8 
9 
Many years ago when I lived in the city 
of Rock Island, a friend of mine had a very 
nice garden. The first year he planted and 
replanted cucumber seed, and just as soon 
as ilie plants made their appearance the 
bugs would destroy them; he tried lime, 
soot and two or three other things, but all 
to no purpose, linaly, he hit on the remedy 
I now send to you, and that drove the little 
pests away and kept them away, and 
I know he had as fine a lot of cucumber 
vines as any I have ever seen. 
MULCHING. 
The advantages of mulching during the grow¬ 
ing season are so manifold that we seem to be 
neglectful of our duty if we do not from time to 
time publish a word in its favor. Almost all 
plants are greatly benefited by it and very many 
specially so. The quince is a fruit which needs 
or rather likes a moist soil, and where the soil is 
not naturally of that character, the want may be 
supplied by mulching. We have seen quinces 
successfully grown on a hard gravelly, leachy 
soil year after year, because every spring a 
mulch of coarse litter from the barn yard was 
placed around each tree. This gradually rotted 
down and supplied the necessary fertilizing 
properties and in addition it kept the ground 
always moist and prevented the growth of grass 
and weeds. No amount of digging or labor of 
any kind will do as well as mulching. The 
roots of the quince grow very near the surface, 
indeed, they often show themselves on the top 
of the ground. The mulch keeps the ground in 
perfect order without digging and breaking the 
feeding roots. 
Mulching is specially effective where it can 
be done with raspberries, both black and red. 
The former are most benefited by it as their 
roots do not travel to the extent that others do 
and consequently they cannot so readily supply 
the requisite amount of moisture. The mulch 
prevents the evaporation of water from the soil 
beneath it and also gathers more from the 
atmosphere. Well mulched berries will ripen 
all the fruit that sets, while those not mulched, 
should the weather prove a little dry, will fre¬ 
quently succeed in ripening not more than two 
thirds of the berries, the rest drying up. 
Trees and vines which have been newly set 
are specially benefited by mulching, and if the 
practice was more generally in vogue we should 
hear far less complaints against nurserymen for 
delivering poor stock. There is scarcely a tree 
or plant that it will not benefit. It must not 
be piled up in a little heap apout the stalk or 
trunk, but should cover a space as large as the 
roots are supposed to penetrate, in young stock 
especially. Let our readers try it on a few ber¬ 
ry bushes at once, leaving some unmulched and 
see the difference in the results.—[Orange County 
Farmer. 
NATURAL VS. ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 
Years ago our ancestors found out many 
things that could be done with bees, and a very 
few that should be done with them. They did 
not themselves close up the field of discovery, 
but left it for us to find out by careful practice, 
most of what can and can not be done profitably. 
Among other possibilities, they discovered that 
increase of colonies could be made at will but 
they left it for the practical producers of our 
day to demonstrate that there is more to be lost 
than gained by breeding by our wills rather than 
that of the bees. “The best time to set a hen 
is when the hen is ready,” says that philosopher, 
Josh Billings, and the same philosophy is true 
of the economy of the bee hive. Those who 
still have not found out the losses sustained in 
artificial'increase of any kind, are always will¬ 
ing to admit that we must not violate the in¬ 
stincts of the bees in any vital degree. Now I 
have experimented considerably in artificial 
swarming, having put to test all the reasonable 
plans that I could hear or conceive of, and yet 
I am most emphatically in favor of natural in¬ 
crease, as the most profitable of all. I have 
found no method that does not violate their in¬ 
stincts to a degree of appreciable loss to the 
producer. There is no season that I desire my 
bees to increase at all, and if I wish more col¬ 
onies I prefer to purchase them with the money 
that I get for the honey from the apiary that 
does not increase. I know no way to profitably 
and safely prevent swarming. I can retard it 
somewhat, by shade and plenty of surplus room, 
but yet the instinct to reproduce the species still 
remains. I never try to prevent it by doing it 
artificially, as some do. This course generally 
results in doing it double. First you divide the 
colonies and then they have their turn at it. If 
you can keep the idea of swarming out of the 
minds of the bees do so, but don’t try to change 
their minds or force their bodies to such posi¬ 
tions as suits your mind after they have been 
seized with the impulse; for 
