AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
1G7 
the hive. This at once quiets them, and they are 
apparently conquered. Take your sheet down and 
brush them with light peach or apple switches, 
with leaves on, and they wilt march into the hive 
in fine procession. Such as have clustered 
around the sides, brush down to the mouth of 
the hive; and do not stop brushing them till 
you have them all in. This I generally effect 
in ten or twelve minutes. Then at once remove 
the hive to the bee-house, and in a very short 
time you will see them busy at work. 11 a young 
swarm is permitted to remain at the place where 
hived, for a few hours, guard the hive well against 
the rays of the Summer’s sun, as the bees will 
not remain in the hive when it is warmed by the 
sun. The hive should soon be set in its perma¬ 
nent place, or the bees learn a course of flying 
in quest of food, which they must change when 
located in the bee-house. For, if a hive is moved 
but twenty feet from its first locality, you will find 
many working bees, on their return, fly to the 
spot from whence they nad been moved ; and 
these poor stragglers, if not able to recognize their 
hive on the stand, are certain to return to the old 
one. 
My theory is, that a young swarm never leaves 
the old hive without a queen, and if the swarm 
returns to the old hive, it is because their queen 
is not with them. and unless you can find the 
queen, that swarm is lost to you for at least nine 
days. Then, this swarm may come again ; but it 
will be increased in numbers, and may have moie 
than one queen, as it then assumes the charactei 
of a second swarm. J- Boner. 
Forsyth Co., N. C. 
Tim Bunker at Home again. 
Mr. Editor : 
I have been gone from home four whole months, 
and I do declare if they wan’t the longest 
months I ever experienced. I haven't seen any¬ 
thing of your paper, and not much of any other as 
to that matter, since I went off, and I’ve pretty 
much lost the run of things, up here in Connecti¬ 
cut, and out in your village. It was curis how it 
happened, so curis that I haven’t got over my 
astonishment at the thought of my journey yet. 
J couldn't hardly believe I’d started, until I got 
home. I should have said, a year ago, that it 
■would have taken six yoke of cattle, and a horse 
on ahead, to have drawn Tim Bunker out west or 
down south. But lo! and benold ! I ve been on a 
journey of five thousand miles, and got back alive. 
I’ve seen the elephant from trunk to tail, and the 
next time I go on any such tool’s errand you see I 
shall stay at home. They call it L. E Fant Esq., 
down south and think it is a joke. I did not find 
it any joke at all. 
The way it happened, you see, was this. W ife 
and I have always stayed at home—hardly ever 
venturing further away from Hookeitown, than 
down to your village, when I had cattle to sell, 
or something of that sort. We were a very quiet 
sort of people, and never had much company out¬ 
side of our own circle of friends, until I got to writ¬ 
ing for your paper, when the tide seemed to turn,and 
lots of strangers began to call on us. After that 
account of the wedding by your reporter, they 
come so plenty, that my wife said she should 
have to go down to Shadtown, to live with Sally, 
in order to get rid of company. You see every 
body that comes to Hookertown—and a good many 
come here in Summer—has to look up Tim Bunk¬ 
er, and stare at him, jest as if he was a lion 
They would go by, looking at our house as if it 
was haunted, or some man had committed mur¬ 
der there. One fellow'come up here in the Fall 
with a looking glass on three legs, and said he 
was going to take a picture of the house for some 
New-York paper. I was called on before break¬ 
fast and after breakfast, in the field, and in the 
barn, early and late, until I was troubled to get 
time to attend to my own business. Now this 
ould have been very pleasant to a politician, or 
a man born to fame, but it was mighty uncom¬ 
fortable to plain country folks like Mrs. Bunker 
and I. There is nothing a man pays so dear for, 
as for his honors. If he is wise, he will add 
another petition to the Lord’s prayer, ‘‘deliver 
us from evil and from fame.” I don’t know as this 
is quite orthodox, but wife and I have made up 
our minds on this point, and are too old to change. 
Well, things come to such a pass that Mrs. 
Bunker declared she would not stand it any lon¬ 
er. She laid down her gold bowed spectacles, 
the same that Josiah gave her, one evening last 
December, and says she “ Timothy our house is 
getting to be a tavern, and I should like to go 
off and have a rest this Winter.” 
“Well,” says I, “where will you go!” 
“Any where to get out of Hookertown, where 
you are not known.” 
“ Very good, pack up the trunks, and we will be 
off down south next week.” 
I had no idea of her going, but I see in a day or 
two that she was in earnest, and when a Con¬ 
necticut woman has made u.p-her mind, you know 
there is no use in talking. So we started on our 
rip, and to make certain of getting into a place 
quiet enough for Mrs. Bunker, we fetched up on 
a cotton plantation. There was not any other 
house in sight, and no neighbors within a mile. 
It was mighty woodsy and lonesome, mail once 
a week, and preaching once in two weeks, and 
about eight miles off Thinks I to myself “if 
Mrs. Bunker wants a quiet time I guess nothing 
will hinder her here.” It was mighty nice for a 
week or two, and she was delighted with the 
woods and flowers, the dogs and pigs, the poultry 
and negroes. The third week she began to miss 
the papers, and to inquire about the mails. The 
fourth week she wondered why they did not have 
preaching every Sunday. The fifth week, she 
began to talk about John and Sally. By the time 
two months were up, she spoke of Hookertown, 
very peaceably. At the close of the third month 
it was a very handsome place, indeed the pret¬ 
tiest village she had seen in all her journeyings. 
Now that she has got home, she declares it is the 
center of the world, and the tip-top of creation. 
That is rather a strong statement, but as I never 
dispute a woman’s word, I shall have to let it go. 
Now I can’t tell you anything about what I see 
down south, cause you see, folks that have not 
been there would not believe me, it is so unlike 
any thing at home. But I jest want to say, that 
if any body or his wife gets restless and uneasy, 
that is the country to go to, to get cured up. It 
is better than Perry Davis's Pain Killer, or the 
Springs ; I haven’t seen so contented a woman in 
ten years as Mrs. Bunker, since she got home. 
She says she never will say another word about 
company as long as she lives; and as to her 
neighbors, they are the handsomest people in the 
country. 
I guess she is about right. It does New-Eng- 
land people good to go away from home once in 
awhile, jest to see how the rest ofthe world live. 
They generally come home wiser and better. 
Every thing has gone on well in Hookertown, 
since I have been gone, just as well, for aught I 
can see, as if I had been at home. There are 
some people, who think the world will come to 
an end when they die. Let them step out of the 
traces a few months, and then come back and 
see how smoothly the world spins on without 
them, and they will be cured of that folly. 
There is only one thing that shocks me on 
coming home, and that is the blue window shut¬ 
ters of my neighbor Seth Twiggs. What upon 
earth possessed the man to have 'em painted that 
color, I dont see. Shutters, indigo blue, in this 
nineteenth century, and in Hookertown, too ! It 
is an atrocity. Just as if there was not blue 
enough in the heavens without a man’s putting 
patches of it on to his house. I asked Seth about 
this, the first thing when I got home. Says he, 
“ Tim Bunker, you don’t know every thing, tho’ 
I admit you are a knowing man. You see I 
smoke a good deal, and blue is the handsomest 
color in the universe. It is blue inside very often, 
and I thought I might as well have it blue out of 
doors to keep the balance ” I had nothing to say 
and have only to add 
Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hookertown , May ls£, 1859. 
Try Experiments. 
We should consider it an important point 
gained if we could induce each of our readers, or 
any considerable number of them, to carefully 
conduct a single experiment in cultivation, during 
the present season, taking for a subject any plant 
or plants that may be most convenient. A small 
plot of ground, or even a pot of earth may suf¬ 
fice for this purpose The observation of the ef¬ 
fects of a fertilizer, or of the growth of a plant 
under different circumstances, may assist in de¬ 
termining questions of the greatest possible in¬ 
terest to tillers of the soil. After all that has 
been said and written about the growth of plants, 
how little do we really know upon the subject. 
Scarcely two writers are entirely agreed as to 
even the first principles concerned in vegetation. 
Though scientific knowledge may be necessary lo 
draw correct conclusions from facts observed in 
vegetable growth, still, facts alone can give a sure 
foundation for scientific knowledge ; and the very 
humblest mind can observe and collect facts. 
To illustrate what may be done. Suppose 
you plant two seeds of the same variety, as near¬ 
ly alike as you can select, in separate boxes, each 
containing the same kind and weight of soil. 
Cultivate and treat them in exactly the same 
manner. They will no doubt very nearly resem¬ 
ble each other, but they will also present well 
marked points of difference. One will have longer 
stems, or more leaves, or greater abundance of 
flowers than the other. Why! Science at pres¬ 
ent can not answer the question. She may con¬ 
jecture, but until the careful experiments of per¬ 
haps hundreds of observers have been collated, 
there can be no certainty in the matter. So with 
many questions of very great importance, addi¬ 
tional facts alone can lead to right conclusions 
and practice. 
It is true that each years cultivation of the soil 
is adding to our store of facts, but how many 
more might be obtained if each cultivator would 
devote a small portion of his leisure to the study 
of some one plant, with a view to find out by ex¬ 
periment all that could be known about it; or 
better still, perhaps, to be able to give a satisfac¬ 
tory answer to some one question concerning its 
habits or its needs. 
But leaving out of the question the importance 
of such experiments to the advancement ot 
knowledge, there is an inexhaustible fund of ra¬ 
tional enjoyment in conducting experiments, es¬ 
pecially such as we are now speaking of. Let a 
person watch the development of a single plant 
from day to day, with a view to ascertain facts, 
