130 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[ September , 



spring of 1877 he put ou the land thus sown a 

 heavy eoathig of stable manure, and 195 

 bushels of lime to the acre. "When the rye 

 was in head he plowed the whole down and 

 put in a crop of tobacco. He gathered 3,200 

 pounds of as fine tobacco as was grown in the 

 county, and it brought as good a price — tliis 

 was 1,000 pounds to the acre. After tlie crop 

 was gathered ho plowed down the same land 

 and sowed, in the fall of 1877, three bushels 

 of mixed Fultz and old red blue stem wheat, 

 weighing 245 pounds, without adding manure 

 of any kind. His wheat was neither drilled 

 nor cultivated, but was sown broadcast. This 

 summer (1878) his two acres yielded ninety 

 (90) bushels — that is 45 bushels to the acre — 

 and now the enclosure has a very promising 

 crop of timothy and clover. 



He also turned down a field of clover last 

 year, when the second crop was in bloom and 

 sowed it in wheat, and this season it yielded 

 thirty-five bushels to the acre. This field re- 

 ceived no manure other than the clover which 

 was plowed down last season. 



This is not intended to illustrate that to- 

 bacco does not exhaust the soil, but that by 

 an intelligent course of replenishment the soil 

 may work for the farmer just as the horse 

 does for the drayman. If the drayman was 

 to cease feeding his horse, he would become 

 exhausted in a single day ; but by generous 

 feeding he supplies the daily ' ' wear and tear, ' ' 

 and the horse continues to perform his labor 

 effectively as long as he is well fed ; it is even 

 so with land in a dense population, after it 

 has lost its virgin .strength. In the suburbs 

 of nearl}' all our large cities are enclosures 

 that have been cropped with the same vege- 

 tation for twenty, sixty or a hundred years or 

 more, and those enclosures never wear out, 

 because the owners of them keep feeding them 

 with rich manures, composts and fertilizers, 

 and they are well aware tliat their success in 

 "•truck-gardening" depends upon their fidelity 

 to the soil, which is the medium of their 

 success. 



Farming on practical and scientific princi- 

 ples is intended to supplant the contingencies 

 of exhausted and worn out lauds. 



THANKS. 



We are under special obligations to our 

 friend, Mr. William Weidle, of East Orange 

 street, for luscious clusters of the Israella 

 grape ; a fine brace of the Bartlett pear ; also 

 specimens of tlie Crawford Early and the 

 Foster peaches. Two bunches of the grapes 

 were singularly twined together in a compact 

 mass and weighed over a pound. The Foster 

 peaches were part of the "maiden crop" of a 

 young tree, going in its second year. Speci- 

 mens of this kind are not hard to "take," be- 

 cause they nut only coutribute to our mental 

 gratification, but also to our physical comfort. 

 Do as we will we can not ignore the physical ; 

 moreover, the physical constitution is the 

 "plane and continent" upon which alone can 

 be developed a normal, moral and intellectual 

 nature. 



Our thanks are also due to Mr. Henry Sener 

 for a generous donation of "Sener's Holland 

 Pippin " apples, and the celebrated "Sener 

 Premium Peaches ;" the latter measuring over 

 nine inches in circumference and weighing 

 half a pound. It is a consolation to know tliat 

 both these fruits are under the culture of 

 prominent fruit growers in different parts of 

 our county, and we may reasonably expect 

 that in a few years they will be widely dif- 

 fused, and the lovers of good fruit will liave 

 ample opportunity to gratify a cultivated 

 taste. Mr. Daniel Siueych, who has the ex- 

 clusive control of this peach, will soon be 

 enabled to furnish the market with nursery 

 stock in abundance. 



We are likewise under obligations to Daniel 

 Smeych for his fine clusters of Rebecca, Creve- 

 ling and Diana grapes, and for luscious siieci- 

 mens of the "Sener Centennial Peach." How 

 incomparably superior these peaches are to 

 the masses of this fruit W'hich finds its way 

 mto our market, and we may wonder that 

 any peach-grower should bother himself with 



those poor kinds when a better and more 

 profitable kind are so very accessible. The 

 Susquehana is a larger peach (specimens before 

 us grown by INIrs. 15. F. Bear, of East Chest- 

 nut street, Lancaster, weighing 12 ounces 

 and measuring 114 inches in circumference), 

 but they do not possess the luscious, fragrant 

 and edible qualities of the former. 



BEES AND GRAPES. 



Kow is the time to test the question as to 

 whether bees cut the skins of the grapes to 

 extract the sweets that are inside. For oiu'- 

 self, we may be permitted to say that we are 

 by no means convinced, by our personal obser- 

 vations thus far, that the charge which has 

 been made against the bees in this respect 

 can be sustained, the very respectable testi- 

 mony that has been educed to the contrary 

 notwithstanding. We have had, the present 

 season, Concord, Isabella, Hartford Prolific 

 and Martha grapes in pretty abundant fruit- 

 age, and for the first time we have noticed 

 bees about tliera, and then only about the 

 Concord. Although we watched them fre- 

 quently, we never saw one attempt to cut the 

 skin of the fruit. Tliey would light upon it, 

 and with some manifestation of eagerness or 

 anxiety run over it, but when they found it 

 sound they would immediately leave, and con- 

 tinue their search elsewhere. It appeared to 

 us as if they were searching for a fountain 

 already opened, instead of opening one for 

 themselves. Before we condemn the bees we 

 ought to be more thorough in our observation 

 than those which seem to have been made 

 heretofore. 



We should not judge altogether from ap- 

 pearances, but "judge righteous judgment." 

 It will not do to condemn bees because of their 

 want of discrimination, and thus falling into 

 bad company. Only this forenoon (Sept. 5th,) 

 Mr. John Thomas, of East Orange street, 

 called us into his garden to witness tlie bees 

 at his grapes. He has a very fine crop of 

 Concords and Isabellas, with an ordinary 

 crop of Clintons. The bees were confined to 

 the Concords, and they were there in great 

 numbers. Mr. Thomas' vines are so full that 

 some of the grapes are rotting, and the skins 

 of many of them have a long straight incision 

 or rupture, as if they had been bursted open 

 by internal expansion or external contraction, 

 and wherever they are bursted open the bees 

 were helping themselves greedily. There were 

 also many wasps and large flies present, but 

 we failed to find any of these insects cutting 

 the fruit. Mr. T. keeps corncobs saturated 

 with a sugar solution, and pieces of sweet 

 apples suspended on his vines, and these were 

 as full of bees, wasps and flies as any of the 

 clusters having rotting or fractured grapes 

 upon them. And not only this, but the grape 

 skins lying on the ground, and a vessel con- 

 taining apple parings, cores, and peach and 

 grape skins were also plentifully visited by the 

 aforenamed insects, all busily engaged in 

 making an "honest living." Indeed, iii those 

 parts of the grape arbor where tlie fruit was 

 all sound, no bees or wasps at all were present, 

 except, perhaps, an occasional straggler or 

 two, that seemed to be exploring for a frac- 

 tured or rotten grape. It is well known tliat 

 bees will visit almost anywhere where they 

 can find a supply of saccharine matter. Our 

 groceries, where sugar is exposed, are full of 

 them, and many thousands of them daily fall 

 victims to their want of judgment in making 

 their escape. After they are gorged tliey 

 make a "bee-line" for the open air, and mis- 

 taking the large modern windows for opeu 

 doors they fly into those recesses and are in- 

 tercepted by the large plate-glasses and liave 

 not the tact to go backward and flank the side 

 glasses, but persist in beating their heads 

 against the front until they fall down from 

 sheer exhaustion, and have not the ability to 

 rise again. After the late fire at Mr. Levan's 

 groceiy store, on North Queen street, we could 

 have gathered half a bushel of boes from those 

 windows in a single day. This cannot lie 

 considered the normal habit of bees ; it is 

 merely an adaptation of means to ends, 



through extraordinary circumstances ; aad 

 from all we have been able yet to learn, from 

 personal observation, the case is a similar 

 one in regard to "bees and grapes." Surely 

 if the proper investigations were instituted, 

 with a view to discover the truth, divesting 

 the subject of all prejudice or partiality on the 

 part of those conducting it, the question might 

 be settled to the satisfaction of all concerned. 

 While it is pretty clear to us tliat tlie bees are 

 not guilty in the form of the indictment 

 against them, we are not among those who 

 assume the impossibility of their so offending. 

 Bees are mandibulated iusects, and while their 

 mandibles are not so well developed as cutting 

 instruments as those of wasps and hornets, 

 still they possess considerable mandibular 

 power— sufficient to break through trumpet- 

 shaped flowers, in which they sometimes be- 

 come imprisoned. On the 27th of August, 

 1878, we discovered a honey-bee gnawing 

 around the stem of an Osage orange leaf, and 

 we watched it for twenty minutes or more ; 

 and so intent was it on what it was doing that 

 it did not recognize our presence until we 

 touched it. After it flew away we examined 

 the leaf stem, and found that it had made a 

 visible impression upon it, but still the epi- 

 dermis was not cut through, only somewhat 

 bruised. What its object may have been is 

 more than we can conjecture, but we may 

 infer that it was working to some purpose. * 

 In conclusion, we would admonish those who 

 attempt to investigate the subject, to do so 

 calmly, perseveringly and thoroughly, and not 

 hastily, superficially and spasmodically. The 

 money invested in liees, their accommodations 

 and productions, is too considerable in our 

 country and the world at large, to be jeo- 

 pardized upon mere rumor — to be subjected to 

 the vicissitudes of a mere contingency. From 

 the time that Samson discovered the swarm 

 of bees in the carcass of the lion down to the 

 present time, bees have been great domestic 

 and commercial factors in the social economy 

 of the human family, and to ignore them now, 

 or account them domestic enemies, is repug- 

 nant to the feelings and sentiments of a large 

 and respectable class of human society. 



^ 



LIME AS A MANURE. 



It is singular that there should be such a 

 diversity of opinion among practical farmers 

 in regard to the use of lime as a manure or 

 fertilizer to their lands. Brand, in his "Dic- 

 ti(5nary of Science," says : " It is a curious 

 fact that the use of lime as a manure is en- 

 tirely a European pi'actice, its employment iu 

 this way having never lieen so much as 

 dreamed of by the nations of Asia and 

 Africa." 



From Europe it was introduced into 

 America, and so far as our recollection can 

 liossibly extend backward it has been in use 

 here, for that purpose, all of sixty years. It is 

 nearly so long ago as that since we worked on 

 a farm, and we can recall one occasion when 

 we helped to "spread lime." Of course we 

 knew uothinii about tlie theonj of its use, or 

 whether it was applied intelligently or not. It, 

 however, was generally conceded to be useful 

 to the Zand, and "limestone hind" was al- 

 ways made a point of excellence when it was 

 advertised for sale, or when it was sought for 

 as a local investment. If it was entirely useless, 

 of little or no benefit to the land, or did not 

 "pay," the farmers of Lancaster county were 

 a dreadful long time in finding it out, and at 

 a heavy cost. 



The barrenness of the "gravel hills," the 

 " Conewago Ridge" and the "Barrens of 

 York " was attributed to their want of lime, 

 and the farmer whose lands and forests pro- 

 duced "whiteoak and limestone" was regarded 

 as highly favored, if not a sulijcct of envy. 

 It is true they differed very much about the 

 quantity that ought to be applied, and jier- 

 haps they were generally unconscious of a dif- 

 ference in its quality. It was, however, con- 

 sidered (jood for the land as a general proposi- 

 tion, but tlie quantity ranged from fifty all 

 the way up to three liundred bushels to the 

 acre, without being able to tell why they dif- 



