that, contain dead brood and buries them. 
Mr. jMik iim< said that in looking over 
some hives at the Agricultural College, lie 
noticed one from which the bees were not 
flying, and the reason was Unit tbe hive was 
breeding, and, tbe day being eold, ihe neces¬ 
sary warmth of the hive could not be kept 
up, and the brood would be chilled if the 
bees left the hive, and we. should have another 
instance of foul brood. Ii' the weather be¬ 
comes very cold, the bees would be com¬ 
pelled to contract into ihe center of the 
hive, and in several parts of llie hive the 
brood would be chilled. 
Mr. Moon had starved bees almost to 
death, and then gave them pure honey. In 
some instances this plan has succeeded, and 
in others failed, lie had given up experi¬ 
ments, and would say to all bee keepers 
(The ihturiant 
pitman 
KEEPING GRAPES UNDER GROUND 
FOUL BROOD 
DRONE COM 
A correspondent of the Grape Cullurist 
says;—“Many years ago, while in the nur¬ 
sery business, a customer wanted some vines 
of me, and while they were, being dug up lie 
asked me if I kept any grapes over winter. 
This was in March. Of course he got a neg¬ 
ative reply. ‘ Well,’ said be, ‘ when 1 come 
next week for trees I will bring you some 
along.’ The thing seemed but a joke to me 
at the time, but of course T thanked him for 
the kind offer. True to his promise, when 
he came a week or ten days thereafter, lie 
brought me some. Not a few berries, as 
might have been expected, but at 
least five pounds. They were Isa¬ 
bellas and Catawbas, perfectly 
plump, sweet and fresh, although 
most of the berries had dropped 
•k, from their stems. With the excep- 
lion of a very slight earthy taste, 
they were certainly excellent. 
The question, of course, was 
X' asked, how do you keep them thus? 
The reply was, that In the fall, as 
L wi late as the eold would admit, they 
were gathered in a clear day when 
perfectly dry; a box about eight 
W-* oja inches deep was taken; a layer of 
/ green leaves was taken from the 
'A / vines and laid on the bottom; on 
\l these a layer of grapes, then a layer 
of leaves again, until the box was 
full, finishing with a layer of leaves. 
Put tlie lid on tight, and bury 
i deep enough to escape the frosts 
\ of winter. Of course it must be 
where water cannot settle into the 
box. The stems of those gripes 
were quite fresh when given tome. 
The man told me Ids father-in-law bad 
kept them tints for years. 
To this, the editor of that journal adds: 
“ We have often dug up bunches of grapes 
on layers, late in the fall, when all the 
grapes on the vines had been frozen long 
ago, and found them plump, sweet and 
fresh. We do not doubt the method is a 
good one, and worth a trial.” 
I am no authority; all that kind of thing 
being now resident of Pennsylvania or New 
Jersey. 1 have, however, passed more or 
less of hours examining varieties of raspber¬ 
ries, and here propose to write my notes as 
they appear to me. 1 have never fancied 
the Black caps for my own table, nor will 
my children eat of them when they can get 
any of the Antwerp class; yet 1 am satisfied 
the Black-Cap family is the only one to grow 
where any shipment of extent, or rehandling 
has to be done. If the grower is situated 
where ho can put Ids lierrios on to a car or 
wagon, and have them go at once, without 
rehandling, to Ihe market where they will be 
retailed out, then He never should grow 
Black-Caps; but if his market or situation lie 
like mine, near a small city, where the ber¬ 
ries are bought by middlemen, and rehan¬ 
dled, reshipped, and again rehandled before 
they reach the consumer, then, if he expects 
any compensating returns, 1 think he must. 
Tlic Blink tap*. 
And now of them. The Doolittle and 
Davison's Thornless are about the same in 
time of ripening, arc medium-sized fruit and 
good bearers. The Doolittle 1 think most 
profitable. Ellisdale, Minnesota, Miami 
Black, Ohio Ever-Bearing, Lunin Ever Bear¬ 
ing, Golden Thornless, Canada Black-Cap, 
Surprise, and several others, are no belter 
than hundreds of the old wild American 
Black and White-Caps, to lie found in fence 
corners all over tbe country ; and the man 
owning ground on which the natives grow, 
who should cut them away for the purpose 
of planting either of the above, ought to be 
sent to a lunatic asylum or made to attend 
Horticultural Conventions one year. It is 
questionable if he got away from either 
with any improvement of mind or judg¬ 
ment. 
Philadelphia is too well known to speak 
of, for in quality it is unworthy, and only for 
markets neat' by will it answer, on account 
of I lie softness of the lurry, but fora market 
near by, and to supply at low rules it is 
profitable. Mrs. Wood is equally produc¬ 
tive with Philadelphia, and for family use a 
far superior berry; but it also is too soft for 
distant marketing. 
The McCormick is the only fine variety of 
the Black-Cup family productive, hardy, 
large fruit, and', for a late sort for market, 
has more money in it than all others of Us 
class. Bo much for the Black-Cap. Now 
let us take 
Tlic YVliite, or Oriimii.--Color*-«l, Antwerp, 
and see if we can find one, except Brinckle’s 
Orange, that is worth having. The color is all 
that any of them, except Orange, can claim 
over the red varieties ; and that, except it be 
to assist in adding a variety to the dessert 
of one’s own family ruble, is of no account 
as a market or shipping berry. White or 
yellow never yet paid the grower. Tbe 
drawback to Orange is that it. must be 
handled well, planted in good soil, and care¬ 
fully covered every winter. If the soil is 
heavy or liable to be wet in early spring, be¬ 
fore time for uncovering, he who tries to 
grow it will meet annual disappointment. 
Arnold’s Orange is the next best, but it 
is soft, tasteless, and the plants only half 
hardy. 
Col. Wilder, in my grounds, is equally 
hardy, far larger in berry, and more pro¬ 
ductive. 
SoucheUi no one thinks of growing, and 
the old yellow Antwerp I have not seen 
planted for years, but have oflatc visited an 
old patch where tbe fruit was fine; hulas 
the canes, like Orange, are not hardy, and 
the fruit not as good as Orange, why the 
amateur who wants a light-colored berry to 
make up ids table show, will take the 
Orange, only, until some smart man brings 
out a mw one to try. And now we come to 
Till- Red A III WC‘ TP (Jin as, 
among which, were its canes only hardy, 
the Hudson River Antwerp would stand at 
the head of the list; but that deficiency in 
its character, tlie necessity for protecting it 
in some manner during winter, ever has, and 
probably ever w ill, keep it from general cul¬ 
tivation; for, although the expense of cover¬ 
ing the canes is not great, i! is a care and 
necessity too often neglected, and thus the 
plant dies, receiving with its death, an an¬ 
athema on all tender fruit plants from the 
grower. 
The Downing—of which I send a draw¬ 
ing—is of the Hudson River Antwerp Style, 
and with me is fully up to it, and it has now 
stood, growing in clay soil, two winters un¬ 
protected, and has proved hardy, all but the 
tips of the canes; yet 1 should hesitate to 
call it hardy, and believe it must be pro¬ 
tected in most locations. 
The Kirllund is hardy, is in size almost, if 
not quite, equal to the Clarke; is the earliest 
of all to ripen; of fine quality for the table, 
but too soft for distant market transporta¬ 
tion. It should be iu the garden of every 
ruit grower. 
l)i*ciiK^ioii<. ni ike Ylickisuu lire Keeper*’ 
Convention. 
Mr. MlTCiiETi said he would like to know 
if there was any way of preventing the bees 
from making drone comb. 
Mr. Moon said that pure air is the great 
desideratum of health. All animals require 
pure air, and if confined in a damp place, 
health w ill be damaged, if that damp is not 
removed, We all know that the bees re¬ 
quire a dry habitation. He would keep the 
bees in a dry place and keep the hive dry. 
If we feed bees sugar all winter, with even 
Naomi—of which I send you herewith a 
drawing—is one that inis made some noise, 
ami whether nine hundred and ninety-nine 
out of every ten hundred that have been sold 
under this name prove Franconia or not, I 
do know it is a distinct sort, and side by side 
with Franconia, of which it is doubtless a 
seedling, it lias stood the w inter uninjured, 
when its parent has killed to the ground. In 
its general appearance it is not unlike tlie 
Franconia; but in its quality it is sweeter 
and richer. 
Knevet’s Giant, a variety of which no re¬ 
cord seems to be found in any but American 
works, and yet is a variety of acknowl¬ 
edged foreign origin, has, in years gone by, 
with me proved line, and I wish I could get 
of it again. 
Belle de Paluau is another foreigner of 
good show with me last year, but my plants 
of it met with an accident from tbe careless¬ 
ness of my laboring man and I must, get it 
again. All speak in its praise, but from 
what 1 have seen of it, the canes arc not 
hardy, and therefore the public as a public 
—the growers all over the country—will not 
have it. 
Of Burlington or Prosser, D uhring, Hunts¬ 
mans, Giant, French, Gen Patterson, and 
many more that cumber the books and many 
amateurs’ grounds, it is useless to speak, hut 
I will say a word in favor of Belle de Fon- 
lenay—of which 1 also send you a draw ing 
—a variety that because of its disposition to 
sucker freely lies been almost, discarded. 
By or from pure contrariness, a man in. my 
employ, three years since, in hoeing, cut 
away in spring all the suckers; and so all 
summer, when hoeing, he would let but one 
or two grow, cutting all others away as 
weeds. The result was, 1 had a good crop 
of fruit not only on the canes of the pre¬ 
vious year, but on those of the same sea¬ 
son’s growth; and I have repeated the pro¬ 
cess, with like results, up to the present, 
and now have fruit on the young canes just 
as that on tlie caneg of last year has gone. 
As a variety for private gardens,! think 
it worthy of more general planting than it 
has received, but all should remember to 
cut away the suckers freely, as so many 
weeds. My drawing is one of thirteen clus¬ 
ters on a stem or cane of this year’s growth. 
Baker and Parnell, two new Ohio seed¬ 
lings brought out last year, do not seem to 
possess any merits of supremacy, and the 
fruit of one is quite insipid. 
Of this year’s novelties the Seedlings by 
D. M r . Herstine, of Philadelphia, present 
grounds of great promise. 1 have exam¬ 
ined but one of Hie Herstine, and that 
only on a young plant growing in my own 
grounds, but so good, so productive, that I 
made, while it was in fruit, the accompany¬ 
ing drawing. |lu Herat., Aug. 0, page 92, 
we gave an engraving of Herstine, which 
was recoi ved before A dim 'h. JIence we do not 
give tbe latter.—Eds. Rural New-York¬ 
er.] To the description already published 
of it we may add that the canes are very short 
jointed. Mr. Herstine lias three other 
Seedlings, to which he lias allowed names 
to he attached, Elizabeth, Ruby, and Saun¬ 
ders. In thus introducing so many, L fear 
Mr. Herstine has erred. To me it would 
seem belter to Lave selected the best, which 
all who visited his grounds to see them con¬ 
ceded to be the one to which his own name 
lias been attached. We do not want to 
multiply interior sorts, and if there is one 
Iwt, then why the others? 1 suppose the 
answer will be, to suit different soils and lo¬ 
cations; but if none of these have ever been 
thoroughly tried outside of the grounds 
wherein they originated, and if all spring 
from the same parentage, what probability 
is there of one proving more hardy than 
another ? Audi. 
DOWNI TSTO 
tlie best sugar, and nothing else, we shall i 
have the same trouble with them in spring, 1 
if we do not give them dry food, such as ] 
meal, flour, etc. i 
Mr. Mitch EE said that in making artificial 
swarms he always leaves a fertile queen in 
tlie hive. Last year lie could not get drone 
comb enough. If we want to keep off the 
swarming fever, give the bees plenty of 
room. When he finds the bees begin to boil ( 
a little, lie takes out a comb and gives them 1 
room for working. As soon as bees begin to ( 
build drone comb, they will make queen 1 
cells; when they do not build queen cells, * 
they will not build drone cells. 
Mr. Moon said that, according to Mr. 1 
Gallup, tbe disease called foul brood is < 
caused by the ignorance and incompetence <• 
of bee keepers. ' 
Mr. Wood said that if the disease can be ' 
checked or prevented by cutting out the • 
combs from time to time until all vestiges of 
the disease had disappeared, he would not ' 
by any means advise bee keepers to bury ;! 
their bees. When Impure honey is depos- 1 
iled, lie advised bee keepers to remove it by l 
all means. 1 
Mr. Rood said that a bee keeper in Ger- < 
many writes that he boiled an empty hive < 
in a brewers kettle to disinfect it from foul i 
brood from wbidl the bees in it had died, 
and after all this precaution, the bees which l 
were put into Ihe cleansed hive wore affected 
with the disease, lie (Mr. Rood) bad put > 
bees into a hive from which foul brood had i< 
been taken out, and he bad watched closely 
BEE NOTES AND QUERIES, 
VINEYARD NOTES 
The Crape Crop in Hon I h wo.Hi Missouri 
promises, the present year to tic not only 
very abundant, but of superior quality. Tbe 
principal crop in this immediate locality 
compuisos tlie Concord, Norton’s Virginia, 
Hartford Prolific, Clinton, Delaware, and 
Ives’ Seedling. Tlie Herbeinont, Martha, 
Cunningham, Union Village and many oth¬ 
ers are cultivated to a considerable extent, 
and tlie Enmclau has been introduced this 
spring. The Catawba does not flourish 
here. All of the other grapes do as well or 
better than in Ohio or further north. The 
Delaware attains a larger size both iu bunch 
and berry than I have ever seen it else¬ 
where. We have a wild grape here called 
the Missouri Summer Grape, resembling the 
Ilcrbemont in size of berry—which I have 
not yet tasted in its perfection—hut which 
promises to lm a valuable wine grape. I 
have tasted wine made in 18(18 from this 
grape which I think is a nearer approach to 
a good table claret than any red wine of 
American manufacture I have yet mot With. 
The season of 1809 was, in Missou¬ 
ri, as elsewhere, a very poor one 
for grapes or wine; but that of 
1870 promises to be very fine. 
Our apple crop in this locality 
will be light but of good quality. 
Last year the apple trees were 
overloaded. 
Tbe wheat, oats and corn will 
be, as a whole, full an average 
crop. The corn never looked 
Uixlci'liill’ft Vim; hock. 
Tins little device for fastening 
grape vines to trellis or slakes, is 
very simple, and il is astonishing 
that it has not been used before. 
It consists simply of a small wire 
in tlie shape of the letter U, of 
length sufficient to go around the 
vine* each end turning over and 
around tlie trellis, or over nails 
driven in the sides of u.slake. Of 
course it is durable, is easily applied, cheap, 
and while it secures the vine perfectly, 
ample room can be given for its growth. It 
is said it can be afforded for sixty cents pel- 
thousand. _ 
Pruning null Propaunting Gi'npes. 
If G. O. K. has the Rural New-Yorker 
for 1869, and will look on pages 201, 283, 
217, 310, 309, 281, 293 and 264, he will find 
his inquiries answered in detail, and elabo¬ 
rately illustrated with engravings. If he 
has not got tlie said volume, we will send it 
Trioinplic lie J minium- Pear. 
The editor of the Germantown Telegraph 
says lie fruited this pear a dozen or fifteen 
years ago for several years, but never had 
one specimen fit to eat, and lias heard of no- 
bod}’ who had attempted to cultivate it who 
has had better success. Perhaps some of 
the readers of the Rural New-Yorker 
have succeeded better; if so, let us hear. 
JVoie. — Our correspondents must have pa¬ 
tience. Thanks to their kindness, we are getting 
so much valuable Information that we scarcely 
knowwlmtto put in first. Our California cor¬ 
respondence will supply any seeming lack of 
variety In this Department. It is a misfortune 
that the Rural is not larger. 
