1897 



GLI'ANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



merchants Rcnenilly charge "all the traffic will bcai " 

 On n\aiiv seeds I ca"n Imv'in pound lots from yon, pay 

 po>taue. ai\<i have the seeds delivered at my postonice, 

 trom To lo i'> per cent cheaper than I can t'luv in seed- 

 stores in roilland. Oregon, in 10 and .')0 pound lots. 

 They simply scoop the seeds onl ol' a sack or tin, and 

 weij-h theni ont to me, and yet some advertise that 

 they Ret their seeds in carload lots. In 1 ec-lixtnres 

 they nsed to charge jnst a little less than they conld l)e 

 ohtained from yon by fi eight in UX)- pound lots. I am 

 Rlad to .say prices are coming nearer to the ea.stern 

 level, and I tltink that yon and others like you are to 

 be thanked for it. 



I like your Hicrh-pressnre Gardening very much, 

 and get n'lany ideas and nnich encouragement' from it. 

 Yon have such an enthusiastic way of talking about 

 things that it makes one feel like trvingit for himself. 



InSept. I.')th (".i.i:.\Ni.V(;s, page (v"^l, yon tell how to 

 set plants .«o that the lines joining the plants will form 

 equilateral triangles, and each plant be equally dis- 

 tant from the six others nearest to it. I think'l can 

 give a n\ore rapid way of doing this work, that, with 

 care, will give just about as accurate results. 



Rows are first to be marked out just as you describ- 

 ed, say from east to west. Now, given the distance 

 the plants are to be from each other, to find the di.s- 

 tance the east and west rows should be apart. This 

 can be done by multiplying tlie distance between 

 plants by one-half of the square root of 3, which is 

 ().S(i(i: or,"if preferred, multiply by "id and divide by 80, 

 which is nearer the tine ili'-lauce than yon can mark 

 the rows. Now mark off the ground with north and 

 -south rows, just half as far apart as the plants are to 

 be from each other. Then set plants in the first east 

 and west \o\v. 2X i"iny otlirr cioss-inaik. Then do the 

 same with the seci nd row, .setting the plants in the 

 cross-marks of the north and south lines that were 

 skipped in the fiist row. 



Calling the distance between plants 24 inches, 24 x 

 .8()(ior2l"x^f; eqvials21 inches nearly. See .sketch below. 



-a + n + 



□-+■□ 



-n + a + n+-a 



HOW TO LAV OUT THK GKOUXD WITH A COMMON 



MARKER SO AS TO BRING YOUR STRAWBKRRY- 



PLANTS LIKE THE CELLS OF A. HONEY-COMB. 



This method can be applied to trees as well as 

 plants, on large fields as well as small plats. 



I think of trying a half-acre or more r.f mangels by 

 this method next spring, setting plants 18 inches from 

 each other, as I find they .stand transplanting well. 

 Transplanting is much slower work than drilling, but 

 will save much time in weeding and thinning. If 

 plants are set 18 inches apart, there will be a little 

 over 22,000 plants per acre. 1 have had mangels that 

 weighed over 20 pounds. Now let Huber figure how 

 many tons per acre 20-ponnd mangels would give, and 

 see if that is not " hifr/i-pressuie " gardoiing. 



Corbett, Ore., Oct. 5. John A. Hurlbirt. 



Friend H., we are much obliged to you, and 

 we are vtry glad to find a civil engineer who 

 is turning his attention to high-pressure gar- 

 dening. No wonder you gave us so short and 

 accurate a method of arranging plants hexag- 

 onally. To do this we really ought to have 

 two markers — one to make marks one foot 

 apart, and the other to make them nearly 21 

 inches. With a horse, and a marker say .six 

 or eight feet wide, ground could be marked 

 very rapidly. For small areas, of course hand 



markers made narrower accordingly would be 

 more convenient. I hardly need ex])laiii to 

 our readers that the stjuares are to represent 

 .strawberry-plants Thanks for your kind 

 words for our efforts in the way of cutting (ff 

 the profits of middlemen, and getting seeds 

 directly from the grower to the planter by the 

 shortest cut. This season our cucuml)er and 

 melon .seeds are all grown especially for our 

 trade by a seed-grower who is also a bee-keep- 

 er. If I were to tell you what he gets from 

 seed-growers for his seeds you would not won- 

 der we are able to offer many of them at half 

 the prices made by many of the catalog men. 



We copy the following from the Oliio Far- 

 mer for Oct. 14 : 



A BOLD SWINDLER. 



In our news items last week we referred to the ar- 

 rest of Carl B. Cline at Columbus, O.. for using the U. 

 ,S. mails for swindling purpo.ses. The Columbus pa- 

 pers give ns full particulars. At the bank he was 

 known as Cline ; at Livingston's seedstore he was 

 known as Mr. Craft. He bought mo.st of his " .sam- 

 ple " seed wheat at Livingston's. At his apartments 

 on Naghten St. he was known as " Mr. Ferrington." 

 About Aug. Ist he advertised " Early Surprise " wheat 

 in the agricultural columns of religious papers from 

 Maine to California. He also adverti=ed in some agri- 

 cultural papers. He .said he raised -KW bu'-hels of this 

 wheat from 10 acres : that it had such stiff straw that 

 it could not be blown or beaten down by storms, etc., 

 and ofl'ered to send sample by mail for three two-cent 

 stamps. The .stamps poured in from all over the 

 country, and he sent samples of wheal purchased at 

 Livingston's, accompanied with a circular offering to 

 ship one bushel for S1..50, five bushels forSl..3.5a bu.sh- 

 el. and ten bushels or upward for SI. 25 a bushel. Or- 

 ders poured in at the rate of S.")0 to $100 a dav ; and the 

 officers who arrested him Oct. L't estimate that he had 

 received fully S2000. When complaints began to come 

 in he bought some rejected wheat and filled part of the 

 orders, but most of them were not filled at all. His 

 race was short. 



Now, friends, where is the trouble? Who 

 is to blame? The trouble is here : This man, 

 when he advertised, was a new man, unknown 

 to anybody. Before sending him money, the 

 farmer should have gone to the bank and had 

 them look the advertiser up ; or, if that is not 

 convenient, write to the editor of the paper 

 that published the advertisement, and ask him 

 to find out whether or not the advertiser is re- 

 sponsible. This can be done in a minute's 

 time bv anybody who has access to Bradstreet 

 or Dun. If 3-011 can not find his name, do not 

 send him any money. Beware especially of 

 anybody who claims to have sotnething great- 

 ly superior in a great staple like wheat. Otir 

 experiment stations are watching every thing 

 of this .sort with great interest. An investiga- 

 ^tion in Columbus would have brought to light 

 'at once the facts given above. .And now I 

 hope none of the agricultural papers will feel 

 hurt when I suggest that no advertisement 

 should be received from anybody until he gives 

 satisfactory reference, or is found fjuoted by 

 Dun or Bradstreet. If this were followed up, 

 .such fellows as " Cline," "Craft," and " Fer- 

 rington " woitld be brought to a standstill at 

 the outset. They could never get into any 

 agricultural paper, and, in fact I .should like 

 to say in any other paper until given some 

 reasonable proof that they were .straight square 

 men, and not .somebody sailing under an alias 

 or false colors of any sort. 



