408 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



THE SOJA BEAN COMPARED WITH THE 

 COW-PEA. 



The following from Prof. Brooks, of the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, answers 

 so well the questions that have been asked by 

 a good many that we copy it from the Rural 

 New-Yorker of May 7, with some few omis- 

 sions : 



We prefer the soja bean to the cow-pea, either as a 

 fodder crop to be fed green, or to be put into the silo, 

 for the following reasons : 



The soja bean, a suitable vaiiety being selected, will 

 ripen in this locality, while the cow-pea will not. This 

 enables the farmer to produce his own seed, and, fur- 

 ther, the plant can be allowed to reach a degree of 

 maturity sufficiently advanced to make the fodder less 

 watery, and richer in the most important constituents 

 of plant-food than the cow-pea in the immature condi- 

 tion in which it must be cut. 



The soja bean is a considerably richer fodder than 

 the cow-pea 



The Medium Green variety, which I believe is the 

 very best sort for this latitude, con.stitutes the better 

 basis for comparison with the cowpea. It will be 

 noticed that this variety gives us nearly twice as much 

 fat, more than l^j times the amount of flesh-formers 

 (protein), and about 1 'i times the amount of heat pro- 

 ducers (carbo-hydrates) as is given by the cow-pea. 



When, in the light of these facts, we consider fur- 

 ther that the Medium Green .soja bean has, upon an 

 average, as grown here, produced as large yields as the 

 cow-pea, its superiority becomes .strikingly evident. 

 The crops of both usually average from 10 to 12 tons 

 per acre, green weight. With a yield of 10 tons, the 

 cow-pea will give us the following number of pounds 

 of the different nutrients per acre: Fat, 140 pounds; 

 flesh-formers. 620 pounds ; heat-producers, 1720 

 pounds. The soja bean with the same crop gives us: 

 Fat, 240 pounds; fle.sh-formers, 1160 pounds; heat-pro- 

 ducers, 2400 pounds. These facts make the apparent 

 superiority of the soja bean as a fodder crop very 

 clear. 



As is well known, however, the value of a fodder 

 does not depend entirely upon composition, but is af- 

 fected in a marked degree by the digestibility of the 

 nutrients which it contains. There is some evidence 

 that the digestibility of the soja bean is not quite so 

 great as that of the cow pea; but sufficient experi- 

 ments have not been made to enable us to form a final 

 judgment upon this point. 



The soja bean, being less watery than the cow-pea, 

 keeps better in the silo. We have made excellent en- 

 silage by mixing either corn or Japan barnyard millet 

 with the .soja bean in the proportion of tv^o parts of 

 either of the former to one of the latter. .Such ensil- 

 age is palatable, and in composition approximates 

 closely the German feeding standard for milch cows. 

 One peck of seed will plant a little more than one-half 

 acre. If .sown for seed I would drop about eight seeds 

 per running foot in the row; if for fodder, from 10 to 

 12 seeds. The distance between the rows on good 

 land should be about 2J4 feet. If the land is poor the 

 rows may be .somewhat nearer together. The crop 

 does well on any good corn land, and should be plant- 

 ed about the same time that corn is planted. The 

 seed can be very satisfactorily put in with any corn- 

 planter that plants in drills. 



These beans are edible, and are the richest known 

 natural vegetable product. I do not believe, however, 

 that they will be as well liked for table use as some of 

 our older varieties of beans; they are too rich and oily 

 to suit mo,st tastes. They are not much used directly 

 as food, even by the Japanese, but are largely employ- 

 ed in the manufacture of a table sauce known as 

 shoyu (.soy), whence, probablj', the names .soja, soya, 

 and soy. They are, also, largely used for the manu- 

 facture of a bean chee.se, which is a favorite and large- 

 ly used article of food. A great many of the beans 

 are, also, used as food for horses and catt'e. 



Ma.ss. Ag'l College. [Prof.] Wm. P. Brooks. 



THE HOME MIXING OF FERTILIZERS. 

 The above is the title of a newspaper bulle- 

 tin from our Ohio Experiment vStation, sent out 

 April 11. Within a short distance of our place 

 a sub-station has Vjeen chosen, for the reason 

 that it is about as poor clay soil as any to be 

 found in the State. At this sub-station home- 



mixed fertilizers have been carefully tested side 

 by side with prominent brands in the market; 

 and the home-mixed, at about S18 a ton, has 

 given results fully equal to the factory brands 

 costing SoO a ton. In some instances the 

 home-mixed, that cost but little more than 

 half as much as the commercial brands, have 

 given equally good results. The crop raised 

 was corn. Full particulars in regard to mix- 

 ing, where to buy the materials, etc. , are giv- 

 en in the bulletin. If you want it, write to 

 the Ohio Experiment Station, Wooster, Ohio, 

 calUng for Bulletin 182. 



GOOD NEWS FOR THE FARMERS. 



It rejoices my heart to see things brighten- 

 ing up among the agricultural people gener- 

 ally, with wheat toward |1.50, potatoes toward 

 $1.00 a bushel, etc. I know it is a little hard 

 on the laboring man ; but things have been a 

 good deal harder on the tillers of the soil for 

 quite a spell back, and I think the laboring 

 man and the other folks can stand it. If you 

 think the farmers are getting rich too fast, or 

 are getting more than their share, get some 

 ground, and raise wheat and potatoes your- 

 self. See ? 



KEKPING OVER EGYPTIAN ONION-SETS. 



Mr. Root: — You say your Egyptian onion-sets do not 

 keep well over winter. Minealways do. I keep them 

 outdoors in a wagon-house, without any protection, 

 spread on the floor. I always plant in the spring. 



Lordstown, O., March 2S. ' 5 H. A. Simon. 



Do you mean, friend S., that you let them 

 freeze and thaw just as much as they will? I 

 know they are very hardy, but freezing and 

 thawing makes them wet ; and when they are 

 wet they will sprout, so you will have onion- 

 sprouts in the spring, instead of onxon-sets. 

 Please tell us in what shape you put them in 

 the wagon-house — spread out thin on the floor 

 or in a heap? and don't you cover them with 

 hay, straw, or any thing of that sort ? Do you 

 put them on the ground or in an upper loft ? 



onion-sets from large onions. 



My people u.sed to raise the top onion as long ago as 

 I can remember, and they are a splendid onion, I 

 think. They used to keep the same old onions year 

 after year to raise sets from, and always had a crop of 

 more or less little onions; whereas in sowing seed it 

 would often fail. In setting out the little onions, once 

 in a while there would be one run up to form top 

 onions; they broke them off or pulled them up, as that 

 onion would amount to nothing. In setting out the 

 big onions to rai.se little onions I prefer setting out 

 new big ones every season, as I think they supply 

 more top .sets. I have seen very nice large onions 

 raised of this kind. Mrs. Ann Scaife. 



Barbours, Pa., April 5. 



I have been looking for those onions for years. My 

 father raised them for .sale. He would not bother 

 with black seed. If they get frozen in winter it does 

 not hurt them if they are not frozen badly and repeat- 

 edly thawed out and frozen. 



Taylor, Arizona, April 6. Mrs. D. Ellsworth. 



THE OREGON BLACltBERRY IN ILLINOIS. 



One of my neighbors, 15 years ago, was in Oregon, 

 and was so well pleased with the Oregon vining black- 

 berry that he brought some here and planted them. 

 They grew well on clayey white-oak land; also in rich 

 garden .soil; make large growths, but kill to the 

 ground every winter. I have had them for ten years. 

 They never bear anything except a little on the shoots 

 of the same year, late in the fall. ] never saw one 

 gallon in a year, on a patch of four square rods. I 

 have been trj-ing to kill out a few in the garden, but 

 they still hold their place. M. W. Murphev. 



Cuba, 111., P'eb. 2.5. 



