284 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



JtJNE 



Wator tlie plants only when first set, and dnst \ 

 the plant and -whole hill frequently with 

 plaster. The tomato, coinin<j from a hot and 

 dry eountry, will endnro a drouth that would 

 prove fatal to less hardy ]ilants. What it j 

 needs most is heat, and this is secured by 

 plantiiiix on steep hills on which the sun's rays 

 strike less obliciuely tiian on Hat surfaces. 



Land should not be over-rich for the to- 

 mato, very fertile soils producin};; too great a 

 growth of vine. The vines should be pinched 

 in, and tiie blossoms removed after the first \ 

 settings have attained the size of marbles ; \ 

 but in any case the vines should be permitted j 

 to fall directly on the ground, that the fruit 

 may have the full Ijcncfit of the heat of the j 

 sun and th.e warmth rcfi-acted from the earth. 

 B}' savinir the first well-formed ripe tomato 

 for seed for several successive years, a variety i 

 may he obtained that for earliness will be far 

 superior to the original stock. 



HTVINQ BEES. 



In a former communication, I alluded to 

 my mode of hiving bees. I will now show 

 bow it is done. Li the first place, I have a 

 bench three and a-half feet long and sixteen 

 inches wide, two and a-half feet high ; also a 

 box a little larger one way than my hive, and 

 five inches high. I nail a strip of lath across 

 the inside, near one side, and even with the 

 top, edgewise, for the hive to rest upon. My 

 hives contain about two thousand cubic inches. 

 My hive is high enough to contain the honey 

 caps in the chamber. I sometimes put some 

 pieces of comb in the top of the under part ; 

 this entices them to stay and commence work ; 

 but the passages to the honey caps must be 

 covered up by turning the caps over. A part 

 of my hives have frames, and in these I put 

 comb. So, having all ready, I put the hives 

 in the shade, and wait for the bees to issue. 



As soon as they cummence coming out I 

 tak(! a few sprigs of lemon balm (bee balm — 

 the small flowered, not the balm with long, 

 red tlowers,) and rub the hive inside, and as 

 soon as they alight I set my bench in the 

 shade, as near them as convenient, and put 

 my bfix on one end and the hive on the other. 

 Then I take the box on one arm and hold it 

 under the bees, and with the other hand shake 

 them mto it, then set them on tha bench and 

 place the hive over them, a little corner-wise, 

 to give them air, and they will generally go 

 up readily. 



But if some linger, take a stick as big as a 

 pipe-stem and stir them up carefully, and they 

 will soon go up, and then can be set on the 

 bottom board. But the hive must not be set 

 down tight ; it must be set on blocks half an 

 inch thick, and, if it is hot weather, one inch 

 high. Som<'tim(!S, in hot weather, they will 

 come out and alight, or go to the woods. 

 "Well," says one, "they didn't liki^ the hive ; 

 or they had a place picked out and would go 



to it." Not so fast ; I had one large swarm 

 come out that way, and I put them back in 

 the same hive and got a pail of cold water 

 from the well and, with a broom brush, I 

 spi'iukled the ground about the hive and threw 

 some nj) in the air and it came down like rain, 

 and so I saved my bees ; and so I do with all 

 my swarms in hot weather. 



"But," says one, "I can't spend my time 

 in that way. Stop ! let me count the cost : A 

 good sized swarm in June is worth $5 ; in 

 July 8- to $3, and who can afford to lose that 

 amount ?" 



But I have another way of hiving, some 

 easier than the first named. I have a pole ten 

 feet long, on this I tie souie branches from a 

 tree, two fwet long, and put it in the shade, 

 and when they begin to come out I take some 

 balm and pound it, and put it on the branches, 

 and hold it up among them, and most of the 

 time they will come to it ; but this requires 

 practice. By this mode of hiving I save all 

 my swarms. 



Now I wish to say, if any one has a better 

 way, let him shoAv it and I will readily aban- 

 don mine. — A. Wilson, in Ilnrnl New Yorker. 



■WHAT AN" ENGLISHMAN SAYS. 



Mr. AV. Robson, of London, England, an 

 associate editor of The Field, is traveling in 

 the United States, and recently in a letter to 

 Hearth and Home expresses himself delighted 

 with the abundance and size of our fruit. He 

 complains of the lack of gardois, and says 

 that he has seen houses in nearly all parts of 

 the country that he has visited, "as bald and 

 bare, and uninviting, from the absence of any 

 trace of a garden, as the tlank of any grim 

 sea rock.'-' 



Of the American climate he says : — "O, 

 Americans, never blame the climate, for it is 

 an admiral)le one. The succulent vegetables 

 of the old country grow here, with very few 

 exceptions, and by their side you gather the 

 ears of the stately and graceful maize — most 

 useful of its wonderfully useful family. Musk- 

 melon, better than those which cost an Eng- 

 lish country gentleman six dollars each to 

 produce in hot-beds and in glass houses, grow 

 side by side with your delicious sweet potato 

 which I used to grow as a curiosity in a hot 

 house. 



"Our old popular Williams' pear (you call 

 it the Bartlett), larger, sweeter, and more 

 golden than with us, falls by the side of egg 

 plants, with fruit so large as to be a constant 

 cause of surj)rise to me who had often grown 

 the fruit to the size of a turkey egg in hot 

 houses in England. Rosy cheeked English 

 apy)les are seen above the quaint, large flower 

 of the okra, which to us is an impossible 

 exotic. Blessed be every variety of climate, 

 and with its peoples not hedged out from 

 each other's improvements by st;'ange tongues, 

 I look forward to the time when this vast 



