232 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



them from crossing the boundary ; but it requires 

 renewal, because its caustic qualities are lost in time. 

 Ploughed into land, or forked into beds infested with 

 grubs, it has the best possible effect ; and where the 

 garden is bounded by a hedge, which is the most 

 harboring of all receptacles for vermin, there is no 

 better means of destroying the greater part of them 

 than sousing it well with lime-water, by means of a 

 garden engine. There can be no mistake in lime- 

 water for this purpose ; because j-ou may let the 

 ■water take up as much lime as it can, only it must 

 be used clear. Lime is one of the best substances to 

 raix with manures of all sorts : it absorbs that which 

 would be wasted ; it disinfects the mass ; it makes 

 the most offensive matter inoffensive. A layer of 

 night soil and a layer of lime would be as harm- 

 less as so much common earth. It is impossible, 

 therefore, to overrate the usefulness of this substance 

 in the garden or in the farm ; and the more the pub- 

 lic begin to understand the value of the sewerage of 

 the metropolis, the contents of cesspools and drains, 

 the more will they also recognize the value of that 

 substance which will render the most nauseous of 

 all waste harmless, and prepare it for the earth which 

 requu'cs it. Lime is of such efficacy in the way of 

 disinfecting any disagreeable production, and coun- 

 teracting infection in every shape, that one of the 

 most early precautions against the approach of con- 

 tagious disease, is to lime- wash the brick walls of 

 all workhouses and public buildings where the 

 lower orders congregate. It is even said that the 

 brick walls of the chief apartments in union houses, 

 are not covered with plaster, or other matter, because 

 they should take the lime-water readily ; and this 

 hint may not be lost on those who house and provide 

 for many working people during the summer season. 

 X/jme-wash the walls, and use lime to disinfect any 

 thing that might become a nuisance. — Farmer and 



Mechanic. 



> 



EXTENSIVE FLOUR BARREL MANUFAC- 

 TORY. 



We learn from the Oswego Com. Times, that 

 Messrs. Humphrey and Dodge, having secured the 

 right for the state of New York to use improved 

 patent machinery for the construction of barrels, 

 have established an extensive manufactory at Kasoag, 

 in this county, on the head waters of Fish Creek, in 

 the town of Williamstown. It employs from fifty 

 to seventy-tive men, and turns out easily four hun- 

 dred flour barrels in a day. They are manufactured 

 entirely by machinery, each stave taking, in the 

 process of manufacturing, the same position it occu- 

 pies in the barrel when set up ; consequently all the 

 barrels must be precisely alike. All the staves are 

 of the same width, and after they have been seasoned, 

 are passed through the finishing machine, where they 

 are planed, joined, crozed and champered. The 

 planing gives the barrel a beautiful appearance ; the 

 eroze is similar to the croze for tight wcn-k, and the 

 chime is left thick and strong. The barrel varies in 

 shape from the article now in use, and is supposed 

 to have many advantages on that account. It is 

 about one and a half inches shorter, and has an 

 eighteen inch head, with the same sized bilge as 

 ether barrels. On account of their form, one 

 fifteenth is gained in storage, and at the same time, 

 the barrel being fuller in the quarter, will allow 

 one hundred and ninety-six pounds of flour to be 

 packed looser than in the present shape. The head- 

 ing is also passed through machinery, which gives it 

 the same accuracj' as the staves. Oswego aff'ords the 

 largest market for flour barrels in the world, requir- 

 ing for its own use at least a million of barrels per 

 annum, besides the ordinary Canadian demand, and 

 the demand for other lake ports on the American 

 side. The establishment of Messrs. Humphrey and 



Dodge is situated eligibly for water power and 

 cheap and abundant material, about thirty miles 

 from Oswego, on the line of the Rome Plank Koad to 

 that city. — Farmer and Mechanic. 



1 



WATER FOR BEES. 



Bees make a free use of water, and they usually 

 have a watering-place, where all the bees of the 

 apiary resort. We have seen fifty at the watering- 

 place at one time. According to our observations, 

 they do not go to the water, as it is in a body, but 

 they go within a foot or a few inches of it and then 

 suck the moisture from the mud, or little bank 

 that rises from the water. Mr. Miner, in his most 

 excellent work on bees, which we would earnestly 

 recommend to every bee-keeper, makes the follow- 

 ing remarks on water and its uses, with directions 

 for forming artificial watering-places. We advise 

 placing a little bank of mud on one side of the water, 

 rising six or eight inches above it, into which the 

 Avater will rise by capillary attraction, and let the 

 bees take their choice and alight upon the mud or 

 stones. 



AVriters on the management of bees have hitherto 

 given no elucidation of the necessit)' of bees having 

 water within their convenient reach, beyond the 

 simple assertion, that they either should have water 

 placed daily in pans near the apiary, or that they 

 should be situated near to some stream, lake, or river 

 of fresh water. What the effect would be to have 

 no water within the ordinary range of their flight, 

 has never been shown ; perhaps for the reason, that 

 an apiary cannot be placed where the bees cannot 

 find fresh water in some place, within the range of 

 their flight, unless it be in a desert. Even the wells 

 of the neighborhood frequently afford all the water 

 that is required, from the drippings of the bucket, or 

 from the troughs that often stand beside them. 



I have often seen bees around my own well, in 

 great numbers, extracting the moisture from the out- 

 side of the bucket, or arranged along the gently- 

 sloping sides of a trough, that I had placed there 

 expressly for them. Bees do not like to descend the 

 vertical sides of a bucket, or of any other vessel, to 

 obtain water ; because there is danger of falling in ; 

 but a sloping, shallow trough, the sides of which form 

 an angle of from thirty to forty- five degrees with the 

 horizon, suits them much better. 



Every bee-keeper should either afford his bees a 

 supply of water at his pump, or well, or place a shal- 

 low vessel near the apiary, filled with small stones, 

 about the size of a pigeon's egg, in order to give a 

 resting place for the bees ; and the vessel then to be 

 filled with fresh water every morning, unless there be 

 a stream of fresh water near, in which case, both modes 

 might be dispensed with. A tin baking pan, about 

 an inch or more deep, is very suitable. Should no 

 stones be put into the pan, many bees would be 

 drowned. I have even known many to be drowned, 

 in cool spring weather, when the stones in the pan 

 were so large, as to admit of spaces or surfaces of water 

 only two inches across ! One would suppose that so 

 small a space as this would be overcome by the bee.3 

 at once ; and when losing a foothold, and falling into 

 the water, they would cross to the stones, and soon be 

 on the wing again : but such is not the case in cool 

 weather, such as we generally have from March to 

 June. In very Avarm -weather, fewer bees, under the 

 same circumstances, would perish ; yet water is so 

 benumbing to them, at almost any season, that when 

 once immersed, they seldom recover, unless assisted 

 by man in placing them in some warm, sunny place 

 to dry. 



