Feb. 



THE POMOLOGIST. 



31 



For the Western PomolociBt. 



South-western Missouri as a Fruit Country. 



FniEiTD Miller: — I have written so many 

 letters from here to Iowa, that I have ex- 

 liausted ahnost every subject that would be 

 of interest to the general reader; and now 

 that I have time and am tired of doing noth- 

 iug, I will venture to try and hunt up some- 

 thing that will interest you long enough to 

 get it read. I came to this place on the 

 13th day of November last, and liave just 

 been " laying around loose" for the greater 

 part of the time, taking items; and after I have 

 done so, I fail to see the greatness of south- 

 west Missouri. And yet it has its good and 

 bad qualities, and I suppose I have seen most 

 of the bad ones, and I hope to see some of the 

 good ones. This is certainly a good fru it coun- 

 ti-y, and yet it has been only partially tried, 

 for in all my rounds I have failed to see any 

 place where there has been much attention 

 paid to fruit growing, except the planting a 

 few apple and peach trees; and of the latter 

 there are not one-tenth as many as should 

 be, and no signs of increasing the numbers 

 very much. There are two or three nur- 

 series started in the covmty, but they are in 

 their infancy and cannot furnish many trees. 



But I teU you tliat a Rochester man is 

 making a nice thing out of peddling trees in 

 this county, and he has been delivering trees 

 nearly all winter. I have no knowledge of 

 thcnumber of trees and vines he has deliv- 

 ered this fall. Price of apple trees, four to 

 five feet high, thirty cents, and all else high in 

 proportion. I suppose that a majority of the 

 trees shipped in here are ordered by new 

 comers, and if they are not well versed in 

 planting, one -half of all sold will die next 

 summer; for I think this is a hard place to 

 make trees grow. The nature of the soil 

 and the sub-soil is such that a drouth, or 

 even a partial one, would make much worse 

 on newly planted trees here than in Iowa. 

 There is a great want of varieties in the 

 apples grown. The leading fall and winter 

 (the only ones I have seen) consist of Raule's 

 Jannette, Rambo, Limber Twig, Romanite, 

 Wine Sap and a few others ; and as far as I 

 have seen the fruit, it does not com]>are with 

 Iowa apples as to size and flavor. There is 

 one thing in favor of this county, and that 

 is, there are but few gophers, and I can see 

 that in setting out the old orchards they 

 have had a good stand of the first setting. — 

 Tliere are no crab apples (wild), nor wild 

 plums worth anything, nor tames ones to 

 signify. And as to currants and gonsclierries 

 there are none, but they have the persimmon 

 and pawpaw to pirfection ; and seventy-tive 

 miles further south whortleberries and chin- 

 quamines are plenty. Sometime when I see 

 more of the country west of here I will 

 write again. S. M. Dyer. 



Carthage, Jasper Co., Mo. 



— If God takes pains to create an insect, 

 man may take pains to study it, without 

 lowering his dignity. 



For the Western Pomologist. 



Bees— Late Winter Management. 



If the weather is cold, and the colonies 

 have received the proper attention in the 

 fall, but little will have to be done to bees in 

 this mouth. But if the weather is mild, as in 

 some seasons, having the appearance of an 

 early spring, much may be done towards 

 increasing the profits of a colony of bees. — 

 Frequently the prolits may be increased four 

 fold by proper care given to bees during this 

 month, or the months of March and April. 



On warm days, remove the shading-board 

 from the entrance of such colonies as are 

 wintered in the open air, allowing the bees to 

 fly out and discharge their faeces. During 

 the warm day of January 10th, all my bees, 

 wintering outside, were flying nearly all day, 

 carrying in water; to-day (Jan. 22) every 

 colony that I examined contained brood in 

 the central combs, although the temperature 

 has Ijcen as low as twelve degrees below zero 

 since ; equally strong colonies wintering in 

 a special bee-house have as yet no signs of 

 brood. So much in favor of out door win- 

 tering. 



Keep the entrance, especially those of 

 common hives, free from dead bees, ice and 

 snow, else the bees may be smothered. See 

 that strong stocks have suflicient upward 

 ventilation, or water and frost may collect in 

 the hive, causing mouldy comb or tlie death 

 of the bees. If any stocks are to be moved 

 a distance of less than two miles, it should 

 be done during this month. Proper and ju- 

 dicious bee-culture forbids feeding in cold 

 weather, yet needy stocks in common hives 

 may be supplied w'ith honey, or a suitiible 

 substitute. In movable comb hives, give 

 needy stocks frames of honey takeii from 

 heavy colonies. In common hives bees may 

 be fed, if the weather be wann, by placing a 

 saucer filled with honey, or the best of gol- 

 den sirup, under the hive during the night, 

 removing it in the morning to guard against 

 bee-robbers ; if the weather is cold the feed- 

 ing mu.st be done from above ; make a small 

 mnslin sack to hold about a pint, put in the 

 bee feed, make a hole through the top, care- 

 fully cut away enough of the comb to admit 

 the sack to the cluster of bees, in.scrt the 

 feed sack and cover with a loose board. All 

 strong colonies will begin to breed during 

 this month, and if the bees are flying they 

 should be supplied with rye meal. This 

 should be given early, before natural pollen 

 can be obtiiined, else the bees will not accept 

 it. Take imbolted rye meal and put it dry 

 into shallow troughs, about two inches deep, 

 and set them about one rod in front of the 

 hive, attract the bees to it by placing a piece 



of comb containing a few drops of honey 

 and some of the meal in the troughs. I have 

 used wheat flour, mixed with bran, which 

 the bees carried in, but rye meal is prefer- 

 able. E. Kretchmeb. 

 Bed Oak Junction, Iowa. 



Cause of Bees Degenerating. 



We frequently hear it said by old bee- 

 keepers of the conservative kind, that "bees 

 will do no good for them any more ; that 

 they formerly had good luck keeping them, 

 but of late years the bees do not seem to 

 work much, and the moth gets in, and they 

 all die off. I have had such remarks made 

 to me scores of times, and those who make 

 tliem seem to wonder why it is that they 

 have no luck with bees. There may be 

 variims reasons for their bees running out, or 

 dying out, but tlie main cause is that of ira- 

 and-iii breeding. If farmers generally should 

 take as little care to improve the blood of 

 their horses, cattle and sheep, as they do of 

 their bees, their stock would degenerate and 

 " run out," in as short a time as do the bees. 



The moth gets much blame that belongs to 

 the bee keeper. It is a great enemy to the 

 honey bee, but very harmless to the apiary 

 of a careful breeder. Populous and healthy 

 colonies of native bees are never destroyed 

 by the bee moth, so long as they continue in 

 a healthy condition. And the Italian bees are 

 well known by those who have bred them, 

 to be far more successful than the natives in 

 defending their homes from the ravages of 

 their greatest enemy. 



Let us notice how the farmer usually man- 

 ages his bees. He obtains a colony in a box 

 or gum, and sets it on a bench in his yard. 

 There may be other bees near, or not. It 

 swarms, and the new swarm is hived and 

 placed beside the parent colony. The old 

 queen is in the new swarm, the young queen 

 is mated with a drone from said old queen, 

 or, in plain words, she is married to her 

 brother. 



The following season the fiirmer has two 

 colonies. The queens are mother and daugh- 

 ter ; the drones are uncles and nephews — the 

 nephews being the progeny of brother and 

 si.ster. Now the virgin queens of this season 

 are aunt and niece, and they probably mate 

 with brother, uncle, or nephew — all imme- 

 diate blood relations. And so this process of 

 in-and-in breeding continues for five, eight, 

 or ten years, — the farmer in the meantime 

 giving no thought to the blood of his stock, 

 — unless the bees have become so much de- 

 generated that they have not the energy to 

 expel the moth, or defend from robbers. The 

 consequence is that tlie farmer soon loses aU 

 his bees, and he can' imagine why. 



I do not mean to say that queens always 

 mate with drones of their own hive, or of 

 those near them, but that such is frequently 

 the case. The only way to make success 

 certain in all cases, is to control the mating 

 of queens by the selection of drones for the 

 purpose, and thus managing with bees as 

 with any other fiirm stock. 



There are processes now well known to 

 intelligent bee keepers, by which the blood 

 of this valuable stock can be improved as 

 mijcli, and with as much certainty as any 

 other. Of tliis I may speak at another time ; 

 also, further concerning the moth. — [W. C. 

 CoTuUt, in Rural New Yorker. 



Mr. Quinby, in his work on the honey-bee, 

 recommends a hive twelve inches square 

 and fourteen inches high, inside measure- 

 ment, with boxes placed upon the top cov- 

 ered with a cap. 



