180 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[ December, 



cotton ready for market. Irately we have had 

 inucli rain fall here, so that planters cannot 

 plow and get their land in order to put seed 

 in the ground; perhaps it will be well in the 

 end ; at least we shall take things as we find 

 them, and not as we want them. Inasmuch 

 as we did not create heaven and earth, we 

 shall not find fault with providential occur- 

 rences of whatever tendency they may have 

 upon us. Individually, readers here of The 

 li'AiiMER, say it is the best agricultural paper 

 they have ever read. Long and prosperous, 

 may it live, and to a remunerative end, is our 

 wish. AVo will say and do all we can for its 

 welfare. — Fours truh/, M. li. 



For the Lakcastek Farmek. 

 AROUND THE FARM. NO. 4. 



Last week was general repair week with 

 us. Every crack and crevice in tlie barn was 

 carefully stopped up with boards and mortar. 

 Some formers have an idea that it don't cost 

 anything to have stock shivering during the 

 night, and it don't pay to close cracks ; stock 

 must have ventilation ! And they say Wes- 

 tern cattle have no shelter at all, and they 

 have cattle, (even if tliey do freeze off their 

 horns and ears) ! 



All very true ; but could they not raise 

 better and cheaper cattle if they would 

 shelter them ? Be assured the chop you feed 

 creeps out at the crevices the first cold night 

 and you wonder why yom- cattle do not take 

 on fat rapidly. It doubly pays to provide a 

 warm place for the stock during the winter. 

 But it should not be warm at the expense of 

 ventilation, the fowl air must 1« allowed to 

 escape. I ordered sash the size of the upper 

 section of the stable door to let sunlight in 

 and keep cold draughts of air out wlien the 

 nortliwestern storms commence to blow, and 

 I think my horses will appreciate it. 

 Turnips for Milch Cows. 



Some time ago a man complained that tur- 

 nips gave a bad flavor to the butter. Our ex- 

 perience is different. Perhaps it is owing to 

 the small quantity we give them. AVe cut 

 fine and give about i peck, mixed with a few 

 hundsful of chop to each cow, and have not 

 noticed the flavor in the butter. In one of my 

 farm journals I noticed that turnips ought to 

 be cut in the morning for evening feeding, 

 so that the flavor would evaporate, and I am 

 convinced by experience that it is a good 

 plan. 



I am afraid we are too much absorbed with 

 toliacco and neglect to provide sufficient suc- 

 culent food in the shape of roots. I think 

 we ought to plant at least an acre in roots for 

 every liftj' acres in the farm, for few things 

 arc more appreciated by cattle during the 

 long winter. — Buralist, CreswcU, Pa., Dec. 

 3(', 1877. ^ 



For The LANCASXEn Farmer. 

 GRAPES AND BEES. 



Editor of Lancaster Farmer — Dear 

 Sir : A few weeks ago I gave a statement 

 through The JS^eiv Era, and which you liave 

 now transferred to The Farjier, with some 

 half a dozen articles in opposition to my state- 

 ment of facts "that bees cut the skins nf grajKs, 

 and tluit they destroyed nearly all of my 

 crop." 



Now, with your permission, and in justice 

 lo myself, allow me to examine, or criticise, 

 if you please, tlie various contradictory state- 

 ments of these writers. Ain't some of them 

 theorists .? 



Xo. 0. Your own joking, Mr. Editor, ' 'That 

 fo\u- blind men, on examining an elephant, all 

 differed as to its appearance. That they were 

 all siieciJiaiU!/ right, yencriralh/ wi'ong. " 

 Though its a ifling at my being a c(0-clcss ob- 

 server, I \vill pass. 



Xo. 1. In the article formerly claimed by 

 tlie editor of The New Era, us editorial, we 

 now see signed "F. R. D." Of course we 

 know Frank! who says "The bees deserve a 

 good word, for the odium cast upon them by 

 theorists and careless observers, and no person 

 wlio brings this charge, ever saw bees stinginej 



fruit." True, but we have seen them cut the 

 skin of grapes! 



No. 2. To my own article published in The 

 New Era, in response, as I then thought, of 

 the editor's strictures, against the possibility 

 of the bees damaging sound grapes, I there 

 stated facts. 



No. 3. "M," of Oregon, declares the bees 

 innocent. If "M" will carefully read my 

 article, he will see that I do not charge bees 

 eicneralhj as guilty. I stated that I myself 

 kept bees for many years, and tliat I also had 

 grapes, and that it was only within two or 

 three years that they commenced to injure my 

 grapes. Of course, I alluded to the Italian 

 variety — and when tliese cut the skin, the 

 black bees will also come and get a share of 

 the sweet juice. lie admits "that never be- 

 fore this summer did they visit his grapes," 

 l3ut tries to explain tliat ' "The Clinton burst 

 their skins, from some cause unknown to me. " 

 Did not grapes burst liefore? at least J. S. 

 says "they did eight vears ago." 



No. 4. "W," of Strasburg, "is an extensive 

 grower of grajjes, but had no trouble before the 

 present ycaj-. This year he was unable to gather 

 more than a few perfect bundles. The bees 

 cleslroyed all the rest. Thousands of bees 

 were constantly on mv fruit from early dawn 

 until dusk." Then "adds, "If the skin is 

 broken in some other way, so 1)6 it, and we 

 will either have to do without grapes, or the 

 busy bee, o{ the Italian variety.'''' Just so. 

 AsM)-. AV., of Strasburg, was not certain 

 whether the bees or some other insect cut the 

 skins of his grapes, (perhaps he did not take 

 tlie time to watch them closely) "but he does 

 know tliat they destroyed nearly all his fruit," 

 and adds, "if the skin was broken in some 

 other way, so be it." 



No. 5. Now, here is where our friend J. S. 

 comes in, "to relieve the poor bees from the 

 odium cast upon them by a careless observer.'''' 

 J. S. lays great stress on the word "if," in 

 AV.'s article, and thinks " as the gi'apes were 

 \ery thii>-sJcinnccl this year," try s to explain 

 as to the cause of the skiyis bur.'itinrj, which he 

 says " belongs to natural philosophy and 

 vegetable philosophy," and tries to explain un- 

 explainable phenomenal appearances by going 

 back eight years, " when after a rain, the sun 

 striking on the little globules of water on the 

 fruit, acted like a burning lens, the skin of 

 the grapes bursted ;" and adds, "let us be 

 sure we are right, and not jump at conclusions, 

 as we find many insects that might lie taken 

 for Italian bees, and not to be distinguished 

 by a mere cctsiial observer.''^ " Eiglit years 

 ago," bees did »io( injure our grapes. I sup- 

 pose the reason why "they did not, was because 

 there were no Italian bees in our vicinity. 

 Mr. J. S.'s explanation is a very equivocal 

 one ! Ugh ! the mystery of being mysterious ! 

 would it not be more satisfactory to say — as 

 bees come under the order of Natural History, 

 and the grapes under that of Vegetable 

 Physiology, consequently these being opposing 

 forces, and coming into juxtaposition, there 

 will, of course, be a rupture— a "burst"— 

 tlien the bees can get their fill of the sweet 

 juice, and the elements onlv to blame ! 



No. 6. Mr. J. F. Ilersliey, Mt. Joy, pre- 

 tends to say "the black bees worked on the 

 broken grapes, for a few years past, quite as 

 much as the Italians do now," (Mr. H. keeps 

 the Italian bees,) and then says, "sound 

 grapes they never damage ; had Mv. G. 's 

 grapes all been sound, the bees would never 

 have visited his vines." My dear sir, my 

 grapes were as sound as grapes ever are ; in- 

 deed, more sound and perfect than usual, as 

 tliere was no mildew this summer to arrest 

 their growth, and birds and no insects of any 

 kind visited the grapes as the bees had, and 

 kept sole jiosscssion till the last grape was 

 sucked dry ! 



A reverend gentleman, pastor of a congre- 

 gational church, with whom I have been in 

 correspondence for a number of years, and 

 who is also a live horticulturist, ejspecially a 

 grower of grapes, on writing to him, lately, I 

 incidentally mentioned the loss of my grapes 

 by bees. In a letter just received he says : 



" I shouldn't hesitate, if I were you, to pro- 

 tect myself with Paris green, or any other 

 such poison against the bees," &c. — Uespect- 

 fulbi, .7. B. Garber. 



[Our venerable friend entirely misappre- 

 hends us, if he supposes our simile was in- 

 tended as a "fling" at his being a careless oh- 

 server, for we are too deeply impressed to the 

 contrary to reach such a conclusion. AVe 

 merely meant to infer that isolated observa- 

 tions cannot always be depended on as ab- 

 solute illustrations of character per se. — Ed.] 



• 



OUR PROSPECTS. 



There are many signs that for farmers at 

 least the most of the hard times are over; 

 and if there be not a remarkable career of 

 prosperity ahead for the cultivators of the soil, 

 we shall be very much surprised. 



In the first place, the immense amount of 

 thoughtless debt incurred during an inflated 

 currency has been measurably reduced. The 

 people who bought farms at inflated prices,, 

 incurring mortgages to be paid when currency 

 and of course tlie price of farm produce would 

 be near par, have paid up in full the iirice of 

 their folly, and those who incur debts now 

 will have some reasonable chance to foresee 

 what prices they will get for their products 

 when pay day comes round. There arc not 

 near .so many western farmers paying ten to 

 twelve per cent, interest on the purchase 

 money of their farms as there once were. 

 The people who have lived on interest will 

 have to go to work with their money. Bor- 

 rowers are few. The banks hardly know 

 what to do wth the money they hold. Instead 

 of putting it "out to interest" capitalists will 

 have to invest it in productive employment. 

 This will put people to work, and the workers 

 will have to buy farm products. 



Not by any means among the least of the 

 bright features of the future, is the steady 

 increase in our exports, and the decrease in 

 the amount of manufactured goods. These 

 matters especially interest the farmers of this 

 country, as with industrial prosperity his suc- 

 cess is intimately bound. It is generally a 

 good sign when there is a large import of raw 

 material to be used in our industries and 

 worked up to be sold over again at an en- 

 hanced value, but when the imports are of 

 articles that we could just as well make wholly 

 for ourselves, it is another thing. Thus im- 

 ports, heavy though they may be, do not 

 always show things are going wrong. It may 

 show a nation is very wealthy, that she can 

 afford to buy largely, indeed to buy much 

 more than v/e liuy, and this seems to be ex- 

 actly tlie condition in which we are finding 

 ourselves. 



Among all the exports of the few past years, 

 nothing is more gratifying than the iucreasing 

 shipments of cotton goods. When some of 

 our eastern manufacturers sent some of these 

 wares to England, and undersold the British 

 manufacturers a few years ago, the English 

 comforted themselves by saying that it was 

 simply of our overstock, and were sold only at 

 a loss ; but the work begun then has been 

 continued until exiiorting dry-goods to Eng- 

 land is a trade almost as regular as shipping 

 corn. At Manchester there arc regular agen- 

 cies for supplying American goods, and the 

 American brands are generally popular. The 

 amount of goods sent from England to the 

 United States is not one-fourth of what it was 

 a few vears ago. The number of yards of 

 cotton "goods shipped from the United States 

 in 1877, though not all to England, was over 

 ninety-six millions, by far the largest year's - 

 business ever done. 



All of this must redound to the farming ; 

 interest. It costs much less to sell food to • 

 operatives in the United States than to opera- 

 tives in Europe, and the more of them we ■ 

 have the greater is the gain to \\s.— German- 

 town Telegraph. 



[^Delinquent subsci-ibers will confer a 

 favor by remitting their arrearages immedi- 

 jitely, as we must have money to pay the 

 printer. 



