498 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



ing potatoes ; and such an establishment 

 should be kept up within five or ten miles of 

 every home, city or country. Where one ad- 

 vertises and ships potatoes, some kind of cold 

 storage would be the thing. Of course, we 

 can keep potatoes on the barn floor in good 

 condition to plant, clear up into August, but 

 they are not just the thing to ship. The 

 sprouts would get broken off in handling, and 

 they do not look tidy. By opening our cellar 

 cool nights and keeping it shut warm days, 

 we get along very well till about the first of 

 June. After this there must be some kind of 

 cold storage to keep the potatoes from sprout- 

 ing and wilting. The friends in the South, 

 where second-crop potatoes are grown, are 

 calling every season for old potatoes through 

 July and August. While seed grown the same 

 season may be made to sprout, it is a difficult 

 matter. A seed firm in Richmond, Va., has a 

 cold storage for this very purpose, and they 

 send out a catalog of old potatoes especially 

 for planting either in June or July. Of course, 

 there are seasons when old potatoes get to be 

 very low in June ; but this year nice cooking 

 potatoes bring 40 or .50 cts. a bushel pretty 

 readily almost anywhere, even if wilted and 

 sprouted potatoes are somewhat of a drug. 



MACHINE FOR REMOVING SPROUTS FROM 

 POTATOES. 



I think cousin Fenn will not object if I tell 

 you how it was made. Get a common dry- 

 goods box 6 or 8 feet long, about 2 feet wide, 

 and a foot or less deep. Remove the bottom, 

 and in its place put poultry-netting, with mesh 

 small enough so none of the potatoes will fall 

 through. Now balance it across the middle 

 so it will work up and down like a seesaw. 

 Put in half a bushel or more of potatoes, and 

 with the seesaw machine make them roll back 

 and forth from one end of the box to the oth- 

 er. The sprouts will be broken off and drop- 

 ped into the box beneath. The end of the 

 box furthest from you is made with a sliding 

 gate, so that, by pressing down a lever, you 

 can let the potatoes when done run out of the 

 box at the further end. This machine takes 

 the sprouts all off — that is, when they are long 

 enough to break off readily, and puts the po- 

 tatoes in one box and the sprouts in another. 

 With some boys to pour in the potatoes and 

 carry them away, the work can be done quite 

 rapidly. The one we use is on the same prin- 

 ciple, but it has a cylinder turned with a crank. 

 I gave a picture of it on page 384, Gleanings 

 for 1890. 



THE earliest strawberry. 



And now it transpires that the berry that is 

 earliest one year is not sure to be first to ripen 

 the next season. I can not tell why this is so ; 

 but very likely the soil and method of han- 

 dling have much to do with it. We have had 



the Clyde for two or three years, but had 

 about decided it did not possess sufficient mer- 

 it to add it to our list. But this spring, when 

 taking its chances out in the field with other 

 varieties, it is not only the first to give us ripe 

 berries, but the berries are very large and fine 

 ones. Last year the Rio gave us the best 

 large nice berries, but this year they are away 

 behind the Clyde. One reason for this, how- 

 ever, is, the row of Rios is on the south side of 

 the patch, and right close to it is a heavy 

 stand of wheat. The wheat kept the sun off, 

 and perhaps robbed the berries of moisture and 

 fertility. The Darling, which has been one of 

 our very earliest, was this spring on ground 

 that has been for many years heavily manured 

 with stable manure. This has made the soil 

 so light it did not stmd the drouth in May ; 

 and of late I have been telling the boys again 

 and again that they must spade or plow deep 

 enough to turn up some yellow clay to be 

 mixed and worked in with the surface soil. 

 A great deal of our ground that has been ma- 

 nured so many years is too light, and certain 

 plants do much better in a rather heavj' clay 

 than in a soil containing so much humus. 



mulching tomatoes with straw. 



I do not like muddy tomatoes any better 

 than muddy s'rawberries. But tying up with 

 stakes is more trouble and expense than we 

 can afford — that is, if we have very many of 

 them. I was just thinking of a mulching of 

 straw when I saw the following in the Ohio 

 Farmer, from W.J. Green, of our experiment 

 station : 



a straw mulch, put on a.s soon as the plants get large 

 enough lo interfere with cultivation, helps greatly. 

 At the experiment station the crop was doubled in 

 this manner. In ordinary seasons it would p;>y to buy 

 straw, and use it in this manner at the rate of a ton to 

 the acre. This is not all ; the mulch is beneficial to 

 succeeding crops. Coarse manure will answer the 

 purpose also. 



Brother Green is all right, although he does 

 not allude to the agency of the straw in keep- 

 ing the tomatoes clean. Now, I believe we 

 can grow tomatoes without any cultivation at 

 all after the ground is once well prepared. 

 Work it up fine and smooth, ready for the 

 crop, then cover your whole plot with straw a 

 foot deep. Make holes down through the 

 straw with your arm where }'OU want your 

 plants, and set the plant down in the ground, 

 and let it grow up through when it gets ready. 

 Of course, you want to stretch a line so as to 

 get your plants evenly spaced. In this case 

 you will have nothing to do with the planta- 

 tion any more until you go over it to gather 

 the fruit. I have worked this same arrange- 

 ment with potatoes until I know pretty well I 

 am right about it. This year our potatoes un- 

 der straw were put in in the usual way, but 

 rather closer together. We worked the 

 ground, and tended them nicely until they 

 were two or three inches high. Then we cov- 

 ered the whole surface with straw from an old 

 stack. I waited a little later than I should 

 have done, because I wanted the ground well 

 soaked with rain before putting on the straw 

 covering. The rain came about the first of 

 June. A good many said I would smother my 

 potatoes and kill them ; but in a week they 



