I'HE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



517 



Explanatory.— The llgures before the 

 names indicate the number of years that the 

 person has kept bees. Those after, show 

 the number of colonies the writer had in the 

 previous spring and fall, or fall and spring, 

 as the time of the year may require. 



This mark indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near tne center of the State named ; 

 5 north of the center; 9 south; Of east; 

 ♦O west; and this 6 northeast: V) northwest: 

 o> southeast; and 9 southwest of the center 

 of the State mentioned. 



For tne Amertcan Bee Journal. 



Teasel— Its History aud Value, 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



From the numerous letters I am 

 getting each mail relative to teasel 

 and its cultivation, I judge I cannot 

 please the readers of the Bee Jour- 

 nal better than to give an article on 

 this subject, in which I will give all 

 the facts regarding it, as far as I 

 know them. There are others, like 

 C. M. Goodspeed, of Thorn Hill, N. 

 Y., who might tell more of the mode 

 of cultivation than I can, and if any 

 are expecting to go into teasel raising 

 it would be well to write to him. 



Among my first recollection of this 

 plant aside from the wild ones grow- 

 ing over the greater part of the 

 United States, was this story which 

 was told in this locality for a fact, the 

 truthfulness of which I have no rea- 

 son to doubt : 



A young Englishman came to this 

 country and went to the house of a 

 farmer who possessed the title to 100 

 acres of good land, but who owed a 

 rich neighbor for nearly the full value 

 of the land. This Englishman had 

 no money, but proposed to put in 5 

 acres of teasels on shares on the 

 farmer's land, and if possible work 

 enough for the farmer to pay for his 

 board and clothes, besides tending the 

 teasels. He convinced the farmer 

 that there was money in this, to the 

 farmer an unheard-of plant; so the 

 farmer consented. The next year he 

 proposed to put in 10 acres more, they 

 to hire the money to procure the 

 needed help to harvest the first 5 

 acres (as it takes 2 years to grow 

 teasels) and tend the others. The 

 farmer reluctantly consented to the 

 proposition, but finally trusted to the 

 knowledge of his English friend. To 

 make the story short, the teasels made 

 the large yield of 300,000 per acre, and 

 were sold for $5 per thousand, thereby 

 taking both from poverty and making 

 them well-to-do in the world, the 

 farmer paying for his farm and hav- 

 ing money beside. 



This caused a great " boom " in 

 teasel culture here, so that teasels 

 went down, down, till the price of 40 

 cents per thousand was reached. As 

 7.5 cents per thousand is about as low 

 as teasels can be raised, and pay for 



the cost of production, of course a 

 reaction took place, which, together 

 with their winter-killing so badly of 

 late years, made the acreage sown 

 very small from 1877 to 1884. How- 

 ever, many of the farmers raised 

 some each year, some holding the 

 crop for higher prices. During the 

 fall of 1884 the price went up to $2 

 per thousand, and in the spring of 

 1885 a large acreage was again sown 

 throughout the teasel belt, so that 

 while I write millions of teasel are 

 just going out of bloom within from 

 one to ten miles of here, the nearest 

 piece being one mile distant, while 

 from three miles on, is the range of 

 flight my bees have to make to get 

 where teasel is plentiful. 



TEASEL CULTURE. 



The plant is bi-ennial as a rule, 

 although a part of the smaller plants 

 may not produce teasels or heads till 

 the third year. Such three-year-old 

 plants are called " voors." The ground 

 for teasels is prepared as for corn or 

 potatoes, the rows being 3 to 3J^ feet 

 apart, the marks being made only one 

 way. The seed is now sown in the 

 marks, and, as a rule, left for the 

 rains to wash in. The ground should 

 be fitted as early in the spring as 

 possible. If a little late, it is well to 

 brush the seed in. 



When the plants first come up they 

 are very small, and the caring for 

 them is a tedious, back-aching job, 

 about the same as it would be to care 

 for carrots, onions, or beets. The 

 plants are cultivated and hoed, or 

 stouM be three times. Farmers usually 

 plant beans or turnips between the 

 rows the first year so as to get a little 

 something to p;iy expenses during the 

 first season. Latterly, since they 

 have winter-killed so badly, corn is 

 planted between every third or fourth 

 row, which is " topped," and after 

 husking the balance of the stalks are 

 left standing to catch the snow which 

 is a great protection to them. 



The second year, during the month 

 of May, they are cultivated and 

 slightly hoed, when they are left to 

 "run," as it is termed. The largest 

 or first heads at the top of the stalk 

 are called "kings," and commence to 

 bloom about a week before basswood, 

 or from July 1 to the 10th, continuing 

 in bloom for about a week or ten days. 

 The first blossoms appear a little 

 above the centre of the head,blossom- 

 ing toward the tip and base, and end- 

 ing off at the base. As soon as the 

 blossoms have all fallen off they are 

 cut with a stem about 6 inches long 

 on each head, drawn to the barn and 

 stored about 6 inches deep on scaf- 

 folds to cure. When cured they are 

 put into large boxes and shipped to 

 manufacturers for the purpose of 

 raising " nap " on cloth. The "mid- 

 dlings," as they are termed, com- 

 mence to blossom when the kings are 

 about half through, and the " but- 

 tons " come last, making from 20 to 

 30 days of bloom, according to warm 

 or cool weather, from the commenc- 

 ing of the kings to the ending of the 

 buttons. The middlings and buttons 

 receive the same treatment as the 

 kings, and all are mixed and sold to- 



gether, 10 pounds making a thousand. 

 While an extra good acre may yield 

 from 2.'50 to 300 thousand, there are 

 more acres that do not yield one-third 

 of that amount, say nothing of the 

 hundreds of acres wliich winter-kill, 

 except a small margin around the 

 fences where the snow-drifts protect 

 them. 



TEASEL FOB HONEY. 



Since my articles regarding this 

 plant in 1876, 1877 and 1878, hundreds 

 have written me, saying that bees do 

 not work on teasel with tliem. It is 

 evident that the " teasel with them " 

 is the wild kind, upon which I never 

 saw a bee at work. All the illustra- 

 tions of tills plant that I have ever 

 seen, portray a head of the wild 

 teasel, as the spines are always pic- 

 tured as standing straight out, the 

 same as they do on the wild kind, 

 while on the tame variety, or fuller's 

 teasel, these hundreds of spines all 

 hook down like the upper bill of a 

 hawk, and are almost as strong. A 

 tame teasel head thoroughly hooked 

 into a garment cannot be pulled off 

 without tearing the cloth, unless the 

 cloth is very strong. I have dwelt on 

 this part thus at length so that all 

 could understand. 



Bees work on teasel all hours of the 

 day, and no matter how well bass- 

 wood may yield honey, a few bees will 

 be found at work on teasel. A bee 

 that works on teasel is readily dis- 

 tinguished from those at work on 

 basswood, by the tip and upper part 

 of the abdomen being covered with a 

 white dust. By this means it is easy 

 to tell what proportion of a colony is 

 at work on this plant. Black and 

 hybrid bees work on it in larger pro- 

 portion than do the Italians. For 

 instance, when both basswood and 

 teasel are in full bloom, about every 

 fourth bee in a hybrid colony will 

 have this dust on it, while not more 

 than one out of 12 to 16 will show it 

 with the Italians. 



The honey from teasel is very thin 

 and white— in fact, the whitest honey 

 I ever saw— but it is not of as good 

 flavor as either clover or basswood. 

 This thinness of the nectar, and its 

 coming just when basswood does is 

 the great drawback to it. From care- 

 ful tests I should say that it would 

 take four bee-loads of it to be equal 

 to one bee load of nectar as gathered 

 from basswood, or seven loads to be 

 equal to one load of ripened honey. 

 Then, coming as it does with bass- 

 wood, makes it of no great advantage 

 except that it usually lasts from 6 to 

 10 days after basswood is gone, so it 

 helps to finish up partly-filled sections. 



Again, my bees have to fly from 2 

 to 10 miles to get at this thin nectar, 

 as I am on the most southern edge of 

 this teasel belt. According to those 

 who believe bees only fly l"^ to 2 

 miles for honey, I should not get any- 

 thing from teasel, but to quiet their 

 fears I will sav that I have repeatedly 

 seen my bees ilying to and from the 

 teasel fields, from our church door, 

 which is 23^ miles from my apiary in 

 line with the fields. 



As to about what proportion of my 

 crop of honey has come from teasel 



