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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



have been telling us repeatedly within the past 

 few days that the cigarette habit was throwing 

 out more men who enlist in the army than any 

 thing else. And in connection with this let 

 me mention just another point. A pamphlet 

 or primer, or whatever you may call it, was 

 thrown into our home or on to our porch, by 

 somebody, I do not know who. It was the 

 advertisement of a special brand of tobacco. 

 The front cover was embellished in colors with 

 an indecent picture. I do not think it came 

 through the mails, because I feel sure such a 

 thing would never be permitted by Uncle 

 Sam. An agent must have been employed to 

 throw it around to the houses or give it to the 

 schoolchildren. In the back part of the book 

 was a defense of cigarette-smoking ; and they 

 had got learned chemists, at least so they 

 claimed, to certify that cigarettes on the Chi- 

 go market contain nothing deleterious to the 

 health. They said cigarettes are made of pure 

 tobacco, and, in fact, contain /ess nicotine than 

 cigars. We will not stop to discuss that point 

 just now ; but if there are those who are in- 

 clined to defend tobacco who read Gi^Ean- 

 INGS, let me beg of you, dear brother, to con- 

 sider this one fact : The men who put out a 

 pamphlet in defense of their tobacco business 

 deliberately planned a picture for the outside 

 cover that would surely do harm to yoiir boy 

 or mine, unless the boy has been so carefully 

 brought up that he is almost beyond the pow- 

 er of any thing in that line. Why should the 

 tobacco habit be always found linked arm in 

 arm with licentiousness and things too low to 

 be even mentioned in the pages of a home 

 journal? Just now the Christian men and 

 women are having a regular fight to stop the 

 work of putting vile pictures in packages of 

 cigarettes, thus getting them into the hands of 

 our boys without going through the mails, and 

 especially into the hands of that class of boys 

 who keep such things carefully concealed 

 from the eyes of their parents. Has Gi.EAN- 

 INGS been waging war too severely on the to- 

 bacco habit? I leave you to decide. 



A NEW KIND OF HOUSEFLY. 



Could yovi recommend any thing for destroying a 

 certain kind of fly that swarms into the hovise every 

 fall after the first "frost ? They fill themselves up with 

 buckwheat honey, and persi.st in hiljernating all over 

 the house, under picture-frames, and between the cur- 

 tains. They will swarm in when the windows are 

 closed. I can not "screen" them out as we do the 

 common housefly. They come in through the small- 

 est crevice. I have tried to smoke them out with sul- 

 phur, and have used in.sect-powder, but it doesn't do 

 any good. They are a terrible nuisance. They trou- 

 ble us all winter long. When it is mild weather they 

 will fly out the .saine as bees do. and then come back 

 again They soil every thing badly wherever they hi- 

 bernate. Mrs. Norman CuRREV. 



Evans, N. Y., March 22. 



My good friend, Mrs. Root has been worried 

 and annoyed more than I can tell by just the 

 kind of flies you describe. Our windows are 

 balanced with weights. She thinks the flies 

 crawl out of the holes where the cords run 

 through over the pulleys. They act just as 

 you describe, only a great deal worse. Our 

 windows in the attic are sometimes literally 

 black with them. I told her to open the win- 



dows a little and let them out, and then they 

 would never come back. When it is warm 

 enough they roost all over the side of the 

 house, and then manage, by some hook or 

 crook, to get in again through the crevices — 

 at least, she thinks they do. I have advised 

 the use of bisulphide of carbon, but we have 

 not yet got around to trying it. That will go 

 into every crack and crevice wherever flies can 

 creep. But you would have to vacate your 

 rooms during fumigation. We are thinking of 

 saturating little balls of cotton with the bisul- 

 phide, or " fuma," as it is called for short, and 

 drop these saturated balls in the holes right 

 where the cords run through the casing. Will 

 the entomologist at our Ohio Experiment vSta- 

 tion tell us about this new fly ? As a rule we 

 are glad to see ne2a things ; but when it comes 

 in the shape of the fly described above, we 

 feel gladder to see them clear out and get 

 away, even if they are new. I will explain to 

 the friends who have not as yet seen these 

 new flies that they seem to be a sort of blue- 

 bottle fly. They make a horrid buzzing when 

 you light the lamps. I never knew before they 

 were partial to buckwheat honey, but may be 

 you are right. 



SOME OF THE NEW STRAWBERRIES — ONE OF 

 MY HAPPY SURPRISES. 



We have been picking strawbenies that 

 were started under glass, for a month or more; 

 and Earliest and Darling, that were not under 

 glass at all, for the past three or four da3'S. 

 The Earliest was only about three days ahead 

 of the Darling. The Darling gives rather 

 larger berries. On account of the hot weather 

 and lack of sunshine, both are rather tart this 

 season. Well, my happy surprise was not in 

 regard to the Earliest nor Darling either, but 

 it was in finding this morning some great big 

 Nick Ohmers, not red on one side, but red all 

 over, and only three or four days behind the 

 Earliest in earliness — perhaps right ivith the 

 Darling in that respect. But the Nick Ohmer 

 is ever so much larger than either of them. 

 We had such a call for plants last fall, at 25 

 cts. each, that we did not save very many 

 Nick Ohmers. In fact, there is only one bed, 

 containing about fiftj- plants, and these were 

 put out very late in the fall. Of cour.se, they 

 have had good cultivation and plenty of ma- 

 nure. But this would not quite account for 

 their being away ahead of almost every thing 

 else in any way that I can see, unless it is in 

 being extra early. Why, an acre of these 

 great big berries, large, handsome, and earlier 

 than any other large berry in the field, would 

 be worth a lot of money. I would give some- 

 thing to be able to present to the readers of 

 Gleanings a picture .showing the Nick 

 Ohmers as they stand in that bed this morn- 

 ing. I wish others would report whether they 

 have had a like experience with the Nick 



