AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



779 



packed hives; and this temperature, 

 too, whether bees were in it or not. 



Some depend on the bees to control 

 the temperature, but where it takes the 

 bees to keep the temperature up in very 

 cold weather, it is very liable to be too 

 warm during a mild spell of weather in 

 late Winter or early Spring. 



Besides, when bees must "burn" honey 

 to warm their hives and the room they 

 are in, it causes a great loss of stores, 

 and, what is of more importance, a great 

 loss in vitality. 



One colony of bees will Winter as well 

 in my cellar as 100, or all that could be 

 crowded into it. perein is the advant- 

 age of my special cellar for bees, 8 feet 

 under ground, in a side hill, according 

 to my opinion. Such a place for bees is 

 one long, dark night, with an even tem- 

 perature of from 5 to 6 months dura- 

 tion. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Forestry and ABicnltiire, 



HENRY K. STALEY. 



With the advent of civilization in this 

 country, the destruction of the forests 

 was looked upon as a pre-eminent neces- 

 sity, as the pioneer bad to have a clear- 

 ing on which to found his home, raise 

 his cereals, and keep a lookout for the 

 dusky warrior. In those times of lig- 

 neous plenty, where the arduous task of 

 first cutting down the trees and then 

 clearing them away had to be accom- 

 plished before the soil could be culti- 

 vated, it is no wonder that our fore- 

 fathers acquired antipathies against the 

 forests, and never could see much virtue 

 in a tree unless it would provide good 

 fuel for the fire, or rails for the old worm 

 fence. And so it came to pass, that 

 those people who could show the great- 

 est clearings, were looked upon as the 

 most thrifty and industrious ones. 



But as time has rolled along, great 

 mutations have occurred in this country, 

 and, paradoxical as it may seem, meas- 

 ures are adopted diametrically opposite 

 to those which were considered indubit- 

 ably correct in the past. When we look 

 around us and behold the barren wastes, 

 once well wooded, swept off by the un- 

 relenting hand of man, to meet the 

 righteous exactions of civilization, with- 

 out any discrimination as to the kind or 

 species of wood, we begin to have a 

 different regard for the tree than our 

 ancestors, in view of the fact that it 

 requires centuries for the production of 



forests, and that already there is such a 

 paucity of those valuable woods — the 

 black walnut, hickory, ash and the 

 white oak, as to make it only within the 

 means of the rich to purchase articles 

 made from them. Hence, we see that 

 these trees arc selling at a high price, 

 and even those parts that were once 

 considered useless are now being utilized. 

 This is one reason why trees are now 

 demanding our esteem, but there are 

 others of the greatest moment. 



Hillsides have been swept of their 

 forestral coverings to such an extent 

 that in consequence of the unnatural 

 ullage of the land, the rich, superficial 

 soil of the hills has been washed into the 

 gullies, where it is practically unfit for 

 cultivation, thereby leaving the hillsides 

 in a gravelly and unremunerative con- 

 dition, so far as farming is concerned. 

 But this is not all, for as the roots decay 

 — those natural moorings of the hills — 

 gullies begin to appear on the surface, 

 and, enlarging with each succeeding 

 rain, make it very unprofitable, and an 

 exceeding bore to its owner, as well as 

 deprecating the land value of his farm. 



Lands adjacent to rivers and rivulets, 

 were laid bare with alacrity, as the 

 water offered a ready and cheap means 

 for its transportation to those cities 

 where it could be sold to meet the de- 

 mands of civilization ; such as the tooth- 

 pick trade, which is assuming enormous 

 proportions to satiate one of our post- 

 prandial pleasures, the manufacture of 

 matches, the productions of the indus- 

 trial arts, poles and pole equipments for 

 telegraph and telephone companies, and 

 last but not least, ties for railroads. 

 Because it was estimated that to furnish 

 the requisite material for the 150,000 

 miles of railroad existing in 1884, 

 would require the available lumber 

 growing on a surface of land equivalent 

 to the area of Connecticut and Rhode 

 Island, and supposing that these ties 

 had to be renewed once in 7 years, it 

 would require the available lumber 

 thriving on 565,714 acres. 



It was also discovered that trees played 

 an important part in the climatic condi- 

 tions of the country. People knowing 

 anything about carbonic acid gas, soon 

 began to extol them, as by their absorp- 

 tion of this gas, they give off in return 

 that most needed of all gases for the 

 sustenance of life — oxygen. But when 

 we look a little further, we find them 

 not only purifiers of the fell and vitiated 

 air, but great dispensers of water in the 

 way of moisture. Let me explain : A 

 maple tree 8 or 10 inches through, if 

 well formed and prosperous, will have 



