' 310 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 19,1894, 
apart for the early and short-topped varieties and 15 inches asunder 
for any that grow somewhat strong. Moisten these if the soil is dry, 
and sow the seed thinly. 
Carrots. —These are apt to become too coarse and to crack badly 
when the seed is sown early. Now is a very good time to sow, and the 
ground should be prepared much as advised for Beet. Naturally the 
cleanest, best formed roots are had from a sandy, free working soil, and 
heavy, lumpy ground must be made as fine as possible before sowing 
the seed. In some cases it may even be necessary to cover the seed 
with sifted sandy soil from the frame ground. If the Carrot grub is 
apt to be troublesome dust dry wood ashes freely along the drills with 
the seed. The drill for the Nantes Horn or other good stump-rooted 
forms may be drawn 9 inches asunder and the rest 12 inches apart. 
Salsafy, Scorzonera and Chicory. —In the two first instances 
clean, straight roots only are valued, and these will not be had if there 
is any solid manure within 1 foot of the surface. All succeed well 
under much the same treatment as answers well in the case of Beet and 
Carrots. Open the drills 12 inches apart, water if dry, and sow the 
seed thinly. 
Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts. —If a breadth of ground has 
been set apart for the Brussels Sprouts there is no good reason why it 
should not be cropped with short-topped quick-growing Potatoes. Plant 
the latter in drills 3 feet asunder. After the Potatoes are moulded up 
will be quite soon enough to plant Brussels Sprouts between, and the 
lifting of the former crop can be completed before the ground is covered 
by leaves. Borecole and Autumn Giait Cauliflowers may also be planted 
between widely disposed rows of early Potatoes, but all Broccoli other 
than quite the earliest plant of Veitch’s Autumn Protecting should be 
planted on a clear piece of firm ground, and not among Potatoes. 
Peas. —Those sown early in the open and all planted out from pots 
and boxes have grown very satisfactorily this season. If during showery 
weather slugs are found to be eating the stems dust soot and lime 
freely along them both before and after moulding up. Also place stakes 
to them before the plants fall about the ground. Peas transplant readily 
during showery weather, and if the rows are patchy one row might be 
broken up and the rest made regular with the plants thus obtained. 
In some instances the rows of early plants are scarcely worth staking, 
and these should be allowed to trail and crop on the giound. According 
as the last sowing of successional and main crop varieties come through 
the ground sow more seed. From this date give the preference to 
robust mildew-resisting varieties, Ne Plus Ultra in particular being 
favoured. A deep rich root run is also desirable. The rows should 
be arranged quite as far apart as the known height of the variety 
sown, and the seed ought to be distributed thinly in wide drills, 
covering with not less than 3 inches of soil. More Broad Beans should 
also be sown, this time giving the preference to the true broad podded 
section. Spinach may be sown in drills midway between the rows of 
Peas as often as the latter are sown. 
\.l. - J i —rr 
IE BEE-KE)BPER. 
z~\’. 1 . 1 ~ 1 . T.. r. 1 • 1 ^ • 1 • r -1 • 1 -1 - T- 1 • 
APIARIAN NOTES. 
Profitable Bee-keeping—Large or Small Hives. 
In keeping bees for profit both large and small hives have been 
praised as well as condemned by various writers. The late Mr. 
Pettigrew had sound ideas in advocating large hives. Small hives 
have entailed upon novices considerable expense and disappoint¬ 
ment. First, in the early year the queen and her limited attendants 
are kept in a hive by far too small for the natural productiveness of 
the queen, hence the bees never attain that full numerical strength 
to be able to gather the enormous weight of honey they ought to 
do in times of a heavy but brief flow. Because of this restriction, 
too, in contracted hives, the bees are put to still greater dis¬ 
advantages when the supers are put on above that unnecessary 
“ queen excluder ” zinc. The bees are hindered in their progress 
pushing through it, much time and energy are lost propolising it, 
while the supers immediately above are darkened, and the ingather¬ 
ing is still much under that of the full strength hive with the free 
and unobstructed communication to the supers, and by the close 
crown freed from that unnecessary and obnoxious propolising 
when no excluder is used. The purity of the supers alone ought 
to be sufficient to induce bee-keepers to adopt the full strength 
system of bee-keeping. It seems anomalous to see some persons 
advocating the doubling system of hives, yet they condemn prolific 
races of bees, and the hives that would bring up single colonies 
equal to doubled ones, and on the swarming principle treble. 
During the coming summer bee-keepers will be studying their 
own interests by keeping their bees in hives of suitable dimensions 
for the full development of the egg-laying powers of the queens. 
Keep in view the times of the honey flow, and that generally it 
takes about six weeks for a full-sized swarm after being hived to 
be equal in strength to the stock Live before it swarmed. At this 
stage, if honey is plentiful, swarming may be expected, or a change 
of queens may take place. Also, a swarmed stock with its prime 
swarm gathers more honey of a superior quality than the stock 
would had it not swarmed. These are reliable facts, and worth 
remembering. Hives of the Lanarkshire type are easily regulated 
to the requirements of the bees. Some hives are not capable of 
being regulated, and a few of these are about half the size they 
should be for prolific queens. 
With the exception of the 11th inst., which was warm and 
summer like, the weather has been much colder since writing last. 
Bees are either solely confined to their hives, or in a blink of 
sunshine venture out, never to return. On the date mentioned they 
gathered a good deal of honey, and were humming loudly. Some 
of the hives appear quite full of bees. It is a critical time with 
them at present, for unless more genial weather sets in soon, or 
feeding is resorted to, brood drawing and egg-eating will take place. 
The strongest and best provisioned hives are liable to do that before 
weaker ones attempt it. 
Several pounds of sugar go a long way to prevent brood drawing, 
and it is better to err on the safe side by giving abundance than to 
have the hives spoiled by neglecting them. The outlay of a few 
pence will keep the bees in a profitable and well-conditioned state, 
which should be the aim of every bee-keeper.—A Lanarkshire 
Bee-keeper. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
H. Cannell & Sons, Swanley, Kent.— List of Potatoes for Planting. 
Crompton & Fawkes, Anchor Works, Chelmsford.— Horticultural 
Buildings and Heating Apparatus. 
Hogg k Wood, Coldstream, N.B.— Turnip Seeds. 
Toogood & Sons, Southampton.— Farm Seeds. 
J. Veitch & Sons, Royal Exotic Nursery, Chelsea.— General Plant 
Catalogue. 
*^^A11 correspondence should be directed either to “ The 
Editor or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to 
Dr. Hogg or members of the staff often remain unopened 
unavoidably. We request that no one will write privately 
to any of our correspondents, as doing so subjects them to 
unjustifiable trouble and expense. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions 
relating to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should 
never send more than two or three questions at once. All 
articles intended for insertion should be written on one side of 
the paper only. We cannot reply to questions through the post, 
and we do not undertake to return rejected communications. 
Tropaeolum Stanstead Beauty {Inquirer). —So far as we can see 
the flowers appear to be a rich maroon in colour, but the petals are so 
curled and shrivelled through being enclosed in dry paper—nothing 
to keep them fresh—that we can form no definite opinion on the 
character of the variety. 
Pear Beaves Blistered {J. F.). —The leaves are attacked by the 
Bear-leaf blister mite (Phytoptus pyri), the female having deposited her 
eggs and given rise to the blisters, now appearing as reddish spots, each 
of which has a small central hole on the under side of the leaf. Syringe 
the tree or trees with a solution of softsoap, 2 ozs. to a gallon of water, 
adding a small wineglassful of petroleum to 4 gallons of the solution, 
and keep well mixed whilst being applied,one person syringing into the 
vessel while another syringes the tree through a fine rose. Only use 
moderately, yet damping all parts. 
Raspberry Canes Injured {H. N. P.). —There is no disease in 
the Raspberry canes, nor are they infested by any kind of insect, in 
fact, we cannot discover anything of a parasitic nature in any of the 
specimens. The canes are, for the most part, dead and dry, and the 
few portions that contain sap are very feeble in the bud, and have the 
appearance of having been badly ripened. The damage may have been 
caused by frost, but the wood is not blackened, and it certainly would 
have been had the mischief been of recent date. It may, however, have 
occurred in early winter, and seems to have been caused by an overdose 
of some manurial application to the roots than of direct injury to the 
canes. We had a similar experience from using the drainings from a 
piggery, which consisted mainly of urine, and it was applied neat, 
instead of having been diluted with at least five times its bulk of water, 
as ordered. House sewage often produces similar results to those the 
canes present through an overdose, or its containing poisonous matter. 
