1058 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



I saw of it where it came up wild in my po- 

 tato patch in Northern Michig-an, I am in- 

 clined to think it is about right. I hope a 

 lot of our friends will try it on a small 

 scale, even if they do not do any thing- 

 more. If it grows as it did up there, a peck 

 to the acre would certainly be ample seed- 

 ino-. I should like to know what kind of a 

 crop of potatoes it would produce if turned 

 under in June, in full pod and blossom. 



The following is from our friend Greiner, 

 in Farm and Fireside: 



In one respect the winter (or hairy) vetch has proved 

 a disappointment to nie. It blooms fully and freely— 

 in fact, it has been a mass of bloom beautiful to look 

 upon all season long and is still blooming ; but it does 

 not set, and there will not be enough seed to reseed the 

 ground after the piesent crop is gone. So if I want 

 arother patch (and I expected to plant a largerone this 

 year) I shall again have to depend on the ^eed.sman 

 for the .seed, and pay about $fi 00 or S8 00 a bushel foi it. 

 Possibly the plant may produce seed more freely in 

 the colder portions of Canada than here As an or- 

 chard cover-crop, however, this vetch will be hard to 

 beat It makes a dense mass of green stuff early in the 

 season Now that the stalk.'> begin to die out and de- 

 cay I find the soil underneath nice, spongy, moist, and 

 soft, and the wetds thus far kept down or choked out. 

 There is no question in mv mind that when the vetch 

 crop has died down, the soil will be in better condition 

 than before. 



At our place in Northern Michigan it 

 produces seeds in the greatest profusion. 

 In fact, there are so many little seeds that 

 it seems to me they must be valuable as 

 feed for stock. I notice some of the seed 

 catalogs are offering the seed at $8.00 per 

 100 lbs. 



THE SILK INDUSTRY OF BELDING, IONIA 

 CO., MICH. 



In one respect I am quite fortunate in my 

 Notes of Travel; for if I make any mis- 

 takes, there are plenty of friends always 

 ready and willing to set me right. And let 

 me say here that one who travels with auto- 

 mobile or bicycle is often puzzled to know 

 the name of a town he is riding through. 

 On the railways we have the names of the 

 towns in plain letters on the station build- 

 ings; and I have often wished there might 

 be some place in every town to give its 

 name. The following letters explain the 

 matter. I give all three of them because 

 each one contains some valuable fact omit- 

 ted by the others. 



In your accoutit of recent trip through Michigan you 

 give to Greenville. Montcalm Co., credit for the 

 '•beautiful large factories producing silk, etc." Y- u 

 were entirely mistaken as to the locality. The silk 

 citv" you saw was the city of Beldmg, Ionia Co.. my 

 ma'rket town. There are three large silk-factones, 

 employing about 400 girls each, and several other 

 (wood) factories employing about 1000 men. We con- 

 sider this Belding of ours the future fine big town of 

 this section. The silk-dealers of New York and Chi- 

 cago Belding Brothers and Richardson, have their 

 headquarters here; and whatever silk thread you (^ee 

 with thtir names on is made here. The Belding 

 Brothers several of them, were born and raised on a 

 farm just north of the city. Harmon Smith. 



Orleans, Mich., Nov. 4. 



You a'k for information in regard to the silk-factory 

 in Michigan. The factory was started a go:id deal as 

 you started the bee supply business, by two boys or, 

 rather, when they were boys they started to peddle 

 silk thread. 



They have a lot of women working for them, and 

 their rules are such as to elevate young ladies' minds. 

 Taking it all in all, it is one of the most refined facto- 

 ries in existence. Royal Hadley. 



Manistee, Mich. 



You spoke of a silk factory in Greenville. Mich. I 

 woulJ say this. I believe Greenville has no bilk-fac- 

 tory. But in Belding, a tc wn a few miles distant, 

 there are three or four large factories. While visiting 

 there last August a friend of mine took me through 

 one of them, and it was a grand sight, well worth 

 one's time. Mostlj' girls are employed — I should 

 think at least three or four hundred. 



Valparaiso, Ind. Gernal Si-awson. 



Many thanks, friends, for setting me 

 right; but, true to m}' nature (I am Yan- 

 kee born, you may remember), I am not at 

 all satisfied with the answer to my first 

 question. Now, where does this factory get 

 its raw material? Do they grow mulberry- 

 trees and raise silkworms? Years aeo we 

 sold large numbers of a little book by Nellie 

 Rossiter, about the care of silkworms. But 

 the matter somehow dropped out of sight, 

 because we were told the care of silkworms 

 had never been made a success in America. 

 Does the material needed for these great 

 factories come from across the seas? Who 

 will answer this question? 



Ernest is off on a vacation of two weeks, 

 and I am taking the liberty to collect favor- 

 able reports in regard to bee keeping from 

 different parts of our land. I do not know 

 how long this department will be kept up; 

 but I do think it is an excellent idea to 

 compare notes and let people know what is 

 being done, even on a small scale, in the 

 way of getting honey in all sorts of locali- 

 ties. Please make your reports brief, so 

 we can get in a good many of them. A 

 postal card is quite large enough. The 

 first one below is a good sample, and is 

 interesting to me because the honey crops 

 have been mostly poor in Florida for a good 

 many years. There is another thing that 

 interests me particularly. Friend M. has 

 a Florida home, and a northern one in Ton- 

 togany, Ohio. He migrates back and forth 

 every spring and fall ; and his Florida 

 home is a very pretty place, I can assure 

 you, for I have been there. — A. I. R. 



Mr E. R Root: — If your father comes south, tell him 

 I shou'd be pleased to have him call and see me again. 

 My bees here did finely this summer. 



Sorrento, Fla., Nov. '%Q. R. X,. McColley. 



[Here is another:] 



184 LBS. PER COLONY, AND INCREASED FROM 31 TO 36. 



I send you my report this year, with 31 colonies to 

 start with. We hive waited nine years for this crop of 

 honey. I ran 15 for comb, and got 2100 lbs.; 16 for ex- 

 tracted, and got K600 lbs., or an average of 184 lbs. per 

 colony, spring count ; increased to only 36. 



Rockton, 111 , Dec. 7. R Gammon. 



