996 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Entire wheat boiled soft and served with cream and 

 sugar would have been better than any of the half 

 dozen, and murh cheaper. The South Dakota Ex- 

 periment Station has analyzed 26 different break- 

 fast foods, and finds that they cost all the way from 

 7 to 44 cents a pound. One sample of " puffed " 

 grain cost 43 cents a pound, while the same grain 

 boiled soft would have been more nutritious, and 

 cost about two cents. When we come to consider 

 this .35-cent dollar let us figure on the breakfast food 

 value of corn, oats, and wheat. We sell wheat at 

 two cents a pound, and buy it back at from 12 to 

 40 cents! 



Just think of it, friends — buying one of 

 the staple daily foods, if not the most staple, 

 for 2 cents a pound instead of paying 40 or 

 even 43 cents ! We have been using quite 

 a little oatmeal lately with that nice thick 

 Idaho honey I have been telling you about. 

 Well, without thinking much about it we 

 got it in fancy pasteboard boxes. I do not 

 knoAV how much a pound it cost that way; 

 but you can easily figure it out. Well, we 

 were using so inuch of it that it occurred to 

 me to ask our grocer if he did not have the 

 flaked oats in bulk. " Oh, yes," he replied ; 

 and the price was only 5 cents per ib., 

 whereas if we bought it in pasteboard boxes 

 it would be away up. 



Now once more about that automobile. 

 Potatoes are just now at the grocery 45 

 cents a peck — almost $2.00 a bushel. Take 

 your automobile and go out where the 

 farmer is digging potatoes, and get enough 

 to last you all winter. Get some potatoes 

 that suit you, and get them for about what 

 the farmer gets by the wagonload. Do the 

 same with winter apples, wheat, eggs, but- 

 ter, and ever so many other things, and you 

 will save enough in a very shoi"t time to 

 help greatly in paying for the automobile. 



After the above was put in type, when 

 the peaches were almost gone I sent some 

 specimens to our Ohio Experiment Station, 

 and below is a reply from my long-time 

 friend W. J. Green : 



Dear Mr. Root : — The peaches which you sent 

 came in good order, altho one or two of them were 

 slightly decayed. The quality is excellent' — much 

 better than the average. I have no doubt the size 

 will be sufficient under cultivation. It is too late 

 now to propagate the tree for budding. If the tree 

 should prove to be hardy in bud it would be a very 

 valuable variety. 



"W. J. Green, Horticulturist. 



"Wooster, O., October 5. 



In the above there is something said about 

 the size, as you will notice. Perhaps I 

 should explain that the largest and best 

 had all been used before I thought of send- 

 ing any to our Experiment Station. The 

 first year the tree bore a dozen or so which 

 were, some of them, extra large. 



By the way, I have before mentioned 

 that this peach-tree has never had any 

 pruning; and as now it has a gi-eat dense 



bushy top, I asked Mr. Green about when 

 to prune it and how to prune it. He re- 

 plied as follows : 



Regarding the time to prune peach-trees I will say 

 that early in the spring is the right season of the 

 year. If you will cut off the tips of the branches at 

 that time, removing nearly half of the growth made 

 this season, the crop of peaches will be improved in 

 size, and the number of bushels not reduced. This 

 cutting-back of the trees every year makes them more 

 stockj' and better able to support the crop of fruit. 

 There need not be much thinning-out of branches 

 except in case the branches are, without doubt, too 

 close together. 



Wooster, O., Oct. 10. W. J. Green. 



SWEET clover; does IT GROW BETTER ON 

 HARD SOIL? 



I notice in your last booklet you still retain some 

 unfair comparisons in regard to sweet clover grow- 

 ing better on hard soil. The error is made by 

 drawing conclusions from two soils that are differ- 

 ent. I nowhere find anything in my experience 

 (which is extensive enough to settle the point), nor 

 in the experience of others, that hard soil is best for 

 sweet clover. It may often be better, but it is not 

 due to its density. It is due to the one fact that it 

 has been for a long time out of cultivation or never 

 cultivated, and the comparison is made with soils 

 worn out by cultivation. The comparison is, there- 

 fore, unfair. While sweet clover sprouts better in a 

 fii'm soil, I have never seen a testimonial that it 

 grew better in a hard soil unless the observation was 

 taken with entirely different soils. I do not think 

 there can be any contradiction on tViis point. Soils 

 can never be too loose for the best growth of sweet 

 clover, and it germinates better on loose soil than 

 other clover. For very early spring sowing, soils are 

 never too loose for sweet clover. You evidently have 

 no evidence that hard soil is best for sweet clover. 

 Growth of sweet clover can be increased 200 to 300 

 per cent by cultivation like that given other crops. 



Thompson Station, Tenn. W. H. Arnold. 



My good friend, you may be right in 

 regard to the matter; but I believe it is 

 the common experience to find tremendous 

 §;rowths of sweet clover where there has 

 been a brickyard or stone quarry where the 

 surface soil has been all removed, etc. I 

 have already cited railway embankments. 

 Here in Ohio we have miles of road made 

 of crushed limestone; and when sweet clo- 

 ver gets started the seed seems to be carried 

 on the wheels of vehicles, and sweet clover 

 springs up all along the roadside close up 

 to the wagon-track. A few days ago I at- 

 tempted to make some repairs on the lime- 

 stone road in front of our home. It is so 

 hard that I could hardly move it or loosen 

 it up with heavy blows with a mason's 

 pick; but where sweet clover had gotten a 

 foothold in that hard crushed limestone it 

 was growing up higher than my head. 



A year ago I pictured and wrote up my 

 sweet-clover sport, and sent seeds to a great 

 number of the friends from this one plant. 

 Of course I sowed some of the seed myself. 

 and gave the young plants careful cultiva- 

 tion. But a good many of them were thrown 

 out by the frost during winter. Tlie best 



