168 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[November, 



oats ; by getting such seed we might hasten 

 the maturity and thus escape the hot weather. 

 In Minnesota tliis year the wheat was much 

 damaged, so as not to be half a crop, bj' some 

 days of hot weatlier ; if they would have had 

 seed from further north, that would have been 

 five or six days earlier, the result would have 

 been seen in a much larger crop. It was the 

 same with oat-s in this section ; had it been 

 raised from northern seed it would have been 

 ten or twelve days nearer maturity when the 

 rust appeared, and, of course, this much 

 nearer out of danger, perhaps escaped it 

 entirely. 



This early maturity is, however, gradually 

 lost, so that in a few years the crop will need 

 just as long a time in ripening as that for- 

 merly raised. This would, of course, necessi- 

 tate new importations every few years. 



In such crops as are raised from sprouts or 

 grafts it is very doubtful whether any change 

 in time of maturity occurs. Thus, an apple 

 that in Vermont may be claimed as a winter 

 variety, may be a fall variety as far south as 

 Georgia. It is not that the apple will grow in 

 a shorter time, but the winter season does not 

 arrive so soon and so the apple becomes ma- 

 ture before the winter time. 



In potatoes the case is exactly the same. 

 A variety that would be classed late in Maine, 

 ■Vvould be early with us, and the early potatoes 

 would be very early with us. This is jirobably 

 the reason why the new first-class early pota- 

 toes have all come to us from States lying 

 north of us. I do not know or remember of 

 one first-class early potato that was originated 

 south of us. 



So much stress has been laid on the superior 

 quality of northern seeds, by some market 

 gardeners, that one seed firm claims to be 

 nearer the North Pole than any other in 

 America. With market gardeners it is some- 

 times a question of two or three days as to 

 whether they will make a nice thing of it or 

 lose money, cases having been known where a 

 lot of cabbage three days later than another 

 would not bring over one-half the money. 



Prices of Fertilizers. 



For the last few years everything has been 

 going down in price, whether manufaclured 

 goods or the products of the farm ; fertilizers 

 themselves, when of the same quality, have 

 not followed this universal decline, and there 

 seems no reason why they should not. When 

 gold was 114 a ce/tain brand of Peruvian 

 guano was held at $55.50 per ton in currency, 

 equal to about $48.67 gald ; now the same 

 brand is quoted at S56..50 currency, or over 

 $56.00 gold. This, in effect, raises the price 

 of the article neai'ly S7.50 per ton. It is a 

 matter hard to understand wliy the fertilizers 

 should keep up their prices while gold is com- 

 ing down and dragging everji;hing else along. 



If we look at it in another way we tind that 

 in the early part of the summer of 1876 we 

 could buy a ton of the above brand for about 

 forty bushels of wheat or eiglity bushels of 

 corn ; now we must give aliout sixty bushels 

 of wheat or about one hundred and ten of corn. 



I have always been in favor of fertilizers 

 when used intelligently, but the time is com- 

 ing, or has already arrived, when they can no 

 longer be used on our common crops. It soon 

 will be a question with dealers as to whether 

 they prefer tlieir stocks to lie on hand or to 

 reduce tlieir prices to a point that will again 

 enable the farmer to use them with profit. — 

 A. B. K. 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA- 

 (liutterflu- Weed.) 



The order Asclepiadacere (Milk-weed family) 

 presents a very curious and intricate floral 

 structure. In "Dr. Gray's Manual " fourteen 

 species are described. The above is readily 

 distinguished from all the others hy its alter- 

 nate, scattered upper leaves, and milky juice 

 little or none ; leafy to the summit, one to two 

 feet high, usually deep orange-yellow, showy 

 flowers, the umbels short peduncled. Found 

 in dry hills and fields ; not rare ; prefers sandy 



soils, pine woods, &c. It is also known by tlie 

 name of phurisy root. The root is ' large, 

 fleshy and branching, and often somewhat 

 fusiform. It is only by comparison with the 

 other species that it can be called tuberous. 

 The stems are numerous, gi-owing in bunches 

 from the root. Leaves on the erect, hairy 

 stems are scattered, sessile; the]ilowers ones 

 pedunculated, rather oblong and obtuse at 

 base. The numerous bright orange color of 

 the flowers calls attention to it when met with 

 during the flowering season, in July and Sep- 

 tember. The flower is peculiar, five-parted, 

 reflexed, and the segments oblong. The nec- 

 tary or crown of the stamens are five, forming 

 caps or cups with an oblique mouth, having 

 a small, incurved, acute horn proceeding from 

 the base of the cavity of each, and meeting 

 at the centre of the flower. The pollen forms 

 ten distinct, yellowish, transparent bodies, of 

 a flat and spatulate form, ending in curved 

 filaments, which unite them by pairs to a 

 minute, dark tubercle at the top. Each pair 

 is suspended in the cells of two adjoining 

 anthers, so that if a needle be inserted be- 

 tween the membraneous edges of two anthers 

 and forced out at the top it carries with it a 



pair of pollen masses. It has long been known 

 that insects visiting these plants disengage 

 these transparent yellowish bodies, and carry 

 them away with them. See account iu The 

 Lanca.ster Farmer for September, page 

 131, of Mr. Wm. .1. Pyle, and the unfortunate 

 bees of his hive, having their legs ornamented 

 with these pollen appendages, were ejected 

 from the hive and treated without meicy or 

 favor by the rest of the community. A speci- 

 men of the plant sent per Mr. Pyle proved to 

 be the Asclepias incarnata, "Swamp Milk- 

 weed ;" flowers flesh-colored and leaves 

 smooth. We would naturally infer that it 

 was a kind of parasitic fungus that infested 

 the legs of the bees, but why so obnoxious to 

 the other bees, is an open question. 



The root of the "A. tubero.sa " is the only 

 part recognized medicinally, and is eminently 

 entitled to the attention of physicians as an 

 expectorant and diaphoretic. It produces 

 effects of this kind with great gentleness, and 

 without the heating tendency which accom- 

 panies many vegetable sudorifics. Ithas'been 

 long employed by practitioners in the Southern 

 States in pulmonary complaints, particularly 

 in catarrh, pneumonia and pleurisy, and has 

 acquired much confidence for the relief of 

 these maladies. It appears to be an expec- 

 torant peculiarly suited to the advanced stages 



of pulmonary inflammation, after depletion 

 has been carried to the requisite extent. Dr. 

 Parker, of Virginia, as cited by Dr. Thacher, 

 having been iu the habit of employing this 

 root for twenty-five years, considers it ps 

 possessing a peculiar and almost specific 

 quality of acting upon the organs of respira- 

 tion, promoting suppressed expectoration, 

 and relieving the breathing of pleuritic patients 

 in the most advanced stages of the disease. * 

 Dr. Chapman, Professor of Medicine, Phila- 

 delphia, has tested its merits, and speaks with 

 confidence of its powers. 



Administered in substance or decoction. 

 A teacupf ul of the strong decoction, or from 

 20 to 30 grains of the powder, may be given 

 in pulmonary complaints several times a day, 

 repeated in some cases of inflammatory dia- 

 thesis until it subsides, or so long as it agrees 

 with the stomach and bowels. Much more 

 might be said in its behalf, but I am not 

 writing a medical work, simply a brief no- 

 tice. — /. Stauffer^ Lancaster. 



^ 



RISE AND PROGRESS OF BEE CUL- 

 TURE.* 



All the great inventions and discoveries 

 which have developed the resources of the 

 world to a greater extent within the past cen- 

 tury than in all previous time since the crea- 

 tion, have had their origin, more or less re- 

 mote, in tlie ages past. The various a])plica- 

 tious of steam, electricity, the mechauieal 

 powers, and the wondrous developments of 

 natural science which have so clianged the 

 face of all nature, and the currents of. thought 

 within the past few years, are but the accu- 

 mulations and scientific combinations of ideas 

 and inventions, scattered all along the line of 

 the ages, by the past generations in their on- 

 ward march from ignorance, superstition and 

 bigotry to intelligence, knowledge and true 

 science. Of all kinds of research in tlie de- 

 velopment of National industries, none are 

 more fruitful, inviting, and instructive to the 

 Antiquarian than the liistory of the culture of 

 the honey bee; for in all his researches, he 

 will find himself in the company of the wisest 

 and best minds of all ages. Poets, Natural- 

 ists, Philosophers and doctors of divinity are 

 all largely represented in its history. Honey 

 was regarded by the Ancients as a present 

 from the gods, and with it their libations 

 were made around the tombs of those dear to 

 them. With honey they preserved their 

 corpses. With honey their gods were ap- 

 peased by pouring it upon their altars and 

 the heads of the victims. Honey was the 

 only sweet known until within comparatively 

 modern times. The Holy Scriptures abound 

 in figures of the highest joys and the most ex- 

 quisite sweetness, drawn from the bee and its 

 delicious product. Aristotle pronounced the 

 honey bee a magazine of the^virtues. Virgil, 

 the most elegant of the Latin poets, call it a 

 ray of the divinity, and chose it as the subject 

 for the best of his Georgics. Shakespeare, 

 Milton, and, in fact, all the prominent writers, 

 have bestowed on the bee at least a passing 

 notice. De Montfort, who, in 1646, wrote a 

 work on bees, estimates the number of auth- 

 ors who had written on this subject previous 

 to his time, at between five and six hundred, 

 the larger part of which are lost, but traces 

 of most of them have come down to us through 

 works published in the seventeenth century. 

 These works, one of which was written by De 

 Montl'ort, seems to unite the ideas of the An- 

 cients with those of his own time. And the 

 most romantic and foolish reveries stand side 

 by side with sensible views, and in many in- 

 stances the two are so badly mixed, that to 

 give in full the various views which have pre- 

 vailed, at difl:"erent times in the past history 

 of bee-culture, would bring a result similar to 

 what Milton says of the writings of the Fath- 

 ers. A huge drag net, brought down the 

 stream of time, filled mostly with sticks and 

 straws, pebbles and shells, sea-weed and mud, 

 with a pearl in the oyster here and there. We 



*Read before the American Bee Keepers Association, 

 Oct. Sth, 1878, oy A. J. King, Ed, of Bee Keeper's Magaziiie. 



