concluded they were at least 

 not a very big humbug, and sent my money 

 only to become a little richer in experience and 

 more cautious of mankind in general. In a 

 word, I look upon it as one of the worst hum- 

 bugs that has reai-ed its head in respectable 

 journals in a long time. The only thing that 

 can be said in favor of the plants, so far as my 

 experience goes, is that they are good strong 

 growers, throwing up an abundance of dark 

 green foliage, and a tendency to put out runners 

 in profusion. And now, Mr. Root, what can 

 you say in defense ? And how are we to account 

 for the silence of all, or nearly all, of those who, 

 in reports during the last year or two in Glean- 

 ings, have reported purchasing these plants 

 and have failed to report in their favor or 

 against them? Is it a huge "combine"? I 

 will not believe it. D. VV. C. Matthews. 



Ypsilanti, Mich., Oct. 2. 



[Gently, friend M. We have report(;d each 

 season, since receiving the above strawberry, 

 our success with it. When we first put it out 

 in our rich plant-beds, in a sheltered location, 

 it grew rank, and gave us some of the finest 

 berries before almost any othei' variety. On 

 account of .some new buildings, we were obliged 

 to move the bed while in full bearing. It was 

 taken into the fields, and received the same 

 treatment as our otheK varieties. Since then it 

 has amounted to nothing comparatively. It is, 

 with us, continually blooming and setting fruit 

 during the fall; but there is not enough of the 

 fruit to amount to any thing, and the plants 



