1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



239 



wish he would tell us something what the 

 chances are. If you have seed to commence 

 with, from some of the best varieties known, 

 of course this should make a difference ; and 

 when one does succeed he confers a lasting 

 favor on the whole wide world. The man who 

 gave the Concord grape, by that one stroke 

 supplied the world with a beautiful, whole- 

 some fruit at a price that was never dreamed 

 of until the Concord became known. So it is 

 with other things. It is a grand work to en- 

 gage in — working for new and better varieties; 

 but whoever starts into it should have a fair 

 understanding as to what his chances are. 



SUB-IRRIGATION IN THE OPEN AIR. 

 All attempts in this direction, or nearly all, 

 so far as I can learn, have been mostly fail- 

 ures. For greenhouse benches, where we can 

 control the amount of water applied, and 

 where rain is kept off by the sashes above, the 

 plan is all right ; and one might suppose it 

 would work all right in the open air in Cali- 

 fornia and other climates ; but the California 

 Cultivator decides it is a failure even there. 

 Irrigation of any kind should be in sight, so 

 you may know what you are doing. Another 

 thing, the water should not be down too low. 

 Here is a suggestion from the above publica- 

 tion, and one that I feel sure will work for 

 strawberries and other garden stuff where the 

 roots are near the surface : 



Where plants are set in close rows and are not very 

 deep-rooted, but want water often and in moderate 

 quantities at a time, lay a line of common dain tile 

 with backs flush with the surface between the rows. 

 Through these one can run water so that it will wet 

 each side for a foot or two and moisten sufficiently up 

 to the surface, yet without making the top soft enough 

 to bake. 



In order to make the above plan work, your 

 ground must be nearly level, else the water 

 will all run down to the lower end without 

 wetting the plants where it starts in. The 

 joints in the tiles will permit you to look 

 down through and see what the water is doing; 

 and when heavy rains come unexpectedly, 

 these same tiles will act like surface drainage. 

 You know I have for years declared that, 

 when we had a great abundance of rain, as 

 was the case last fall, our ground should not 

 only be underdrained, but it should be surface- 

 drained, and these tiles laid just below the 

 surface of the ground will make the best kind 

 of surface drainage. Of course, all the culti- 

 vating must be by hand-tools. If you are 

 growing strawberries, when it is desirable to 

 put something else on the ground to get the 

 usual rotation of crops you can easily take up 

 your tiles, prepare your ground thoroughly 

 for some other crop, and then put your tiles 

 back again if you want them. 



A NEW TRICK IN LAYING TILES FOR UNDER- 

 DRAINS OR OTHER PURPOSES. 



This new invention (for I think it is worthy 

 of being called such) will apply to laying tiles 

 for sub-irrigation or for any other purpose. 

 In fact, whoever has dug ditches by hand, and 

 laid the tiles, has doubtless been disappointed 

 when standing at the end of his ditch, and 

 looking up or down the line of tiles just before 



they are laid to cover up, to see so much 

 "crookedness." I have actually spent more 

 time than I could really afford to in dressing 

 out the bottom of the ditch with the proptr 

 kind of scoop to make the tiles lie with an 

 even grade and in a straight line, both up and 

 down and sidewise, to find my careful work, 

 when reviewed from the top of the bank, look 

 more like a worm fence, both up and down 

 and sidewise, than like tiles laid as the books 

 and papers direct them to be laid. Some of 

 you may say it does not matter, if they carry 

 the water all right. But they don't carry the 

 water all right. If you have ever bad occasion 

 to take up a line of tiles, and have seen how 

 the mud accumulates wherever there is a little 

 bend downward, you will realize the impor- 

 tance of having tiles laid true and on a line. 

 Well, this new invention consists in having 

 a smooth straight round pole that will just 

 slide through the smallest of your tile. This 

 pole may be six, eight, or ten feet long — the 

 longer the better if you can keep it straight. 

 Have a small stout ring in one end, and an 

 iron hook to catch in the end to draw it along. 

 Lay your tiles with this round wooden rod 

 inside of them, but do not pull the rod out 

 until you have packed the dirt all around your 

 tiles so they will stay in place. Now catch 

 hold of the iron ring and pull the rod along, 

 slipping on more tiles, and so on. In this 

 way the joints match exactly on the inside, 

 where you want them to match ; and your 

 tiles strung on this rod are just as straight as 

 a string can be stretched — that is, if your pole 

 is straight. A piece of gas-pipe perfectly 

 straight, and of the proper size, is just as good 

 as the pole, only it is rather htavy to handle. 

 I saw this illustrated in some periodical; but I 

 actually can not give credit just now, for I 

 have forgotten where I saw it. If somebody 

 will tell me where it was first pictured and de- 

 scribed I shall be happy to give credit. 



SOY BEANS IN KANSAS. 



I take the following from Bulletin No. 24 of 

 the Kansas Experiment Station, Manhattan, 

 Kan.: 



The Kansas Experiment Station has been growing 

 the soy bean for the past ten years, starting with a 

 small patch, and increasing the area until last year 35 

 acres were grown. It is a good drought-resister, is not 

 touched by chinch bugs, and the beans are richer in 

 protein than linseed meal. With sufficient moisture 

 to germinate them, a crop can be grown after wheat 

 and oats are harvested In 18116 the yield on ground 

 after wheat was 8 bushels per acre, in 1898 ti% bushels. 

 With linseed meal at $2o per ton, these crops sfter 

 wheat would be worth f(i and $4. 08 per acre. When 

 planted earlier in the season, the yield of soy beans is 

 from 10 to 20 bushels per acre Trie soy bean not only 

 furnishes a crop rich in protein, but at the same time 

 enriches the soil. Henry Rogler, one of our graduates, 

 reports an increase in large fields of 5 bushels of wheat 

 per acre on land where soy beans had previously been 

 grown, over land that had not been in soy beans. 



The point that interests me especially is the 

 last sentence in the above. You not only get 

 a crop that pays, but your land is better off to 

 the extent of five bushels of wheat per acre 

 after the crop is taken off and sold. The same 

 bulletin gives the results of feeding soy beans 

 to pigs. It tells how to grow and harvest the 

 crop. Our Ohio Experiment Station agrees, 

 I believe, with all the above. 



