590 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Sept. 12, 



bas no superior among leguminous plants. Gen. Stephen D. 

 Lee, President of the Mississippi A. &, M. College, of this 

 place, has been growing it extensively on his farm in Nuxubee 

 county, Mississippi, and claims that when planted on the 

 poorer portions of the farm, land that would only produce 5 

 to 10 bushels of corn per acre, the same land now produces 

 80 or more bushels per acre. It is a plant that is steadily 

 growing in favor with the farmers in the lime belts of Mississ- 

 ippi and Alabama." 



CRIMSON CLOVER IN DELAWARE. 



The value of crimson clover begins as soon as the plants 

 appear above ground, for then they begin to act as a shade 

 and mulch, and to use and conserve fertility which would 

 otherwise have been leached or blown away. They soon begin 

 to draw nitrogen, for the nodules on the roots are found in 

 great plenty, even in early December, or before. From that 

 on until the busy bee extracts its store of sweets from the 

 blossoms, the roots are lengthening out and searching for food 

 three, four, and more feet underground. We have been told 

 that crimson clover has no tap-roots, and therefore cannot 

 reach down after phosphoric acid and potash ; also that its 

 life is too short to accomplish the work which red clover does. 

 The facts are, that it does do it ; and it has been proved by 

 chemical analysis. We consider the root arrangement of 

 crimson clover more advantageous, because the mass of roots 

 are in the surface soil, where they are most needed. It can 

 be used with or after almost every crop. None should be used 

 on strawberries ; for these, use it the year before the patch is 

 set. It should be sown every year in blackberries and rasp- 

 berries. It will stand the winter here if sown after sweet po- 

 tatoes are dug. 



No plant we have here equals crimson clover as a honey- 

 plant. It produces every year, and all the time when in 

 bloom, some three or four weeks, according to the nature of 

 the soil and climatic conditions. The growth of the blossom 

 seems well adapted for honey-production, as it grows in 

 length, and the bees work on the new growth until the blos- 

 som is full-grown, two or three inches in length, in many 

 instances. The principal trouble here in getting the honey 

 seems to be in having the bees good and strong, and ready. It 

 comes early; and if the bees are ready the sections fill very 

 rapidly, and the honey is excellent.— T. F. Cooke, in Glean- 

 ings. 



CONDUCTED BY 



Rev. Emerson T. Abbott, St. Joseph, AIo. 



Ho-w to make the Garden Pay.— The ques- 

 tion is often asked as to what is best to combine with bee- 

 keeping in order to make it profitable, but I have ceased to 

 put it in this way, as I am confident that the day has gone by 

 for anyone to depend upon bee-keeping alone for a living, ex- 

 cept it be in a few favored locations where are grown exten- 

 sively forage crops which yield a large quantity of nectar. 

 This being the case, it ceases to be a question of what to com- 

 bine with bee-keeping, and becomes a question of what indus- 

 tries can bee-keeping be made a part. I look upon bee-keep- 

 ing as a branch of agriculture, and I am thoroughly convinced 

 that most farmers could make a few colonies of bees add 

 materially to their comfort and income. There are also scores 

 of people in villages and small towns who could keep bees to 

 advantage. 



Among the things that may well be combined with bee- 

 keeping, or with which bee-keeping may be combined, which- 

 ever way you want to put it, is a good garden. People who 

 have never enjoyed the comfort and satisfaction of a garden 

 do not realize how much they have lost in this world. How. 

 ever, in order to make the garden profitable, it must be an up- 

 to-date garden, and conducted in accordance with modern 

 ideas and methods of gardening. These methods may bo 

 learned in various ways, but everyone who has a garden will 

 find a modern book upon the subject of great advantage. 

 I have before me such a book, a revised edition of " How 

 to Make the Garden Pay," by T. Greiner, published by Henry 



Maule, of Philadelphia; price, $2.00. (This or any other 

 book mentioned in this department will be sent, postpaid, on 

 receipt of price, by the publishers of the American Bee 

 Journal.) 



Mr. Greiner is an experienced and successful gardener, 

 and he has given the world a book which is filled with prac- 

 tical suggestions, and one which is at the same time interest- 

 ing to read. I am confident that he who calls the attention of 

 his fellowmen to such work does them a great service. There 

 was a time when the cultivation of the soil was considered 

 mere drudgery, but that time has gone by, and to-day the 

 demand is for the highest grade of intelligence in all rural 

 pursuits. What the world wants is meu and women who can 

 do something, and do it with intelligence and dispatch. 



I feel constrained to urge apon all tillers of the soil, who 

 have under their care a family of children, the importance of 

 placing in their hands just such books as Mr. Greiner's. Give 

 them books to read on general agriculture, gardening, poul- 

 try, apiculture, etc., and you will soon find them entertaining 

 advanced views of life, as they begin to realize how much 

 agriculture, in the largest sense of the word, adds to the sum 

 of human happiness, and how dependent the world is on the 

 tillers of the soil. 'l do not wonder that work seems mere 

 drudgery and life barren to many a farmer's children, as their 

 surroundings offer so few opportunities for growth in knowl- 

 edge. They have not been taught to think, and they have but 

 little taste for reading, as they have never had anything but a 

 few school-books and the almanac to read. Such children are 

 sure to look upon manual labor of every kind as slavish toil ; 

 and, if they occasionally catch a gleam of the possibilities of a 

 better method of living, they are almost sure to seek it in the 

 restless activities of some great city. Many a father sees his 

 son depart for such a life, with sadness and sorrow, as he well 

 knows how many there are who fail, and how many more are 

 carried down to an untimely grave, with ruined lives and 

 blighted hopes, by the great waves of sin which surge and 

 beat on the streets and in the secret and hidden dens of vice 

 in every large city. You ask what is to be done to prevent 

 this, to avert these dire calamities which come to so many ? 

 Give them employment early in life ; teach them that the 

 noblest and most honorable thing any man or woman can do is 

 to earn a living by the sweat of their brow ; make their early 

 lives happy ; give them books to read, flowers and fruits to 

 cultivate ; make their homes comfortable, pleasant and at" 

 tractive. lu a word, satisfy the longings of their higher 

 natures, and they will soon learn to find enjoyment in any 

 work which the duties of life have laid upon them. 



I am aware that all of this is not about bees, nor "How to 

 Make the Garden Pay," but it relates to the higher question 

 how to make life pay, and he who learns this is sure to make 

 a success of any undertaking, whether it be tilling the soil or 

 caring for the busy little workers as they gather the golden 

 nectar to sweeten the pathway of life. 



Czir)adiar} Bccdorr}^ 



Foul Brood Anions Bees — Phenol Treatment. 



Understanding that a fatal disease, known as foul brood, 

 has been prevailing among bees of late years, and also that 

 Rev. W. F. Clarke had gained some important information 

 and experience in regard to it, the Mercury reporter sought 

 an interview with him at his apiary in relation to the matter. 

 The following is the substance of Mr. Clarke's remarks on the 

 subject : 



HISTORY OF THE DISEASE. 



Foul brood Is the most virulent disease with which bees 

 are ever attacked. It is supposed to have existed from the 



