1618 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



Convention Notices. 



At Bi-antford, Ontario, Canada, a district conven- 

 tion will be held in the City Hall, beginning Jan. 30, 

 at 7 P. M., closing- at noon, Feb. 1. Mr. S. D. House, 

 Camillus, N, Y., has promised to be present. R- H. 

 Smith, St. Thomas, Ont.. Pres. Ontario Bee-keepers' 

 Association, and F. J. Miller, London, vice-president, 

 E. R. Root, and many others are invited to be pres- 

 ent. For further particulars address the secretary of 

 the convention, W. J. Craig, Brantford, Ont. 



The Michigan State Bee-keepers' Association will 

 meet at Big Rapids, Dec, a.'j and 26. Special low rates 

 have been secured at the Northern and Western ho- 

 tels, with headquarters at the Northern, where prob- 

 ably the hrst meeting in the evening of the 25th will 

 be held, and we expect the attendance the next day to 

 be .so large that we shall meet in their beautiful 

 court-house, which has been granted us free of charge 

 by the city. You can get special holiday rates on 

 any train leaving your station on the 3.ith, but don't 

 fail to start that day. A good program is being pro- 

 vided, and many of the most prominent bee-keepers 

 of the State, Canada, and other States are expected, 

 Geo. E. Hilton, Vice-president. 



THE CHICAGO SHOW. 



The annual poultry, pigeon, and pet-stock show to 

 be held in Chicago, Jan. 23 to 30 inclusive, 1907. will be 

 an improvement on any of the series of high-class 

 shows heretofore held under the management of the 

 National Fanciers' and Breeders' Association The 

 exhibits of stock, incubators, brooders, appliances, 

 foods, remedies, and all things pertaining to the poul- 

 try, pigeon, and pet-stock industry, have at all times 

 taxed to the utmost the capacity of the largest hali 

 obtainable. The attendance of visitors, alwa.\ s great, 

 was phenomenally large last year. Plans are now be- 

 ing perfected to make the exhibition, whether from 

 the standpoint of the exhibitor, the visitor, or the 

 management, better than ever before. 



Premium lists giving names of judges, and the va- 

 rieties to be passed upon by each of them, and all 

 necessary information to intending patrons, will be 

 issued about Dec. 1.5, 1906. Twenty thousand 

 will be mailed, and it is the intention to have one 

 sent to every interested person; but if for any reason 

 it is not received, or additional copies are desired, 

 write to the secretary, Fred L. Kimmey, 325 Dear- 

 born St., Chicago, 111. 



Special Notices by A. I. Root. 



Travels in the Black Hills, South Dakota, is crowd- 

 ed out of this issue by the Anti-saloon League Report. 



OFF FOR FLORIDA. 



Until further notice, all communications intended 

 for A. I. Root personally should be addressed to Os- 

 prey. Manatee Co., Fla. ; and if you want an immediate 

 answer, please inclose an addressed postal card. I do 

 not care so much about the postage; but I find that, in 

 my old age, it takes a mental effort to decipher names 

 and addresses. I have often thought I would not 

 mind answering letters if I could just pick up a pen or 

 pencil and go right into the subject without even ask- 

 ing somebody the day of the month or something of 

 that sort. As I shall have no stenographer in my 

 Robinson Crusoe island I can not write very lona let- 

 ters. I can nil out a postal card very comfortably, 

 but that is about as much as I want to do at one time. 

 Now, friends, with the above conditions and restric- 

 tions I am ready to give my opinion, and answer all 

 your questions to the best of my ability, and remain 

 Your old friend and servant, 



A. I. Root, 



PROF. HOLDBN'S A B C OF CORN CULTURE. 



On page 1454 I said, " Who can tell us about a corn- 

 book? " The above has brought to light a book called 

 "The A B C of Corn Culture; or. Making Two Nub- 

 bins Grow where Only One Grew Before," by Prof P. 

 G. Holden, of the Iowa State College. Now, may be 

 you will have to make some allowance for my extrav- 

 agance and enthusiasm when I get hold of something 

 that just suits me. Well, I consider the above book, 

 which I now hold in my hand, the most valuable one 

 for its size that has been given to the cause of agri- 

 culture in the last hundred years. It is not only of 

 tremendous value to every man, woman, and child who 



grows an acre of corn of any kind, but it is the most 

 wonderful opening-up and development of just what 

 Luther Burbank, of California, and other enthusiastic 

 workers have been at work on that the world has ever 

 seen. We can understand it better than we can un- 

 derstand Burbank's works, because it is all about 

 corn; and everybody, even the baby in the household, 

 knows more or less about ears of corn. 



I hope you have read my account of Prof. Holden's 

 talk, published in Gleanings for Aug. 15. If not, get 

 right at it and do it at once, and then you will be ready 

 for this book. This work contains about 100 pages, 

 printed on beautiful paper, and the half-tone cuts that 

 embellish almost every page (and sometimes two or 

 three of them on a page) are about the finest I ever 

 saw in any publication. It contains all of the lecture 

 I reported, and ever so much more; how to fit 

 your ground, time of planting, and every thing per- 

 taining to corn. Then comes the wonderful part about 

 the selection of seed. The farmer who says he has not 

 the time to fuss with such work will be almost as 

 guilty as the man who goes to work and plants seed 

 that he has good reason to believe will not make more 

 than half a stand, not over half the seed germinating. 



If these easy directions are followed, which are put 

 down so plainly in the book, we can almost be certain 

 there will be the right number of stalks in a hill; that 

 every stalk will bear one or more ears of corn, and 

 that the corn will be up to the highest type. You need 

 not plead locality or bad seasons as an excuse for your 

 slip-shod behind-the-times crop. Those who are work- 

 ing along the lines of this book get great crops of corn 

 where their neighbors just over the wire fence have 

 only half a crop or almost none at all. 



The publishers of the book have kindly loaned me 

 three cuts. The one given below. Fig. 34, shows how 

 the children of the household can do the work if you 

 only get them interested. No. 59 is a wonderful eye- 

 opener. Those two ears of corn presented externally 

 just the same appearance so far as one can judge; but, 

 of course, there was a difference in the weight. Just 

 think of it, friends! It is within your power to have 

 your corn-cribs full of ears like No. 1 instead of No. 2. 



No. .53, which we give below, shows what our Ohio 

 Experiment Station did. Just think of that too\ — a, 

 difference of 44 bush'ls to the acre caused by the differ- 

 ence in seed and nothing else. 



Now, if I am correct about it this carefully selected 

 improved seed corn can not be purchased anywhere. 

 You can grow it in your own fields or you can select 

 some that will come pretty near it from your own 

 corn-crib. But wherever you get it or however you 

 get it, it must be tested; and the expense of testing, 

 where you grow a number of acres of corn, is less than 

 ten cents an acre — perhaps half that price if you grow 

 forty or fifty acres. Is any corn-grower going to be 

 so stupid or so indifferent to his own interests that he 

 will go ahead and plant seed corn picked out of tbe 



YIELD OF individual EARS — OHIO EXPERIMENT 

 STATION. 



114 bu. 

 Three highest -^B^^^^^B^^^i^^M 112 bu. 



104 bu. 



Three lowest 



Average 66 bu. 



FiG. ,53~Prof. C. G. Williams, of the Ohio Experi 

 ment Station, selected twenty-four of his best ears 

 of seed corn. These were shelled separately and 

 planted side by side, each ear in a row by itself. The 

 corn was planted five kernels per hill, thinned to three 

 stalks after coming up. 



T^i ot\ce— First: That one ear yielded at the rate of 

 one hundred and fourteen bushels per acre, while 

 another yielded fifty-five bushels. 



Second: That the one-hundred-and-fourteen-bushel 

 ear produced no worthless stalks, while the fifty-five- 

 bushel ear produced fifty-eight barren or worthless 

 stalks, yet each of these rows contained exactly the 

 same number of stalks. 



Third: That the second-best ear produced at the 

 rate of one hundred and twelve bushels per acre, with 

 only fifteen barren stalks, while next to the poorest 

 ear yielded but sixty-five bushels per acre and had 

 fifty-two barren stalks. 



Fourth: That the three highest-yielding ears aver- 

 aged one hundred and ten bushels per acre, while the 

 three poorest of the twenty-four ears produced only 

 sixty-six bushels, or a difference of forty-four bushels 

 per acre. 



