538 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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A. I. Root 



Dear friends, the story I am going to tell 

 you now will include bee culture, high-pres- 

 sure gardening, poultry, and God's gifts in 

 general; and very likely some of the friends 

 will complain that I am once more giving 

 quite a little free advertising. But I hope 

 you will not object when I tell you that I 

 expect to do a lot of free advertising for 

 things that are good and honest, wherever I 

 find them sufficiently meritorious. Of 

 course. I may make mistakes, and I may 

 also lack in judgment at times; but I am go- 

 ing to do the best I can for all humanity. 



On the afternoon of July '61 I started on 

 my trip, and on the following day I found 

 myself in the great city of Philadelphia, 

 where my good friend W. A. Selserhad been 

 waiting for me for three hours, as the train 

 was that much late. As we had lost so 

 much time I pressed my good and able friend 

 into service; told him he was to do my bid- 

 ding, and The A. I. Root Co. would jiay all 

 expenses incurred. As I had already miss- 

 ed my train, to meet an ai)pointment we 

 were glad to call to our aid telephones, tele- 

 graphs, electric and steam railways, and au- 

 tomobiles. 



As we went away down into Southern 

 New Jersey I was greatly surprised to find 

 so near the great city of Philadelphia miles 

 and miles of a sort of barren waste that look- 

 ed very much like certain portions of Flori- 

 da. And there is another thing besides the 

 landscape that made it look like Florida. 

 Every little while we saw a sort of oasis 

 where somebody had built some kind of cot- 

 tage and tried to make a garden, but had 

 evidently gone back, discouraged, and left 

 the land to go back to primitive wilderness. 

 Friend Selser said speculators sold this poor 

 land to unsuspecting and innocent hard- 

 working men, and that was the result. Of 

 course there were towns occasionally where 

 improvements had been made; and as we 

 approached Cape May we saw better soil 

 and beautiful farms, both for fruit and gar- 

 den crops. 



My fir.st destination was to see the great 

 blackberries I have before mentioned at 

 Fishing Creek, X. J. This blackberry was 

 brought a few years ago from Brazil; but the 

 man who took pains to bring a root of it to 

 this country died soon after, and it was al- 

 lowed to run wild until friend W. L. Ewing 

 got hold of it. Briefly, this blackberry 

 grows like a grapevine, and covers a trellis; 

 and it was my privilege to reach up over- 

 head and pick the largest and most luscious 

 blackberries I ever tasted. They are later 

 than the ordinary blackberry, and do not 

 begin ripening until about the first of Au- 

 gust. After that they keep on ripening un- 

 til frost. I saw single canes over 20 feet 

 long, and I was told they had grown much 

 longer than that. It was also stated that 

 between one and two bushels of berries had 

 grown from a single plant. I had somehow 



obtained the impression that it was from a 

 single vine; but as it stools out like any oth- 

 er blackberry, one hill may in time produce 

 half a dozen or more great strong canes, and, 

 if I am correct, it is the hill that gives more 

 than a bushel of berries. The canes grow 

 the first season, and the next one they bear 

 fruit. The third year they die down, and 

 will have to be cut out. Friend Ewing has 

 them all trained on something like a grape- 

 vine-trellis. I think about three wires on 

 posts perhaps five feet high hold the canes 

 up so that the sun and air can get all around 

 the fruit. The vines and foliage very much 

 resemble the Xorthey berry that we have 

 down in Florida that I have already very 

 fully described; but it bears a WocA; berry in- 

 stead of a red or crimson one, and it is a 

 very much larger berry. They grow in great 

 clusters, the berries all touching each other, 

 making sometimes a great heavy mass of 

 berries. The question arises, of course, 

 "Will this berry give anything like the 

 same results in other soils that it does on 

 that Jersey ground?" and this is yet to be 

 determined. Friend Ewing says he has not 

 had much success with commercial fertili- 

 zers nor even barnyard manures; but con- 

 stant cultivation with a dust mulch all 

 around the plants seems to be their best 

 treatment. Four of the plants are now grow- 

 ing in our own garden here in Medina. Of 

 course the plant is a rank and rapid grower 

 or it could not make such a length of cane 

 in a single season. 



At the time of my visit there was a gath- 

 ering of prominent men interested in fruit- 

 growing and agriculture. Your humble 

 servant was soon asked to give a little talk. 

 By the way, the only way friend Selser 

 could reach the meeting before its close was 

 to press into service an automobile from the 

 station. So, almost before I knew it, I was 

 whirled along in the auto and then called to 

 the speaker's stand. As I did not know my 

 audience I feared I was getting in almost 

 too much of the name of the great Master 

 whom I love. Well, I soon gathered from 

 the faces of the women present, as well as 

 the rest of the audience, that my exhorta- 

 tions were not ill-timed; and the remarks of 

 the chairman near by intimated that he, at 

 least (for he was the pastor of their church) , 

 was jileased to have such a talk before his 

 people in regard to God's great and wonder- 

 ful gifts. 



As we had a train to meet, I was obliged 

 to leave before the meeting closed; but be- 

 fore coming away in the auto we sampled 

 the blackberries again. There was about a 

 third of an acre of old plants in heavy bear- 

 ing. Then there was about half an acre 

 of plants set out two years before. This 

 bears equally fine berries, but not so many 

 of them, as they do not make such an ex- 

 tended growth.' Every little shoot is loaded 

 with berries. In fact, some of the berries 



