340 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May L 



treatment. It is the worst fraud of the age — 

 not but that it is good, but it claims too much. 

 Bees wintered all right, but I hear of some 

 starving on account of no fall honey. 

 Grand View. Tenn.. April 18. A. F. Ames. 



[Friend A.. I wish you had tried a part of 

 your American Pearl onions without any 

 mulching. They are very apt to rot, and I 

 have sometimes thought the mulcliing helped 

 to keep the ground damp, and thus make them 

 rot. I am surprised to l<now that the potato 

 onions, planted a month later, all wintered. 

 This indicates that there is something about 

 onions that we do not know all about.] 



TWO MORE BAB REPORTS FROM THE AMERICAN 

 PEART. ONIOX. 



Extra Early Pearl onion will not live over the 

 winter here. I got a quart of you last fall. 

 They are all dead, rotten. M. Isbell. 



Norwich, N. Y., April 4. 



There seems to be something wrong witli the 

 American Pearl onions that I got from you last 

 fall. A third of them have from two to five in 

 a bunch, like the multiplier onions. A half of 

 them are running to seed. Is this the habit of 

 this onion? A. T. McIlwaix. 



Abbeville, S. C, Apr. 4. 



SOME TOOLS FOR THE MARKET-G.\RDEXER. 



The cut below is taken from our uew book on 

 tile drainage. It is a list of the tools selected 

 by Prof. Chamberlain. As they are, however, 

 very useful for many purposes besides ditching, 

 I have thought best to speak of them a little 

 here. 



tools made for a great variety of purposes. One 

 reason why I dislike them is, that the man who 

 uses them will be fussing with the tool a good 

 many times when I would rather he would be 

 doing his work. If you are doing very much 

 ditching it will pay to have two or more sizes 

 of these bottoming-scoops to suit the size of tile. 



No. 2 is what we call a "Dutch hoe." One 

 of our men who recently came from Germany 

 brought it along one day to pull the dirt into 

 the ditches. The rest laughed at him: but 

 pretty soon the hoe became a favorite tool with 

 many of the men. It is good for grubbing and 

 digging around trees, for digging I'oots, and. in 

 some kinds of ground, it will work it up about 

 as well as any thing. 



No. 3 is for much the same purpose as No. 1; 

 and it is exceedingly handy for many purposes. 



No. 4 is a light, thin, narrow spade; but for 

 myself I should prefer No. 5. Now we come to 

 the regular ditching-spades. 



No. 6 is for cutting the last course of the 

 ditch. If the ditch is started with an even 

 grade on top. and both NoS. 6 and 7 are pushed 

 clear down, to a uniform depth, very little work 

 will be required in fitting the bottom for the 

 tile: for you notice the round end of No. 6 

 leaves it just about a> you want it;* and, by 

 the way, the bottom of the ditch should be very 

 little wider than the bottom of the spade No. 6. 

 It is on this point that I have a good deal of 



*The following- is from pagre 88 of our new book, 

 Tile Drainagre: 



If the entire ditch is to be 30 inches, I usually 

 try to make fully 7 or 8 witli the plow, and 1.3 or 14 

 with the first spade, and that leaves only 8 or 9 

 Inches for the second, or bottoming--spade. The 

 subsoil at the bottom is far more compact and hard. 



No. 1 is for grading and cleaning out the 

 trench just before the tiles are laid. The tool 

 is an exceedingly handy one; but I should pre- 

 fer it with a permanent solid joint instead of 

 the adjustable one as shown. In fact, I have 

 taken quite a dislike to adjustable tools, or 



and it is better not to liave too deep a course to dig-. 

 Great care should be taken to keep the grade of this 

 course e.xactly rig-ht, so that, when you draw the 

 double-ended cruml>cloaner No.l, and groove-cutter 

 througli the few loose crumljs of claj' that are al- 

 ways left by the spade of even an expert, you will 

 leave a true groove ready for the tiles. 



