480 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



June, 1917 



Dealer staff, took me around to see the tine 

 gardens in the city. I was so much im- 

 pressed with one of them that I asked for 

 a picture, and take pleasure in presenting 

 it herewith to our readers, as it illustrates 

 the pcssibilities of a garden in the back 

 yard. Perhaps few of our readers will be 

 able to produce so enchantingly beautiful a 

 garden, but it may serve as an incentive to 

 go and do likewise. I give below a letter of 

 explanation from my good friend Love. 



Dear Mr. Root: — The picUire I sent you of the 

 garden I helieve was that of Mrs. J. H. Hellwig, 

 whose rose-garden we saw during the morning of the 

 day we looked at gardens and judged the festival. 

 The reason you failed to recognize the place is 

 prohably because the photo was snapped from the 

 top of the back porch. 



Mrs. Hellwig's garden was really kept by her 

 husband, an Austrian of the newer emigration. He 

 impressed me as having had professional training. 

 Very sincerely yours, 



Cleveland, O., Oct. 12. John W. Love. 



TWO CROPS OF IRISH POTATOES ON THE SAME 

 GROUND^ IN ONE WINTER. 



On page 391 of our last issue I mentioned 

 the fact that we commenced selling the new 

 crop of potatoes on March 27. From that 

 time on to the 24th of April, the day we 

 left for our northern home, I carried up to 

 our groceries in Bradentown from one to 

 two bushels each day in half-peck baskets. 

 For some time they brought a dollar a peek ; 

 but about the middle of April other potato- 

 growers who gi'ew them in the ordinary 

 way, without the use of hotbeds or cold- 

 frames, as I have described, began to bring 

 in potatoes also, and the pi-ice went down to 

 75 cents a peck, or 40 cents for a half-peck 

 basket. Well, when they got down to 70 

 cents a peck I think that for one day I got 

 only 60 cents a pec'k. This was because I 

 advised putting the price down because I 

 wanted to get all of my potatoes disposed of 

 before going back north. Now comes in a 

 point right here that we want to stop and 

 consider a little. When my good friend Bur- 

 nett said they were so well filled up with po- 

 tatoes that I had better not bring any more 

 for a while, I told him I must get my pota- 

 toes, that were ready to dig, out of the way 

 before I started home on the 24th. I advised 

 that, if they did not go off readily at 70 

 cents a peek, he might make the price 60. 

 Then he said something like this: 



" Mr. Root, your idea of making potatoes 

 cheaper for folks who have not much money 

 is all right and good; but there are also 

 many people who have not very much 

 money who are growing potatoes. They 

 paid a high price for tlieir seed, and have 

 worked hard, and your cutting prices be- 

 cause you are going away may prove a hard- 



sliip to them. About liow many j'otatocs 

 will you have if you want to sell them by 

 Saturday night?" 



I replied that perhaps there were ten or 

 twelve bushels. Then he arranged as to how 

 many bushels I should bring him each day. 

 But when Saturday night came there was 

 a great long row of little half-peck baskets 

 in the store, and not much call for them; 

 but as we did not leave until Tuesday I came 

 up early Monday morning, and, consider- 

 ably to my surprise, there was not a potato 

 in the store. 



Permit me to suggest right here that there 

 are a good many well-to-do people in and 

 about Bradentown — people who will order 

 potatoes i3erha]is without even inquiring 

 what the price is. Now, these people did 

 not mind a dollar a peck, while a dollar a 

 peck was quite a boon to the small farmers 

 with their land unpaid for, and who were 

 working perhaps twelve or fourteen hours 

 a day to make both ends meet. 



Since I have been writing these papers 

 on high-pressure gardening I have several 

 times been rebuked for asking and accepting 

 such high prices for garden-stuff. Let me 

 mention right here that our potatoes were 

 all planted by hand and with hand tools. 

 They are all dug by hand. In fact, that 

 was the quickest and easiest way to dig 

 them. There was not a potato in our whole 

 crop that was scarred or marred by the 

 cut of a hoe or fork. In the Bermudas, 

 that I visited in ]898, in growing the cele- 

 brated potatoes they make the ground so 

 mellow that a workman can in many places 

 plunge his naked hand down into the soil 

 clear up to the elbow. Well, it is a good 

 deal so in our Bradentown garden. This 

 being the case, my friend Wesley reaches 

 down into the mellow soil and pulls out the 

 potatoes with his bare arm quicker and 

 cheaper than he could get them in any other 

 way. Then they are well washed and put 

 in bright new half-peck baskets. When I 

 am taking them out of my little auto and 

 canning them into the grocery, the women 

 going along the walk in front of the store 

 often stop and exclaim, " What beautiful 

 potatoes!" Then they follow me right in 

 and order them tied up and sent to their 

 home almost as quick as they can be un- 

 loaded. My potatoes have earned a repu- 

 tation down in Florida, while those brought 

 in by the farmers, without being sorted or 

 washed, have but little chance of sale until 

 mine are sold and out of the way. I men- 

 tion this to show you the importance of 

 putting up garden-stuff so that it will look 

 attractive. Our potatoes were nearly all 

 Red Bliss Ti'iumph. 



