1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



951 



chased thousands of head of horses in this 

 section during the war with Spain, for use 

 in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, be- 

 cause it was found that our stock was the 

 best adapted and most serviceable in the 

 armies in those countries. For the same 

 reason the British government bought hun- 

 dreds of thousands of Texas horses and 

 mules for use in its armies in the Boer war 

 in South Africa. Such indorsement from 

 these great governments is quite valuable. 

 It is said that Kentucky and Missouri have 

 no advantages over this section in breeding 

 and marketing this class of stock. 



CATTLE-RAISING. 



As a cattle-raising and stock-farming re- 

 gion Southwest Texas has always ranked at 

 the head of the list. About 80 per cent of 

 this country is occupied by cattle-pastures, 

 and about 20 per cent by cultivated fields, 

 truck-farms, etc. Here is where the Texas 

 long-horn steer used to reign supreme. As 

 a rule now, pastures are stocked with high- 

 grade cattle, while many use only registered 

 cattle or pure breeds. All the better class 

 of ranches use registered or pure-bred bulls 

 exclusively, claiming that it does not pay to 

 waste money and grass on scrub stock of 

 any kind. Quite a number of our stockmen 

 breed registered cattle for the local market, 

 and sell them at fancy prices to pasture-men 

 who are grading up their herds. The great 

 majority of the pastures, however, grow 

 and finish beeves for local and northern 

 markets, the majority of the pastures mar- 

 keting only grass-fed beef, while some of 

 the most successful and most prosperous 

 stock-farmers sell only prime beef fed to a 

 finish with native grasses supplemented with 

 cotton-seed meal and hulls, buffalo hay, 

 prairie hay, sorghum ensilage and sorghum 

 hay; corn, pumpkins, Spanish peanuts, pie 

 melons, cassava, Kaffir corn, millet, Hunga- 

 rian grass, cow peas, etc. Beeves from 

 this country are as highly prized in the Chi- 

 cago market as the choicest from Iowa, Ill- 

 inois, and Missouri. 



DAIRY AND CREAMERY BUSINESS. 



This is another that will go well in con- 

 nection with bee-keeping. Every properly 

 and well regulated farm in the country has 

 a milk and butter department. Some of our 

 best-fixed farmers have risen to prosperity 

 by the aid of a few first-class Jersey cows 

 properly fed and milked, and the surplus 

 butter is sold on the local market, either on 

 the open market or to regular customers un- 

 der annual contracts. The farmer who sells 

 butter seldom comes to town without some- 

 thing to sell, generally enough to pay for his 

 purchases, leaving him a cash balance. A 

 few American farmers pay current expenses 

 of the farm and the family with the returns 

 from sales of butter, poultry, eggs, vegeta- 

 bles, and fruits. Nearly all the German, 

 Bohemian, and Norwegian families pursue 

 that plan and save the proceeds of broom- 

 corn, cotton, and other money crops. Quite 

 a number of our farmers have bought cream- 

 separators, and are shipping their cream to 



creameries. This new industry is destined 

 to become an important one in the near fu- 

 ture, as well as permanent. There is a 

 variety of cheap feed here. The dairy or 

 creamery herd is an excellent adjunct to the 

 truck-farm, stock-farm, hog-ranch, or any 

 department of agricultural operations. 



^yf-owOuy 



^J^ei^hbonsjieldj 

 By 



Ufc 



JJ 



It is a good indication for bee-keepers 

 when the great dailies publish so much in 

 regard to bees, especially when the infor- 

 mation emanates from some reliable bee- 

 keeper. These articles are appearing here 

 and there with commendable regularity, and 

 are doing much to educate the public in the 

 right direction. The latest one I have seen, 

 and one of the best I have ev6r seen, ap- 

 pears in the Sunny South, of Atlanta, Ga., 

 written by Hilton Castle; but I more than 

 suspect that Mr. Udo Toepperwein, of San 

 Antonio, Texas, stands back of the state- 

 ments. I think it will not be devoid of 

 interest if I make a few clippings from this 

 article, doing so at random and without any 

 attempt to connect them: 



According- to the last federal census Texas leads all 

 other States in the production of honey, having to her 

 account in 1900 nearly four hundred thousand colonies 

 of bees, with an annual output of more than four mil- 

 lion pounds of the product. 



Seventeen per cent of the farms of Texas raise bees. 

 The reason for the popularity of apiculture in the State 

 is easily accounted for to the traveler. From the car 

 window, if his trip be in the floral season, he sees spread 

 out before him wild flowers which in grace, coloring, 

 and beauty are unrivaled even by California's famous 

 flora. The greater portion of these wild flowers are 

 nectar-producing. 



Bee culture in Texas, commercially, is a recent indus- 

 try. Fifteen years ago primitive methods of manage- 

 ment principally obtained, and the output was small. 

 The old-fashioned hive was everywhere in evidence, as 

 it is even to-day in some communities. The present 

 tendency is strongly along progressive lines. There 

 are a large number of apiaries in the State which are 

 run on strictly scientific principles, having up-to-date 

 frame hives that put to shame the old "log gums "of 

 unprogressive apiarists. 



There are bee-keepers in Texas who own as many as 

 a thousand or fifteen hundred colonies, some of these 

 colonies producing from one to two hundred pounds 

 per colony. San Antonio is the largest distributing 

 point in the State for apiarian supplies, having two of 

 the largest establishments of the kind in the country. 



While Texas stands first in production of honey and 

 in number of colonies, she stands low on the list in some 

 other ways, according to her census of 1900. Arizona, 

 per colony, averages 49 pounds; California, Colorado, 

 and New York, respectively, 29, 26. and 18 pounds per 

 colony; Texas, 12 VL' pounds per colony. Her average is 

 low, owing to those unprogressive bee-men who cling to 

 the old-style hives, which yield but a few pounds of 

 honey per colony, and who are averse to "intensive" 

 bee culture 



Mr. Udo Toepperwein, a native Texan, and ex-presi- 

 ident of the Texas Bee-keepers' Association, knows 

 pretty well all about the honey status of Southwest 

 Texas. He has been a bee-keeper from childhood, and 

 is the son of an apiarist. 



He says: "I can remember when farmers in Texas 

 kept from one to two dozen box hives. These consisted 



