1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



273 



let it be a little quarrel. In fact, every few 

 days something will happen that makes it 

 very desirable to fix things up aga'n. In view 

 of this, please remember, " Least said, soonest 

 mended." It is springtime now, and most of 

 us want help for the spring work, and lots of 

 people want places to work. Is it not lucky 

 that the two wants can be filled so nicely? 

 When you hire a man you kill two birds with 

 one stone — that is, if you do it with love 

 toward him in your heart ; and when you get 

 this man to do just what you want him to do, 

 without even a little quarrel, you are killing 

 a great many birds with one stone. It is very 

 bad to change helpers. Ask the gardener how 

 he likes to keep a man long enough to help 

 him plant all his stuff, and then have trouble 

 with him, and let him go before any thing 

 has come up. When I was a small boy I stud- 

 ied shorthand. One day I puzzled my brain 

 several long hours to read a communication in 

 shorthand. When I got it out I was so happy 

 I think I shall always remember it. The 

 words were these : 



Deal gently with the erring ; 



You may not know the power 

 With which the dark temptation came 



In some unguarded hour. 



GROWING ONIONS ON THE ISLAND OF BER- 

 MUDA. 



As I have said before, all the onions used, 

 so far as I can learn, are raised by setting the 

 plants when they are of the proper size, say 

 the size of a slate-pencil or lead-pencil. The 

 plants are raised very much as we raise them 

 here. The seed is sown quite thickly in drills, 

 say from 12 to 20 seeds to the inch of drill, 

 the seeds being pretty well scattered, so the 

 plants do not crowd each other too closely. 

 Of course, the ground for the seed-bed needs 

 to be very rich. As there are never any frosts 

 in Bermuda, there is never any occasion for 

 using sash. I think, however, that a covering 

 of cotton cloth would be, many times, a great 

 benefit in keeping off the cold winds. About 

 the only damage their crops receive from the 

 weather is from high winds, especially when 

 the winds are cold. I believe the}' sometimes 

 have hail — that is, such as we have during a 

 thunderstorm. 



The ground is prepared for transplanting 

 the onions just the same as for potatoes ; but 

 the surface is raked over so as to have it fine 

 and smooth. I found Messrs. Brown and 

 Adams, at Devonshire, using a home-made 

 marker to mark out the ground for onions. 

 This marker seems to be so much of a labor- 

 saver in getting just exactly so many onions 

 on the ground, and no more, that we give a 

 cut of it. 



The apparatus I saw was a home-made one. 

 There are six wooden wheels. These wheels 

 are very much like the bottom of a wooden 



pail. In fact, if you will get six pail-bottoms 

 (each made of a single piece of wood), they 

 will be just about what you want. These 

 wooden wheels should be sharp on their edges, 

 so that, as they go into the dirt, they make a 

 V-shaped groove. There is a hole bored ex- 

 actly in the center of each, through which to 

 put some kind of shaft, say a broom handle 

 or hoe-handle. After the wheels are bored, 

 put them up tight together, and fasten them 

 in some way, say with a large-sized bolt, so 

 you can screw them up tight ; then put the 

 wheels in a vise, and with a saw, mallet, and 

 chisel, cut down through the whole six so that 

 each one will be like Fig. 1. The slots cut 



FIG 1 



ric z 



MACHINE FOR MARKING THE GROUND FOR 

 TRANSPLANTING. 



down in each wheel are for slipping in a piece 

 of wood about like a connnon plasterer's lath, 

 each one of these strips of wood being sharp- 

 ened on each outside edge, so as to make a 

 V-shaped groove in the ground. Now put 

 your wheels on the shaft, spacing them so as 

 to stand about 8 inches apart. Now crowd 

 your sharpened strips into the slot each one 

 sharp edge outward. The slots in the wheels 

 should be just right to bring the strips 4 inches 

 apart. This will make your onions stand 4 

 inches apart in the rows, and rows 8 inches 

 apart — pretty close planting, you may say, but 

 you want the ground rich enough so the 

 onions will almost crowd each other out of the 

 ground. 



To use the machine, stretch a line on one 

 side of your ground, say about 4 feet from the 

 outside of your piece of ground. Now run 

 your machine, wheelbarrow fashion, so that 

 the outside wheel just clears the line, the op- 

 erator at the same time walking on the oppo- 

 site side of the garden-line. If your ground is 

 not soft enough so your machine will sink to 

 the right depth by its own weight, load it 

 down with stones placed in the box just be- 

 hind the wheels. The wheels with their strips 

 should sink into the ground so as to make 

 lines lengthwise and crosswise. The planters 

 are to put an onion wherever the lines cross 

 each other. These marks can be much more 

 readily seen than wooden pegs that are some- 

 times put in such markers. In transplanting, 

 the boys walk in the path made by the man 

 who runs the wheel. All the planting, culti- 

 vating, and every thing, is done while stand- 

 ing in this path. The path is rather less than 

 a foot wide — I presume because the ground is 

 so high-priced and valuable. 



