1098 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Aug. 15 



buckwheat as a regular thing. In our local- 

 ity the crimson clover comes right on rapid- 

 ly as soon as the buckwheat is harvested, or 

 killed by frost, and it has always wintered 

 nicely with us so far. I do not remember 

 that I have before heard of the huUess buck- 

 wheat that you speak of. Can anybody else 

 tell us about it, and tell us where the seed 

 is offered for sale? 



SWEET CLOVER— DOES IT WINTER KILL? 



The seed you sent me I sowed on clay land last 

 spring, 1906. It made a good stand last summer. It 

 is almost 3 ft. high now, and loolf s fine, but it winter- 

 killed in s.pots. making it uneven. I think it would 

 be a fine clover for the South; but I fear it winter- 

 kills too badly for the North. 



Lanesboro, Ind. Clarence Neal. 



Friend N., we have never had any trouble 

 with winter-killing when the seed was sown 

 tolerably early — say before July. When 

 sown in the fall it has sometimes failed to 

 winter over. But the seed that drops off and 

 sows itself always makes a stand with us, 

 especially along the railroad tracks where 

 the hard clay subsoil is piled up in heaps. 

 These heaps are covered with a dense rank 

 growth of sweet clover year after year, where 

 it is not molested, and where cows and other 

 stock can not get a chance to eat it off. 



JAPANESE chestnuts; THEIR QUALITY; WILL THEY 

 BEARV 



Mr. Boot: — Some time ago you said you wanted to 

 hear from subscribers who had been raising chestnuts. 

 I bought some Japanese Mammoth chestnuts, and 

 planted them, and they came up and grew, and bore 

 nuts in about four years. The nuts are very large, 

 about IM or 2 inches across, and are of very poor qual- 

 ty according to my estimation. They tasted about 

 like a red-oak acorn, but not quite as astringent. 

 They might be better cooked, or in other localities 

 they might be better than they are here. I never 

 tried them any way except raw. 



Paducah, Ky. Albert R. Shbrron. 



Why, friend S., that is just wonderful, if 

 you grew a tree that bore nuts in four years 

 from the time they were planted. I do not 

 quite agree with you in regard to quality — 

 that is, if yours are like those I have found 

 on the market. It is true they are not very 

 palatable when raw; but when properly 

 roasted I find them not only delicious food, 

 but very nutritious, and easy of digestion. 

 I am inclined to think there is a difference 

 in quality, for the tree I have mentioned on 

 our premises bore one nut last season that 

 was as rich and sweet as almost any of our 

 native American chestnuts. Well, if we can 

 expect to get bearing trees in four years, 

 quite a lot of us will go to planting chestnuts- 

 I suppose they should be planted in the fall, 

 soon after being gathered. Who can tell us 

 more about this? 



THE "DANDELION COW^," ETC. 



Quite a number of our agricultural ex- 

 changes have copied what I said in regard 

 to the value of dandelions for milch cows, 

 the New York Tribune included; but only 

 one of them seems to have had practical ex- 



Sirience enough to indorse my statement, 

 ere is what T. B. Terry says about it in 

 the Philadelphia Practical Farmer: 



Mr. A. I. Root, in Gleanings, tells of the wonder- 

 ful effect that a dandelion pasture produced in giving 

 a free flow of milk in his family cow. We have found 

 t.'ie dandelion, when grown in a sunny exposure in 

 early spring, one of the b' st milk-producers imagin- 

 able, and giving a rich golden-yellow color to cream 

 and butter. 



What I wish to get at particularly is this: 

 Is this cow of ours peculiar, or would all 

 cows take dandelions, or the majority of 

 them, as this one does? And is it the fact 

 that these dandelions which grew unusually 

 rank (because they were on rich underdrain- 

 ed soil) were more greedily appropriated by 

 the cow? 



LATEST FROM OUR ROBINSON CRUSOE ISLAND. 



Bear Friend: — Your letter is at hand asking about 

 the Caucasians as honey-gatherers. I really don't 

 know, for I haven't given them a good test because I 

 have been drawing from them so much to keep nuclei 

 going. They began storing honey first, and I didn't 

 know whether it was the bees or location; but the 

 apiary on the main land has averaged better; but tak- 

 ing bees from these continually would surely make a 

 big difference. I have taken 1600 lbs- of honey, and 

 think there is four or five hundred more about ready 

 —about all cabbage honey. Mr. Drumwright says he 

 never before knew the palmetto cabbage to make such 

 a yield. 



We are very sorry Mrs. Root is having her old trou- 

 ble. It must be bad not to be able to sleep in hot 

 weather. Tell her to come and listen to those singing 

 hens— one of your white ones especially. She is the 

 most wonderful "singer" I ever heard. It is her 

 daily stunt to march around the house and sing at the 

 very top of her voice, until the women-folks declare 

 she seems to want to proclaim to all the world that 

 she belongs to Mr. Root; and how she does \a,y— almost 

 an egg every day since you left. 



Osprey, Fla., July 30. I. T. Shumabd. 



I will explain to our readers that that par- 

 ticular pullet's mother was remarkable be- 

 cause she was always laying eggs or raising 

 chickens every month in the year, even in 

 Florida, wbere hens seldom lay during the 

 hot summer months. In order to get in more 

 time she always began laying when her 

 chickens wei'e ten days or two weeks old; 

 and then as soon as she got another nesting 

 of eggs she would begin sitting again. 1 am 

 glad to know that at least some of her five 

 daughters have inherited some of her valu- 

 able traits. 



THE ONLY SOLUTION OF THE LABOR QUES- 

 TION. 



We clip the following from an article in 

 the Chicago Advance: 



Men who want open saloons and closed churches on 

 Sunday will never establish enough rights to be worth 

 talking about. But if all the wage-earning world 

 were to " repent and be converted " most of the labor 

 problems would be solved before the year is out. 

 When the masses turn to God they will turn this old 

 world of ours upside down and set it right side up so 

 quick that the angels will come down to join in cele- 

 brating the achievement. 



The above does not include with the ' ' wage- 

 earning world " the employers and capital- 

 ists as well, but the writer no doubt means 

 that that should be so understood. When the 

 people generally, rich and poor, turn to God 

 there is no question but that the angels in 

 heaven will gladly come down to join in the 

 celebration. 



