40 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[March, 



continually kept before the public in books 

 and periodicals. 



The fruit of both of tliese two varieties are 

 larger than the Red Dutch ; and this we take 

 to be the only advantage they have. The 

 cherry is a very sour variety, and it would 

 have been far more characteristic of its quali- 

 ties if it had been compared with a sour 

 cherry instead of the simple cherry of the 

 whole. Though the berries are large, the 

 bush does not produce the same weigbt of 

 fruit as a bush of Red Dutch will. The Ver- 

 saillaise has a longer bunch than the cherry, 

 and the fruit is rather more acid and perhaps 

 a trifle larger than the Red Dutch ; but the 

 flavor is not quite as " curranty," and it will 

 not produce the same weight of fruit. Hence, 

 until we can discover a better variety than 

 the old Red Dutch, we shall stick to that. 



But Gooseberries, in highest excellence, are 

 rare and less known, in this country, than the 

 other berries named. They are less culti- 

 vated, and seldom eaten or seen in this coun- 

 try when fully ripe, being very generally 

 gathered and used in their green state, but 

 when allowed to become perfect, grown under 

 favorable conditions, they become sweet, 

 juicy, and highly flavored, with a delicious 

 aromatic taste. 



Being very liable to mildew, they are less 

 grown here than in Europe. This can, in a 

 goodly degree, be avoided by having the 

 bushes thinned out and pruned high, so as to 

 allow the air and wind to circulate freely 

 among them. While they like moist, mulched 

 soil to grow in, they also need to have free, 

 dry air among the bushes and foliage, in order 

 to secure good berries, free from mildew. — 

 By jD. S. Curtiss. 



BEES ON THE FARM. 



We have often heard people say, " I mean 

 to have some bees, and I meant to have had 

 them long before this." Yet these persons 

 live on, year after year, without them, while 

 their fruit bloom is poorly fertilized, and the 

 nectar secreted in the flora of their fields and 

 hedges is left to waste its sweetness. Bees 

 seem especially designed, in the economy of 

 nature, to gather up the remnants "that 

 nothing be lost. " This was forcibly illustiated 

 the past season, by the reports coming in 

 from difiierent parts of the country of the 

 large yields, of honey gathered from wheat 

 stubble. When the wheat was cut, before the 

 straw was fully ripened, a sweet juice oozed 

 out of the straw where it was cut ; in some 

 instances the juice was so plentiful that a 

 clear drop of juice ran out of every stubble, 

 and some filled the upper joints and ran down 

 the stubble. 



It is a very rare season indeed that bees 

 cannot secure enough honey from some 

 source to support themselves. We have many 

 times been despondent, thinking that we 

 would get no surplus, and have to feed our 

 bees their winter store, when, all at once, 

 thei"e would come a flood of nectar from some 

 unlocked for source. A cool, wet spring and 

 summer will produce no honey, although the 

 bloom may be abundant, and yet it may be 

 just the condition suitable to produce many 

 honey-yielding fall flowers. During the last 

 autumn a large amount of surplus honey was 

 gathered from the different varieties of smart* 



weed {Polygonum). This honey was beauti- 

 fully white, and of a fine rainty flavor. 

 These plants flourish on overflowed lands, 

 and damp lands generally, although they are 

 found abundantly in this locality, growing in 

 corn fields, aud where early potatoes have 

 raised. 



Sweet corn is growing in favor as a honey 

 plant. A sweet syrup is secreted in the axils 

 of the leaves, near the stalk, and bees gather 

 pollen from the tassel. 



It is surprising that farmers will goto town 

 and buy miserable glucose syrup, when a 

 heaven-born sweet syrup can be had at their 

 doors, "not for the asking, butforthe taking. " 

 — Mrs. L. Harrison, in Jtocky Ml. lixwal. 



WHY HEAVY HORSES ARE WANTED. 



A careful look into the way the .shipping 

 and transfer business of the country is now 

 carried on, and a due consideration of the 

 magnitude of this, will show to any one that 

 the nearer a shipper can get his truck, and 

 the team that hauls this, to approximate to 

 the capacity of a freight car, the nearer the 

 requirement of the trade will be met. Coal is 

 now the common fuel, almost entirely so in 

 the larger cities, mainly so in places of less 

 size, and on many fiirms wood has been sup- 

 planted by coal.- This very heavy article 

 requires to be handled and transferred two or 

 three times before it reaches the consumer, 

 and the heavier and less numerous the loads, 

 the less the expense of transferring. The 

 wages of competent teamsters, e.-ipecially in 

 the larger cities, is higher than formerly, and 

 a saving in the number of men employed is 

 one source of economy in making these trans- 

 fers. 



Two light teams cannot be advantageously 

 used upon one heavy truck in a crowded city. 

 Business streets upon which wholesale trans- 

 actions are carried on are, as a rule, narrow, 

 and only one pair of horses can work to ad- 

 vantage to a heavy load. A light team of 

 wheel horses cannot do the backing often 

 required, and in an emergency, growing out 

 of soft going, worn out pavements, or an 

 acclivity to ascend, four horses are not likely 

 to work in such accord as to render the work 

 reasonably easy for all. A team required to 

 move without undue strain the very heavy 

 loads to which they are often hitched, name- 

 ly, three or four tons, must have such 

 weight of body that when they lean forward 

 upon the collar, a full truck load can be moved 

 without too great muscular effort being re- 

 quired. 



As a heavy locomotive moves a full train of 

 loaded cars with but very little strain upon its 

 parts, so a horse with ample weight, large 

 bones, heavy tendons, and wide hocks, is the 

 only kind of animal suitable to be hitched to 

 a three or four ton load. Aud as stated 

 above, the absence of power cannot be com- 

 pensated for by an increase of numbers. This 

 would be bad economy, as much so as to at- 

 tempt habitually haul heavy trains by attach- 

 ing two or three locomotives of moderate ca- 

 pacity as to strength. Let it be borne in 

 mind, also, that the fuel and attendance re- 

 quired for two locomotives of moderate 

 power is materially greater than what is 

 needed for one heavy engine, though the lat- 

 ter may have the motive power of the other 



two. So, also, in the matter of stable room, 

 care by the groom, expense of harness and 

 fixtures, taxes, etc., the one-team rule is the 

 correct one. In the item of stable rent alone, 

 on the basis of $8 a month for a stable for two 

 horses — and this is not a liigh estimate in a 

 populous city — a fair addition for two teams 

 would make the added rent alone sufticient in 

 amount to furnish a heavy team with the best 

 quality of timothy hay for a year. 



A light-made horse is in no wise better 

 adapted to the heavy work referred to than is 

 a light wagon, and no amount of care can be 

 expected to compensate for the absence of 

 strong material and plenty of it. It is idle to 

 plead that the finer and harder texture of the 

 bone of the thoroughbred fully compensate 

 for the lesser bulk. When it comes to a dead 

 pull, at a four-ton load, up an acclivity, 

 nothing will comi)ensate for the absence of 

 weight and power — that kind of power that 

 comes largely of the ability to move a heavy 

 load by putting the weight forward upon the 

 collar. 



On farms where what is termed the skin- 

 ning process — in other words scarifying the 

 surface of the soil to the depth of three or 

 four inches — is regularly practiced, a light 

 team will answer, but where vigorous tillage 

 is carried on, that vigorous growth and abund- 

 ant crops may be secured, the heavy horse 

 becomes a necessity. If it is required to sink 

 the plow an inch deeper than the year before, 

 this cannot be done with a single pair of light, 

 or even medium horses, without great risk to 

 the team, but with tlie heavy horse, 1,400 to 

 1,600, the task is comparatively easy, and is 

 quite likely to be well done. So, it is the 

 conviction in the minds of fiumers generally 

 that their tillage must be more thorough, that 

 prompts, in many cases, the rearing of heavier 

 horses than they have heretofore bred. And 

 while they in this way provide their own 

 farms suitable teams, they at the same time 

 place themselves in a position to meet a grow- 

 ing demand for* a class of horses more and 

 more requii'ed for the purposes referred to 

 above. 



The influences that bear upon the question 

 of heavy horses for heavy work, are not of the 

 character that change, but they will increase 

 as the business interests which render the use 

 of horses of the class referred to indispensable, 

 grow in magnitude. It will be observed that 

 it IS with draught horses as with beef cattle, 

 the interest grows with the demand, and has 

 not at any time assumed a speculative turn ; 

 nor is it likely to do so in the future. Adapt- 

 ability settles all questions of this kind. Farm- 

 ers who are back of nearly all questions of 

 supply, as a rule, move a little slow. It may 

 not be quite possible to tell just when a new 

 and useful move with them takes root, but it 

 is none the less sure to do so. In the interest 

 under consideration "pools" cut no figure. 

 The heavy draught-horse, as to solidity and . 

 usefulness, occupies the same position as roast j 

 beef on the table. It is not a question of " 

 sport or luxury with him, but as a plow for 

 use in a tenacious soil, or an axe for felling 

 heavy, hard-wood timber, adaptability to 

 solid business is the question upon which 

 demand finally rests. — Chicago Live Stock 

 Journal. 



