444 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June L. 



meal as a fertilizer on potatoes, and has had no bugs 

 to bother, and they are grown on the same ground 

 where he has been troubled with the Co'orado beetle 

 for many years. He is using it again this year, and 

 thinks it a sure preventive The meal is put into the 

 row with the potato, and covered all together. 

 Winchester, Ky., Apr. 21. Jxo. S. Reese 



I may be mistaken, but I hardly think it 

 was the fertilizer applied to the potatoes that 

 kept the bugs away. Had your friend applied 

 the cotton seed on one half of his patch, and 

 found the bugs mostly on the other half, the 

 experiment would have been more conclusive. 

 In our locality, some seasons there are almost 

 no bugs at all, especially if they have been 

 thoroughly killed the year before. Ou- experi- 

 ment stations will be glad, I am sure, to test 

 the matter, and perhaps they have tested it. 



THE EARLIEST STRAWBERRY. 

 To-day, May 30, we are making about our 

 first picking in the open field; and the Earli- 

 est, as before, stands a good way ahead of 

 any thing else. On our grounds we find it 

 even ahead of Darling; but the originator 

 thinks Darling is a little the earlier of the 

 two. I am surprised this season to find the 

 Earliest bearing good-sized berries, and they 

 are growing in a thick matted row at that. 

 It does not give as many berries as the later 

 ones, and they are pretty strongly acid in 

 flavor, and perhaps rather soft to handle. 

 But they give us quite a lot of berries two or 

 three days before any thing else. Last year 

 the Rio crowded close on the Earliest; but 

 this year they are more behind. Now, anoth- 

 er thing must be taken into consideration: 

 Rich soil and close planting makes berries 

 later. Right alongside our row of Earliest 

 are some Warfields. On good ground none of 

 the Warfields are ripe; but on a little piece of 

 yellow ground where the top soil had been 

 removed, the ground is so poor that the 

 plants are scattering, and small at that. Here 

 the sun had got in, and we found quite a lot 

 of dark garnet-like Warfields glistening 

 through the dew-drops in the morning sun- 

 shine. You can make any berry earlier by 

 putting it on poor ground and having the 

 plants far apart so the sun can get in easily. 

 I thought once we would not plant any more 

 Earliest, as they bear so few berries; but I 

 have just given the boys orders to put down 

 the runners around the edge of the rjatch, and 

 before we get ready to plow them up we shall 

 have plants enough to mak? a row or two for 

 nexj: year; and the plants must be thinned 

 out and given room if you want Earliest to be 

 extra earl v. 



Humbugs and Swindles. 



THE ARCTIC REFRIGERATING-MACHINE. 



The above is the name of an apparatus guar- 

 anteed to cool refrigerators at an expense of 

 75 per cent less than ice. Quite a little circu- 

 lar describes the discover}-, and tells about 

 the " Arctic " compound that goes with the 

 machine. There are a great lot of references; 

 but they give as an excuse for not giving the 



postoffice address with these references that it 

 annoys the owners of the machines too much 

 to answer the questions and show the ma- 

 chine ; and their way of doing business is 



cash in advance — no exceptions made to any- 

 body. I wrote thern a pleasant letter, telling 

 them I was willing to send them cash in ad- 

 vance, but I should first like references in 

 regard to their standing, such as we were 

 ready to give them in regard to ours. They 

 replied flippantly, that the fact that they 

 were permitted to do business through the 

 United States mails was a sufficient guarantee 

 of their reliability, and that, if I was afraid to 

 risk sending them money, they preferred I 

 should keep it. Now, if an ice-machine can 

 be bought for $15.00 that will keep a refriger- 

 ator cool enough to freeze water, at a cost 

 ever so much less than that of ice, I was de- 

 termined to have it, and so I asked our rep- 

 resentative in Cincinnati to call on the Arctic 

 Refrigerating Co. They (the one clerk found 

 in the office) put him off in a good many 

 ways, and finally told him they had not a 

 machine in their possession to show to cus- 

 tomers, and that they were going to move 

 away soon anyhow 7 . Oh dear me ! I have 

 wanted a little ice-machine, and one that 

 would not cost much to run it, all my life- 

 time. And now I can not have it, even when 

 my money is all ready. I told the firm I 

 would give them the biggest kind of adver- 

 tisement, free of charge; but they did not ap- 

 preciate my kind intentions at all. But you 

 see I have given them the advertisement all 

 the same; only be sure not to send them any 

 money. And, by the way, do not send any 

 money to anybody who refuses to let a respon- 

 sible party examine a machine before paying 

 for it. I was overpersuaded not many months 

 ago to send money to a Cincinnati firm — one 

 that did not do business unless they had cash 

 in advance. I did it in trying to help a third 

 party. They made many promises to send 

 the money right back if the article did not 

 give perfect satisfaction; but after they got 

 the money they somehow lost interest in the 

 matter. 



Later. — We find the following in the Cleve- 

 land Press : 



Cincinnati, O., Mav 26. — W. B. Preston was arrested 

 yesterday charged with u*ing the mails with intent to 

 defraud. He offered a refrigerator for ?7. 00, which he 

 said would save 75 per cent of the cost of ice by a se- 

 cret chemical process. The machine consisted of four 

 pieces of galvanized iron and a faucet, and the chem- 

 icals are glauber salts and sal ammoniac on the ice, 

 both common in commercial use. He gave bail. 



The above is, without question, the party I 

 have been corresponding with. The picture 

 of the machine has quite a taking look ; but 

 their wonderful discovery — why, when I was- 

 a boy in my teens, studying chemistry, glau- 

 ber salts and sal ammoniac were used for the 

 very purpose of producing a freezing mixture, 

 but it cost ever so much more than to procure 

 ice in the usual way. 



Alexander McLaren says in the Sunday 

 School Times : 



"We may live in a republic, and yet be slaves; for 

 liberty consists, not in doing what we like, but in lik- 

 ing to do, and in doing, what we ought." 



