1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1201 



ADULTERATION OF CLOVER AND OTHER 

 SEEDS. 



One thing that has pleased me in garden- 

 ing and growing field crops in Northern 

 Michigan is the freedom from noxious weeds 

 there compared with our gardens and farms 

 here in Ohio. As an illustration: We have 

 miles and miles of fields covered with rag- 

 weed as thickly as it can stand, all over 

 Ohio. It comes in after the grains are har- 

 vested. Many people think the pollen from 

 these acres and acres of ragweed is the 

 cause of hay fever. In Northern Michigan 

 no ragweed could be found five years ago; 

 but now it is appearing in different places. 

 There are comparatively no dandelions there; 

 and quite a number of our common weeds 

 that are pests were unknown, or at least I 

 did not find any of them until / myself intro- 

 duced them with plants shipped from Ohio. 

 I did not think much about it at first; but 

 these weeds caught on the new soil, and 

 some of them went to seed, and now I have 

 thrifty patches of several weeds I do not find 

 anywhere except where I started them. 

 Our neighbor Hilbert bought some clover 

 seed that seeded his orchard pretty thorough- 

 ly with dock; and others around there show- 

 ed me ragweed that has come up recently, 

 which, as they supposed, must have been in 

 clover seed they purchased. Quite a lot of 

 other noxious weeds are to be found just ap- 

 pearing here and there in places, where it 

 must have come through clover seed pur- 

 chased. 



I have just received a leaflet from the 

 Department of Agriculture in regard to the 

 adulteration of red-clover seed. A lot of 

 samples were purchased in the open market, 

 and they give a list of names of different 

 seedsmen, perhaps twenty in all, who put up 

 the seeds and put them on the market. 

 One of the samples contained as much as 

 U5 per cent of spurious seeds. In this case 

 the 45 per cent was burr clover and yellow 

 trefoil. Other samples contained all the way 

 from one per cent up. The sample from 

 Gregory, of Marblehead, contained only 3 

 per cent of other seeds. One other sample, 

 from W. Grossman, of Petersburg, Va., con- 

 tained only IJ per cent. Quite a number of 

 the samples contained from 10 to 20 and 

 even 30 per cent. 



Now, this is a terrible state of affairs. 

 It ought not to cost very much to have red- 

 clover seed so thoroughly cleaned that it 

 will not contain more than three or four per 

 cent of noxious weeds ; and I do not know 

 but it would pay to insist on having clover 

 seed with less than one per cent of adulter- 

 ants or noxious weeds. If one owns a farm 

 which he expects to hand down to his chil- 

 dren, it certainly would pay big to take 

 every precaution to keep out noxious weeds. 



GETTING RID OF THE GRASS. 



How would you prepare blue-grass sod for a garden? 

 Soldier, Iowa, Oct. 9. R. A. Wood. 



Friend W., I do not know that I have had 

 any experience with blue-grass sod; but I 

 have had considerable experience with June- 

 grass sod; and I have wondered why so many 

 people seem to be afraid of it or object to 

 it. In my potato- field in Northern Michigan 

 a part of it was originally covered with a 

 very heavy growth of June grass— so heavy, 

 in fact, that it was hard work for a big team 

 to get it turned over; but I was on hand, 

 and by taking special pains we got all the 

 grass out of sight. It was well harrowed, 

 and potatoes planted. Of course, the grass 

 started again, and began to grow up from 

 the roots. But we kept it cultivated and 

 chopped off with hoes, every bit of green as 

 fast as it appeared, and it finally gave up 

 trying to grow, and we had the best pota- 

 toes there of any place in the field. Since 

 then I have seen potatoes grown by my 

 neighbors where the grass was permitted to 

 grow, and it almost seemed to choke out and 

 obscure the tops of the potatoes. I believe 

 they all succeeded in getting a good crop, 

 however; but it is terribly hard work to dig 

 the tubers, no matter how you manage it. 

 I helped a neighbor recently a little while 

 in such a potato-patch. I greatly enjoyed 

 turning out the magnificent Early Rose po- 

 tatoes; but before I had dug many bushels 

 I became so tired I had to lie down in the 

 grass and take a nap. I believe that, be- 

 fore the next season, they generally succeed 

 in pulverizing the sods, so an excellent crop 

 is assured of almost any kind. One of my 

 nearest neighbors plowed under his June- 

 grass sod early in the fall; then he harrowed 

 the ground every few days, killing the grass 

 and every weed that started. Last June I 

 congratulated him on having the finest and 

 cleanest-looking field of potatoes I had ever 

 seen him grow. I suggested that he must 

 have cultivated them a great many times, 

 and had done a good job of hoeing one or 

 more times. I was surprised to learn he had 

 not cultivated them as much as usual, and 

 had done no hoeing at all. The explanation 

 was, the plowing and repeated working of 

 the ground with the harrow the fall before. 

 He not only killed the grass, but he made 

 all the weeds germinate possible, then har- 

 rowed them to pieces, gave another set of 

 weeds a start, harrowed them, and so on. 

 This fall working of the ground is a splen- 

 did way to prepare a field for strawberries 

 to be set the next spring, as you will notice 

 by the strawberry-book. 



LOCATING IN FLORIDA FOR QUEEN-REARING, 

 ETC. 



In our last issue I mentioned Miami. 

 Since then I have good reasons to think that 

 somewhere near Fort Myers, on the west 

 coast, would be better for our business. 

 But I shall probably visit several places be- 

 fore deciding definitely on a locality. Mean- 

 while I shall be glad to get suggestions. I 



