38 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
peep into the hive. If it is a time-honored tra¬ 
dition that beating tin pails will make a swarm 
alight, they will be able to demonstrate its truth 
by twenty cases in their own experience ; and if 
they lirnl anything in print, they will appeal to 
the types as settling the facts beyond all contto- 
versy. This willingness to assent to the views 
of others, often reminds us of a scene m one of 
Shakespeare’s plays : 
“ Hamlet. Do you see yonder cloud, that’s almost in the 
shape of a camel ? 
Polonius. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. 
Ham. Melhinks it is like a weasel. 
Pol. It is backed like a weasel. 
Ham. Or like a whale? 
Pol. Very like a whale.” 
But this is a digression from our purpose, viz., to 
speak of some mistakes and inaccuracies about 
bees which have found their way into print. 
THE CYCLOPEDIA ON BEES. 
In the very high commendation we lately gave 
to the New American Cyclopedia, we said there 
were some things, as the articles on scientific 
agriculture, agricultural chemistry, etc., which 
we should have preferred to change had they 
been submitted to us. With these articles we 
must class those on bees and bee-keeping, which 
are decidedly defective and behind the age. We 
judge from these articles that the writer was en¬ 
tirely indebted to books for his facts, and that he 
had not access to the latest authorities, either in 
the practical or theoretical department. Only 
thus can we explain the absence of all allusion 
to Langstroth, Dzrierzon, Von Berlepsch, and 
Von Siebold, and to the discovery of the Italian 
or Virgilian bee, which has recently found such 
favor in Germany, and the failure even to men¬ 
tion the subject of Parthenogcri. And then, 
some of the statements and opinions expressed in 
the article, seem to us quite wide of the mark. 
The writer says the queen “is easily recognized 
by the slowness of her march.” On the contrary, 
we have often been struck with the rapidity with 
which she moves through the crowd of workers, 
her long legs fitting her to make better progress 
than they. 
“ If she be removed from the hive, the whole 
swarm will follow her.” A swarm of bees will 
follow and cluster around a queen when on their 
Hight in search of a new home. But we doubt 
whether the bees of a hive would leave it to seek 
a queen that had been quietly taken from them. 
They certainly do not follow her in any consider¬ 
able numbers in her flight to seek the drones ; 
and in attempting to force swarms, we find that 
many bees will remain on the brood comb after 
the queen has gone. 
“ It is inferred that bees have an imperfect sense 
of taste and smell, from their collecting honey in¬ 
discriminately from sweet scented and offensive 
flowers.” Perhaps it is inferred ; but there are a 
score of facts to show that their sense of smell, 
at least, is far from being imperfect. Some odors 
are exceedingly offensive to them, and others at¬ 
tract them speedily. 
The use of drones is “ only to impregnate the 
females, and secondarily to supply food to the 
swallows and carnivorous insects which prey 
upon them when they take their mid-day flights.” 
If they serve only one purpose, there is no need 
of “ secondarily.” But what are carnivorous in¬ 
sects 1 “ Carnivorous” means eating or feeding 
on flesh, and we think a drone can fairly claim to 
be “neither fish r flesh, nor fowl.” Besides, there’s 
another use.;- toads eat them, and toads are not 
carnivorous insects. 
“ The eggs producing workers are deposited in 
6-sided horizontal cells ; the cells of the drones 
are somewhat irregular in their form, and those of 
the queens are large, circular, and hang perpen¬ 
dicularly.” Does this writer understand his 
subject when he makes such a comparison be¬ 
tween worker and drone cells 1 If he has seen 
cells “ somewhat irregular in form ” used for 
drone brood, he has certainly made a discovery. 
During the construction of the royal cells 
“ the queen lays the eggs of workers, and when 
they are finished, she deposits a single egg in each, 
at one or two days’ interval, worker eggs being 
laid in the interval.” Perhaps so ; only we do 
not believe it. We do not know of an observer 
who ha 3 seen a queen-cell carried on to its com¬ 
pletion before an egg was placed in it. Indeed, 
we think the queen would be somewhat puzzled 
to lay the egg after the cell was finished ; it 
would need to be laid on the outside. 
“ How workers that lay eggs become impreg¬ 
nated, has not been ascertained. The eggs thus 
produced are always those of males ; this (! !) is 
accounted for, by their having passed their grub 
state in cells contiguous to the royal ones.” Not 
a very satisfactory explanation of a mystery. 
The results of iveigldng hives “ go to prove 
that the bee-keeper should have some means of 
ascertaining the weight of his hives daily 
throughout the season.” Not at all! It is in¬ 
teresting as a matter of fact to know how much 
or how little honey is accumulated from day to 
day; and if anybody can spend time to ascertain, 
we shall be glad to publish results ; but an apia¬ 
rist can find a much better use for Ins time than to 
weigh every hive, morning and evening, and re¬ 
cord the result. We should as soon advise a 
farmer to make an hourly record of the state of 
his barometer. We will not devote more space 
to these articles, with which, as our comments 
show, we are not satisfied. 
Illinois Farmers Tindicated- 
To the Etlitor of the American Agriculturist: 
I notice in the December Agriculturist (vol. 17, 
p. 364) “ Notes on Prairie Farming,” from the 
pen of H. H., Prairie Cottage, Christian Co., Ill. 
Upon the perusal of his letter it struck me as very 
unchristian, though emanating from Christian Co. 
Lest the system of farming in Illinois should 
be judged, (and necessarily condemned), by such 
an epistle, I think a “ counter irritant ” should be 
introduced. Now for one, I enter my protest to 
to all such representations of Illinois farming. 1 
do not think H. H. knowingly misrepresented 
facts, but his picture is over-drawn, and presents 
matters in a wrong light. Such a letter, in such 
a paper, with such a circulation, and wielding 
such influence, is entitled to consideration. A 
system of farming more ridiculous, Slovenish, 
wasteful, and ignorant, than the one described, 
could not well be conceived. Take for example 
the description of how prairie farmers har¬ 
vest here in Illinois. If the writer had con¬ 
fined his remarks to Christian Co., or a few iso¬ 
lated localities in his vicinity, I should have no¬ 
thing to say, knowing nothing about the manage¬ 
ment of affairs thereabouts. But the remarks 
apparently refer to the State generally. Indeed 
he says : “ Want of order and economy charac¬ 
terize the harvest in nearly all Illinois.” No 
Eastern man could read the description without 
exclaiming: “What a miserable set of farmers 
those Illinois cultivators are !” so blind to their 
own good, so negligent of business, so ignorant 
of husbandry, and so criminally wasteful of what 
little they do raise.” 
Let us look at the statements. 1st. “Without 
the aid of reaping machines it would be impos¬ 
sible to save sufficient grain in Illinois, to bread 
the people of the State ;” and in proof it is 
said that : “ The waste of grain in cutting, shock¬ 
ing, stacking, and threshing is, in the writer’s 
opinion, all of 30 percent. There is in fact suf¬ 
ficient grain wasted in Illinois every year, to feed 
some of the small States.” No comment is ne¬ 
cessary. 
Again, threshing is done in such a hurry, and 
the waste and extra expense of feeding so many 
extra hands is enormous. Here is a question for 
Daboll : If a threshing machine, threshing three 
hundred bushels of wheat in a day, with 14 men 
to tend, require 7 pounds of bread, 10 pounds of 
pork, and the necessary trimmings to fill out, how 
much would one man with a common flail re¬ 
quire, while threshing the same amount ? 
I will say here, that the necessary waste in¬ 
curred in threshing in the field, need not be 
1 bushel in 500 greater than in barn threshing. 
Burning of straw is not practiced in the North¬ 
eastern counties. Neatness, order, and dispatch 
characterize harvest operations ; farm buildings 
are numerous ; there is no storing of small grain 
in rail cribs among most of the farmers ; fields 
well cultivated and well fenced, abound. 
Dairying, wool growing, fruit raising, the culture 
of wheat, oats, and corn, are all understood and 
practiced, I will say, as well, and to as great an 
extent by our farmers, as by farmers in Eastern 
States. Economy, intelligence, prudence, and 
thrift characterize a large portion of the farming 
community. There are exceptions, of course ; 
point us to the State that claims perfection in all 
points. 
The being obliged to sell crops as soon as har¬ 
vested, is an evil, it is true. But the statement 
that half or more goes to pay unnecessary store 
bills, is a little uncharitable. Our State is new. 
our land was cheap and reasonable, but the fann¬ 
ing population, in the main, are men of limited 
means. Many have bought lands, in the purchase 
of which all their resources have been exhausted. 
Houses, barns, and fences are needed ; teams, 
tools, sheep, and cows must be purchased, all of 
which must be paid for from the uroceeds of yet 
unimproved farms. The new comer, a single 
handed man, with an empty purse, yet with un¬ 
flinching nerves and indomitable will, sets t* 
work to improve, beautify, and pay for a home 
Small sums of money are hired of land-sharks 
(there’s nothing made in vain), at enormous rate-' 
of interest. Credit is obtained on lumber, tools, 
ete., all in good faith for prompt payment aftei 
harvest. And this prompt selling of crops to pay 
honest debts, instead of putting off creditors in 
hopes of getting better prices, is to be set down 
to the, credit of our farmers, rather than to he 
brought up against them. Securing and culti¬ 
vating a farm under these adverse circumstances 
is preferable to living homeless. 
I admit that many have miscalculated, and got 
into inextricable debt, and multitudes, in avoid¬ 
ing debt, have been obliged to slight every thing 
on their farms not yielding direct and immediate¬ 
ly profitable returns ; but failures in e>-ops, a 
tight money market, depreciation of bread stum 
and other drawbacks incident to new countries, 
should have much weight in excusing defects in 
farming, and delinquencies in liquidation of debts. 
But even this class embraces only a portion of 
the inhabitants of the State. 
An unobservant person, thinking only of the 
rich product of our new lands, may wonder that 
Western, farmers do not keep out of debt, and get 
rich immediately. It should be kept in mind that 
a large portion of the proceeds of the first years 
must go for fences, dwellings, barns, live stock, 
