782 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1, 



for any thing. I never saw finer peaches any- 

 where than we have here in great abundance. 

 Last Wednesday morning, as I looked out 

 of the car-window, just at daylight I saw frost 

 on the fences, grass, potatoes, and every thing 

 else ; but as I neared Traverse City, about sun- 

 rise, I was pleased to note there was less and 

 less frost. An hour later, when on my wheel, 

 I went along the beach on the bay, and I saw 

 all sorts of garden stuff, even cucumbers and 

 tomatoes, not harmed in the least ; and since 

 then I have not been able to find a thing in- 

 jured on the whole peninsula. To-day in 

 riding over the country we found one farmer 

 who has 50 acres of potatoes. Until this sea- 

 son, very nearly all the potatoes have been 

 dug by hand ; but just now they are beginning 

 to buy the Dowden diggers. 



MORE ABOUT CI.OVER. 



Mr. Hilbert has acres of mammoth and 

 medium clover that was sown among the grow- 

 ing corn in August, at last cultivating, and it 

 is now just acres of green. He has grown 

 crimson clover more or less for several years, 

 but has decided, for this locality, it has no de- 

 cided advantage over the red, especially as it 

 doesn't stand the winter as well. He says 

 that, as far as he knows, he first started sow- 

 ing clover in corn. The seed is cultivated in 

 with a fine-tooth cultivator running shallow. 



CLOVER WITH BUCKWHEAT. 



Now, this isn't all. Mr. H. also sows clover 

 seed with all his buckwheat ; and now when 

 the buckwheat is about ready to cut, the 

 ground is green with a thick heavy stand of 

 clover that will come right on as soon as the 

 grain is cut and removed. All around him 

 are farms where there will be only bare ground 

 where corn and buckwheat grew, while on his 

 own place every field is green with luxuriant 

 clover. When he comes to put in crops next 

 spring, every field will have a covering that 

 amounts to many loads of manure evenly 

 spread, with no expense for hauling or spread- 

 ing ; and, in fact, it costs little more in any 

 way than the expense of the clover seed. 



The importance of clean pure clover seed 

 comes in here. In one of his potato fields we 

 saw quite a lot of large thrifty docks. The 

 seed was in with the clover. When they first 

 found it out he and the children pulled out a 

 great many, but more are to be looked after 

 yet. Of course, they do no very great harm 

 if none are ever allowed to go to seed. 



While careful, thorough tillage naturally 

 brings the largest crop, there are occasionally 

 queer exceptions; and the good farmer needs 

 to have his eyes always on the alert. This is 

 not strictly a grape region, yet some very good 

 grapes are grown. Some years ago Mr. H. 

 procured cuttings of some grapes that pleased 

 him, and grew vines enough to cover an acre 

 or more. He gave them clean culture and 

 careful pruning for three or four years, but 

 got so few grapes he decided not to go to the 

 expense of posts and wire, and finally aban- 

 doned the field and let the vines go without 

 pruning or cultivation. Of course, they 

 sprawled all over the clean sandy soil, and 

 last season he sold quite a fine crop of grapes, 



and has a still larger one this year. The 

 ground slopes to the south, and the hot sand, 

 has the effect of ripening the clusters that al- 

 most or quite touch it, considerably ahead of 

 grapes kept up on a trellis. When he made 

 his cuttings he selected two varieties, one ear- 

 ly and the other late, and now both kinds are 

 so intertwined and run together it is quite an 

 extra expense to gather them. Should you 

 ever help to gather fruit, as I have just been 

 doing, you will realize the importance of hav- 

 ing each kind strictly by itself. 



With blackberries he has had a like experi- 

 ence. Clean culture and pruning gave no 

 paying crop ; but when he gave them up and 

 let them go he had beautiful berries in abund- 

 ance. This season he did nothing to the 

 patch but to cut paths for the pickers, with a 

 brush-scythe. 



PEACH GROWING IN THE TRAVERSE REGION. 



I spoke of a five-acre peafeh-orchard where 

 the fruit this year had sold for $500.00. Well, 

 since then we have visited another place where 

 we found the largest, most luscious, and hand- 

 somest fruit I ever saw anywhere. Trees put 

 on new ground, and that have never had any 

 manure of any kind, are just as full of fruit as 

 they can be and not break down. Some of 

 the older trees, where stable manure has been 

 applied, are badly broken by the weight of the 

 fruit ; but the owner says they would have 

 held the load safely had it not been for the 

 high wind about the time of the Galveston 

 tornado. He gives his trees clean culture till 

 July. After this the weeds, barn-grass, etc., 

 are allowed to grow. He says he does not 

 want to do any thing to encourage growth in 

 the fall ; and the weeds that grow later hold 

 the snow on the ground. 



Just below the top of the hill on which Mr. 

 Cole's orchard is located are numerous springs; 

 and Mr. Hilbert thinks there is a clay subsoil 

 that holds the water, forming a sort of natural 

 sub-irrigation, and this is why Mr. Cole gets 

 such wonderful crops without adding to the 

 soil any sort of fertility. Mr. C. showed us 

 peach-trees 35 years old that are still bearing 

 marketable peaches. It is really wonderful, 

 the beautiful peaches we find all about in this 

 region, and many times very fine in spite of 

 neglect and want of care year after year Mr. 

 Hilbert got the peach fever some years ago, 

 and put out over 2000 trees ; but more than 

 half were killed outright, and others greatly 

 damaged by the climbing cut-worm. This 

 worm climbs the tree, and eats off every bud 

 as fast as it starts to grow in the spring. The 

 Michigan Experiment Station said a bunch of 

 wool tied about the trunk would keep the 

 worm from reaching the top ; but Mr. H , aft- 

 er putting the wool on his whole 2000, found 

 the worms gathered in the wool at its lower 

 edge and girdled the tree by eating the bark 

 when they couldn't find any thing else to eat 

 more to their liking. The Station afteiward 

 discovered this, and added a caution. 



SWAMP MUCK FOR MULCHING STRAWBER- 

 RIES. 



Mr. Hilbert says this is the best thing he 

 ever used. He throws it out of the swamp and 



