1883. J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



103 



"All," exclaims some one. "But you 

 didn't keep any chickens." Yes, I did. I 

 "carried" thirty hens over the planting sea- 

 son and have now, by actual count, eighty 

 thirfty little fellows in glorious possession of 

 "all out doors." 1 fed them well, " yiuded" 

 them very little, covered the newly-pUinted 

 beds with brush, and sustained no damage by 

 their depredations. 



I incidentally mentioned the fact of the sale 

 of the strawberries to the reporter of the 

 Lund, because iraiiressed with the fact that 

 I many others, and especially those whose in- 

 comes are limited, might make their gardens 

 ' quite profitable by devoting spare moments to 

 their cultivation. — Prank H. Slauffcr, in Nciv 



Era. 



^ 



AN UNDISPUTED FACT. 



It Is no use disguising the fact. Farm work 

 is not popular with either the young men or 

 the young women in farmers' families. Many 

 a farmer who is getting old sees with a sort of 

 vague dread of an approaching calamity the 

 silver threads streaking his loved and faithful 

 companion's hair, as the aged pair sit alone 

 in the long eveuiuys, thinking sadly of their 

 son who is in the city, and of their daughter 

 who is also far away. They realize, too, that 

 new tastes and new desires and hopes have 

 estranged their children from the farm and 

 the homestead, the memories of which cling 

 and twine around their own hearts and bind 

 their affections to the place, on every foot of 

 which there is some work or improvement 

 done by their own hands — some tree planted, 

 some spot beautified, some waste reclaimed, 

 some building arrauged — and now all must 

 go, by and by, into the handsof strangers who 

 will tear down what has been built up with so 

 much pains and has been tended with so much 

 loving care. In thousands of farm-houses 

 such cases as this may be met with, and ihey 

 are very sad to one who knows how it is him- 

 self. 



To know that one has some companions in 

 his misery is supposed to be a consolation. If 

 this is so, we in America may look across the 

 Atlantic and take comfort to see the same 

 thing going on in France, where the French 

 farmers are mourning because their boys are 

 abandoning their homes and becoming cooks 

 and valets and shoj) men, and the girls become 

 nurses or waitresses and stand behind the 

 shop counters, as they do here. And German 

 and Italian immigrants work on the farms 

 and in the vineyards, and when the old farmers 

 die these new-comers buy the land which the 

 young men and women think to be below 

 their notice. — N. Y. Times. 



A FEW FACTS ABOUT BEES. 



Successful bee management must of neces- 

 sity be based on correct knowledge of the in- 

 stincts and habits of bees. Without going 

 into the minute details which a thorough na- 

 turalist would be curious to master, there are 

 certain facts capable of being put into .small 

 compass, with which it is absolutely necessary 

 every bee-keeper should be familiar. These 

 we propose to state in this article. 



Bees are of three kinds. Every complete 

 hive or colony contains one queen, a number 

 of drones (the fewer the better), and a multi- 

 tude of workers (the more the merrier). The 

 queen is the only perfect female and lays all 



the eggs from which all the other bee.s are 

 produced. The eggs are of two diflereut 

 kinds. The one hatches into drones or male 

 bees, while the other producers workers. 

 These, however, are simply midevelopcd fe- 

 males, and every worker-egg is capable, under 

 special treatment, of developing into a perfect 

 female or queen. The special treatment con- 

 sists in building what is called a queen cell, a 

 roomy, pendant receptacle, somewhat resemb- 

 ling a peanut, housing the egg or young larva 

 tliereiii, and feeding it with a peculiar sub- 

 stance, known among be(!-keepers as "royal 

 jelly." This food has the effect of fully de- 

 veloping the young female, so that she comes 

 upon the stage of life, fully qualified to in- 

 crease and multiply. Instinct impels bees to 

 rear queens when the colony Iieeomes verj' 

 populous and swarming time is at hand, also 

 at any time when the colony is deprived of its 

 queen. Only one queen (with fgw exceptions) 

 is required or allowed in a hive at one time. 

 Sometimes a (pieeii will wander into the 

 wrong hive ; at other times bad weather pre- 

 vents swarming, though the preparations have 

 been made for it, and in such cases queen 

 slaughter is very apt to take jilace, unless, as 

 often happens, the workers protect the young 

 queens until the weather is more favorable 

 and circumstances are more projjitious for 

 swarming. Within a few days after being 

 hatched, the young queen issues from the 

 hive on what is prettily called her " bridal 

 tour" — coiirt.ship, marriage and impregnation 

 being all accomiilished on the wing, during a 

 brief flight. Only for this purpo.se does the 

 queen ever leave the hive, except when a 

 swarm issues. One impregnation lasts for a 

 lifetime. Before it occurs, strange to say, the 

 queen has the power to lay drone eggs ; after- 

 ward she is capable of laying both drone and 

 worker eggs. Itsometimesliapi>ensthata queen 

 fails to meet a drone at the proper period for 

 fertilization. She then becomes a drone- 

 layer, and with such a queen a colony is 

 doomed to extinction. This and other tacts 

 in the natural history of the bee show the 

 utility of the movable frame hive, whicti ad- 

 mits of examination, and permits the bee- 

 keeper to remove a drone-laying (lueen and 

 give the wasting colony a fertile queen or 

 brood out of which to rear one. The ipieen 

 bee is endowed with wonderful prolilicacy, 

 and when honey-forage is plentiful, instinct 

 impels her to put forth all her energies in the 

 direction of fecundity. It has been ascer- 

 tained by careful experiments that a fertile 

 (jueen is cajiable of laying upward of two 

 thousand eggs in a day. Her prolilleacy is 

 regulated by the supply of honey, and, hence, 

 it is the policy of all good bee-keepers to feed 

 in early spring, so the colony will be ready 

 with a strong force of young bees to take ad- 

 vantage of the honey season, when it comes. 

 The average lifetime of a (jueen is about 

 three years ; but they do not lay so well the 

 tliird year. If they are not prolilic the third 

 year, we remove them and replace llieni with 

 a young, prolilic succes.sor. Worker bees are 

 short-lived, not averaging more than six 

 weeks in the busy .sca.son. Dnnies are al.so 

 short-lived. Tliey arc reared in the spring, 

 when the colony becomes strong and the lime 

 approaches for swarming ; and when the 

 honey season is over the worker bees drive 

 them out of the hive or sting tlieni to death. — 

 C. F. Dodd, in JV'. Y. Jndejiemknt. 



THOUSAND-DOLLAR COMPOST 

 HEAPS. 



Pleiise give me a little space to again urge 

 upon the Triljuiic\i thouBaiidH of farmer read- 

 ers the great value of the compost heap. I do 

 not urge it as a theory, but as the result of 

 many years of actual experience. I have 

 tried, in a moderate way, one and another of 

 the commercial fertilizers, and while I have 

 no comiilaint to make as to their value, it 

 seems to me that our farmers as a rule can do 

 better. I commenced hauling for my compost 

 heaps last spring, throwing' into them all the 

 coarse refuse, whether it was coarse manure, 

 street sweepings, fish refuse, pig manure, 

 weeds from the garden, potato tops, pea vines 

 — in fact, anything and everything that I sup- 

 posed would he of value. At times, when 

 they seemed to be getting too hot, I hiid wat- 

 er thrown upon them in suiricient quantities 

 to cool but not to drain from them. During 

 the fall tbev were worked over. They have 

 been heating a very little all winter, about 

 sullioient to keep them from freezing. We 

 are now working the largest one over again, 

 after which it will be ready for use. I am 

 aware that it may be urged against this that 

 it will cost time and labor, anil some money; 

 yes, my farmer friends, it does; and so do all 

 of the good things that I know of in this 

 world. I can not tell what the two heatis have 

 cost me, as they have been gathered at sucli 

 limes as we could spare men and teams from 

 other work. I am now iiaying twenty-five 

 cents per cord for working over, and I will 

 have, after this is done, not less than one hun- 

 dred and seventy-five and perhaps, two hun- 

 dred cords, and in splendid condition for im- 

 mediate use. As near as I can Judge, the cost 

 will be from .S300 to 840(1. How about their 

 value for the coming season's crops V 



1 shall also have an immense amount of good 

 stable and barnyard manures, much more in 

 bulk than these heaps, and I l)elievc that no 

 man values them higher than my.self, but when 

 and where I want my land to give me the lar- 

 gest jiossible crops, and those of the greatest 

 value, there goes my conijiost manure. Why? 

 Simply because many years' experience tells 

 me that crops will start up more vigorously, 

 and grow up more rapidly with this manure 

 than with an eipial amount of the liesi stable 

 manure. It is rea.sonablt^ that this should lie 

 the case, as it is more nearly ready for plant 

 food than any coaree or unprejiared manure 

 could be, I cannot give your readers the act- 

 ual value of these heajis, but if any man 

 should come to-day and .say : "1 will de|H)sit 

 .^KKX) to your credit in the bank if yon will 

 allow me to haul away your compost heaps." 

 I .should answer: "My friend, I have lately 

 been purchasing some projierty, and my bank 

 account is unusually low, but I do not need 

 money bad enough fo make such a sacrifice 

 as that would be to obtain it," I have never 

 used these manures upon any crops where 

 they did not tell the same story, I will not 

 pretend that the mingling of the different 

 materials makes each and every one of them 

 more valuable than they otherwise would be. 



It is possible that if each was taken in iU 

 crude state and plowed under, its value to the 

 land might be as great ns when in its present 

 condition. But I should lie years instead of 

 a few weeks or months in getting my returns. 



