816 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Aud there's our good air to breathe. To breathe 

 weH helps one keep well. To live longer and "better, 

 the doctors say, make it a habit to take breathing ex- 

 ercises. Experts declare that the average man or- 

 dinarily uses about one-tenth of his lung space. Is 

 it any wonder that diseases of the throat and lungs 

 are so easily contracted? Florida air is safe to 

 breathe. It comes in clean and pure from the seas. 



It is estimated that the atmosphere — the vital part 

 extending not more than six miles from the surface 

 • — carries annually from the sea to the land to flow 

 back again to the sea no less than 130 millions of 

 tons of water. The average annual rainfall of the 

 United States is about 33 inches, while that of Flori- 

 da is 53 inches. 



Florida can in all truthfulness boast of its good 



air, water, and healthfulness. Air and water are 

 the prime essentials of life; and with plenty of the 

 best of both, there is no reason why our state should 

 not become one of the greatest in the Union — if 

 there is any advantage in having the essentials of 

 life. 



I want to give a hearty amen to the 

 sentence above which I have taken the lib- 

 erty to put in italics. When we get g'ood 

 men into high offices that are not afraid to 

 come out before the world and make such 

 statements as that, we are certainly making 

 progress toward the coming of God's king- 

 dom. 



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HIGH-PRESSURE GARDENING 



THE DUST MULCH IN TIME OF DROUTH. 



On page 557, Gleanings for July 1, I 

 spoke of the Barker cultivator for making 

 a dust mulch, etc. Well, I so much enjoyed 

 running the Barker cultivator that Mrs. 

 Root remonstrated. She said I was culti- 

 vating the garden over and over, when there 

 was not a weed to be seen. Well, it is true 

 I did run the little cultivator when it seemed 

 there was no particular need of it. One 

 reason was that I was getting so much 

 benefit from having a good sweat every 

 forenoon or afternoon. By the way, toward 

 seventy years ago I once heard my grand- 

 father, Jesse Hart, say that he aimed to 

 keep his garden in such condition that no 

 one could find in it a tobacco-boxful of 

 weeds by going all over the enclosure inside 

 of the picket fence. I suppose this was at 

 a time when my grandfather was almost too 

 old to do much but make garden. Well, 

 when I got my garden in such fine condition 

 I thought about the tobacco-box story; and 

 altho T do not have any " tobacco-box," and 

 never had one, I think my garden must 

 have been pretty nearly equal to my grand- 

 father's. I distinctly remember the luscious 

 melons (they did not have " cantaloups " 

 in those days) that he used to get out of 

 that garden and divide up among his chil- 

 dren. Well, now, for the point of this 

 garden story. 



When the gi-eat drouth came on about 

 the first of July there was a soft dust 

 mulch, perhaps an inch deep or more, all 

 thru my garden stuf¥; and altho we had five 

 weeks of it right here in Medina without 

 anything to call a summer shower, our 

 garden scarcely seemed to mind it. We 

 could not use the sprinkling system T have 

 mentioned, because a flood destroyed the 

 dam of our Medina waterworks, and the 

 water board had cautioned everybody in 

 oni' town to be careful about wavsting water. 



This dust mulch stood for four or five 

 weeks without a sufficient sprinkle of rain 

 to form any crust. Great cracks opened 

 up in many places in our clay soil in con- 

 sequence of the drouth ; but our corn, beans, 

 and everything that got a good start before 

 the di'outh did not seem to suffer at all. 

 Some things that were planted late that 

 had not got their rootg far down were hurt 

 by the drouth. I have before said some- 

 thing about preparing a dust mulch to over- 

 come or offset the results of a drouth; but 

 I never realized before what is possible in 

 this direction. You can easily test it by 

 experiment. Clay gTound will never get 

 dry and hard when there is a mulch of soft 

 fine earth on the surface. I suppose other 

 tools will form this dust mulch the same as 

 the Barker cultivator; but I never saw any 

 implement that would pulverize a clay soil 

 and spread it over the surface so evenly as 

 does the Barker cultivator. 



MULCHING THE ORCHARD WITH SWEET 

 CLOVER. 



For years I have witnessed the contrast 

 between a block of trees at our Ohio Ex- 

 periment Station which were mulched, and 

 another block of trees adjoining that had 

 the best of cultivation. The mulched trees 

 were far ahead; but I do not know that 

 they ever tried mulching with sweet clover. 

 So far as I know their mulch consisted of 

 grass and weeds that were cut between the 

 trees. The mulch extended out as far as 

 the limbs reached, and it was kept heavy 

 enough to keep down all weeds. The fol- 

 lowing from the Ohio Farmer, it occurs to 

 me, is an excellent suggestion. One who 

 has tried plowing and cultivating an or- 

 chard, and has also tried mulching, can 

 realize wliat cultivation costs. 



SWEET C'LOVKB IN THE ORCHARJ). 



I was interested in the attitude that Prof. W. F. 

 Massey took in the April 29th issue of The Ohio 



