IVIOOBE’S BUBAL HEW-YOBKf B. 
ghtrg of a Moralist. 
DAILY RURAL LIFE. 
I 
From the Diary of a Centleman near New 
York City. 
WANTED-A KEW VARIETY OF ASPARAGUS. 
June 10.—If anybody can give a good rea¬ 
son for the universal, nonsensical system of 
culture and marketing of asparagus in these 
days, 1 wish they would do so for the benefit 
of stupid people like myself, who fail to see 
common sense exercised in cither. I have 
seen the bell-wether of a Hook of sheep jump 
over an imaginary obstruction in bis path, 
every one of his followers making a similar 
jump at the same spot, and for no better 
reason than because their leader set the ex¬ 
ample. Nine-tenths of mankind follow some 
stupid bell-wether, jump when he jumps, 
never stopping to think or ask themselves 
the reason why they do this or that, beyond 
the fact that old bell-wether did so and so. 
Now t he name of the stupid donkey who liivt 
told the cultivators of asparagaa to cut the 
stalks below the surface of the soil, is prob¬ 
ably past finding out; but John Abercrom 
bie, who was a great light on vegetable gar 
deniug in England a century and a quarter 
ago, tells us that it must be cut four inches 
below the surface of the soil, but no reasons 
for doing so are given. In the latest work 
on vegetable gardening we have in this coun¬ 
try, “ Quinn’s Money in the Garden,” plant¬ 
ing the roots nine Inches deep Is recommend 
ed where the vegetable is cultivated for 
market, and three inches forborne use. Now, 
why this difference ? Do those who depend 
upon the market demand a better or poorer 
article than those who cultivate asparagus 
for their own tables ? Or are the stupid peo¬ 
ple who patronize the markets following 
some old bell wether, who thinks white as¬ 
paragus, or that which is cut from the roots 
before it reaches the air and light, is eatable 
or fit food for human beings ? This is just 
“ what’s the matter,” and those who never 
cultivate asparagus or never saw a stalk 
growing, think they know more about it 
than those who do, and they compel culti¬ 
vators to produce an inferior article, at an 
expense at. least double what It would cost 
to produce a superior. The stem of aspara¬ 
gus, until it comes in contact with light and 
air is unfit for food, being tough and actually 
poisonous ; but as nobody over cats, or at¬ 
tempts to eat it, nobody is injured, although 
stupid people do call for such stufT, paying a 
good price for the same. II one dines at a 
hotel or restaurant during the season of as¬ 
paragus, he will get a plate or this vegetable, 
one inch or a little more of the upper end of 
each stalk eatable, the remainder white and 
as indigestible as the tendons of an old ox. 
To produce this white, uueatable vegetable, 
the producer is obliged to cultivate his land 
more than twice the depth he would to pro¬ 
duce a good article, simply because the roots 
must be buried deeply in order to cut the 
stems several inches below the surface, and 
as soon as they appear above ; and t his is 
why, Mr, Quinn says, plant nine inches deep 
for market purposes and three or four for 
home use, having in his mind at the time the 
people who follow that old bell-wether who 
came over from England in the Mayflower, 
or a few years later. 
Even the cook books tell ua to peel white 
asparagus before cooking ; and were it not 
out of respect to some of their fair authors, 
I would have my say in reply to this recom¬ 
mendation ; but neilher peeling, stewing, 
flying nor boiling will make an asparagus 
stalk, cut below the surface of the soil and 
before brought in contact with the atmos¬ 
phere, eatable It is useless to argue the 
question farther. Everybody knows that 
this kind of asparagus is worthless, or nearly 
so ; that 75 per cent, of all the White Giant 
stuff sold in our markets goes into the waste 
barrels at kitchen doors, a nd still a majority 
of people will purchase it. and ask for noth¬ 
ing better. Gardeners would certainly just 
as soon furnish a good, wholesome, eatable 
article as this white, worthless stuff, and 
they could do it at less prices because it 
would cost less in culture. As experience 
appears to be a slow or unheeded teacher; a 
more rapid method must be employed, else 
the masses will be Irving to eat white aspar¬ 
agus to the end of time ; therefore I propose 
that somebody brings out a new variety 
under the name of Green Asparagus, Aspar- 
gus Virtdia, for a Latin name will answer 
very well. Of course, it is not necessary to 
obtain a genuine new sort, for the old one is 
as good as we ar e likely to get ; but all that 
will be required is to advertise it well, charge 
$40 or $50 per thousand roots at the start, to 
pay expenses of introduction, etc., etc., and i 
the thing is bound to go ! The people must 
be told to break the stems with thumb and 
linger when gathering for use, as a steel 
knife would certainly poison the grass, juBt 
ws a metal fork and spoon would destroy the 
flavor of a Frenchman’s dish of salad. An 
asparagus stem that will not break off readi¬ 
ly by bending with the thumb and finger, is 
certainly not fit for human food, no matter 
whut “ Old Bell-wether” or the cook books 
may say on the subject, 
As some may be incredulous on this subject 
of making a new variety out of the old and 
common sort, and ut the same time make 
the people, or a larger portion of them, be¬ 
lieve it, we have only to call to mind the 
so-called “Conover’s Colossal” asparagus, 
which was brought out as new, ut a big price 
for roots, although no uninterested party has 
ever been able to discover wherein it differed 
from the old and common sort. But the 
parties interested in bringing out t his pseudo 
new variety, are deserving of much credit in 
recommending that the roots be planted ala 
far greater distance apart than the old sort, 
lor it was said that this Giant required room 
corresponding with its size ; and herein lies 
one Of t he secrets of its success, as well as 
many of the indorsements regarding its dis¬ 
tinctive and superior merits. This recom¬ 
mendation of allowing more room in which 
to grow is also the secret of the continued 
success, and at the same time it is a great 
innovation upon the old-time system of crowd¬ 
ing the roots, as recommended in all of our 
earlier standard works on vegetable garden¬ 
ing. Now let us have a new Green aspara 
gus, brought out in a similar manner, and 
we shall have made at least two steps in the 
right direction, which will result in the good 
of all concerned. 
I ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Orel Hershires.— The little, glossy-green 
beetle about a half inch long and almost as 
broad, is the Euryoinia July Ida. It belongs 
to the great scavenger beetle family, some of 
which feed on the leaves of plants ; but 
those which are particularly injurious to 
vegetation are mainly so in their larva stage, 
although a few, like the common Rose bee 
tie, (incorrectly called Rosobug,) is quite de¬ 
structive to the foliage and flowers of various 
kinds of plants. 
A Rural Reader.— The twig of a shrub 
vou send bearing yellow flowers slightly tip¬ 
ped with red, is our commou Missouri flower¬ 
ing currant. The small, purplish flowers are 
those of a common weed, {Scutellaria ner¬ 
vosa.) which you will find fully described in 
Dr. Gray's or Wood’s Botany. I cannot tell 
why your Gladiolii decay after planting, 
unless it is because the .soil is too wot. Roses 
may be grown from seed, but. it is too long 
a story to tell at this time. If any of your 
roses produce seed, save it, and 1 wiil tell 
how and when to plant them. 
Mrs. Irene Burgess.— The specimen you 
sent never reached me, consequently, I can 
give you no advice. Try again, for Uncle 
Samuel’s servants are not at all particular 
in regard to throwing away specimens of 
natural history, as I have learned from ex¬ 
perience. 
i! gpiiii[i;tn. 
SUCCESSFUL BEE KEEPING. 
At a meeting of the American Bee Keep¬ 
ers’ Association, Mr. Elisha Gallup of Iowa, 
read the following paper, which he entitled 
“ Successful Bee Keeping in a Nutshell 
The great secret in successful bee keeping 
consists in kuowing how to keep all stocks 
strong, or having them strong, with brood 
in all stages, nursing bees, and outside labor¬ 
ers, at the commencement of the honey har¬ 
vest. To illustrate this, we will suppose that 
A and B both have the same resources in 
their respective localities, or we will say 
that both reside in the same locality, and 
their honey harvest commences on the first 
of June. The last half of July and the first 
half of August there is no forage for bees ; 
but June aud the first half of J uly are good, 
and the last half of August, aud the month 
of September are good. A commences in 
spring to stimulate, equalize, etc., and re¬ 
places all other queens, or queens that do 
not come up to the standard of fertility, 
with young, prolific queens, allowing but 
little increase — that is, provided surplus 
honey is the object. Here I would remark, 
that with young, prolific queens, and with 
abundance of room, there is very little dan¬ 
ger of increase. On the first day of June, 
when the harvest commences, he lias every 
stock completely filled with comb, brood in 
all stages, nursing bees In abundance, less 
than sixteen days old, and they are in the 
very best possible condition to commence 
storing surplus honey immediately. Then, 
during the scarce time, in the last half of 
July and first half of August, he stimulates 
and keeps up the fertility of the queens until 
the harvest again commences, in the middle 
of August. His bees are then ready to com- ' 
mence storing surplus honey again as soon as 
the harvest commences. The consequence 
will be that. A receives a profit in surplus 
honey, pronounces the season a good one, 
and is well satisfied that bee keeping pays. 
On the other hand, B commences with the 
same number of stocks; in the spring lets 
them manage themselves, and on the first 
day of June they are not in condition to store 
surplus, or at least but very’ few of them, 
and those few he allows to swarm them¬ 
selves to death, or which amounts to about 
the same thing. When the honey harvest 
commences, his stocks commence breeding 
very rapidly*, and by the time they get into 
condition to store honey, the harvest is done, 
or nearly* so ; for it takes twenty-one days 
to hatch out a worker, and sixteen days 
more, or thereabouts, before they commence 
laboring outside. Now the scarce time 
comes on again, and B has got no surplus 
honey, but perhaps has a number of extra 
swarms : the queans stop breeding or nearly 
so, especially if the forage is nearly dried up 
or cut off, and when the harvest commences 
in the middle of August, his stocks, instead 
of being in a condition to commence storing, 
have to go to raising brood again to replen¬ 
ish their stock of workers, for, recollect that 
the brood hatched in June and July is very' 
soon used up with old age, for the lifetime 
of a working bee is only from six to eight 
weeks. 
Now, you can readily sec that B’s stocks 
are expending all their force and energy to 
replenish numbers again, and by the time 
they* are ready to commence storing, the 
harvest is past, aud B has any quantity of 
stocks, that he has to feed in order to curry 
them through the winter, or he lias to 
double up stocks, etc., and when he comes to 
sum up the season’s operations, he has re¬ 
ceived no surplus of honey, and liis surplus 
stocks, or a large portion of them, have 
either to be fed or doubled up in order to 
winter them. His conclusion, is, that the 
Beason has been a poor one for bees. lie has 
certainly had bad luck, and he is ready to 
attribute his luck, as be calls it, to anything 
but his own neglect or carelessness, asserting 
that the season has been a poor one for bees, 
or his climate is not adapted to bee keeping, 
etc. A, with liis management, in the same 
locality, mind you, has had good luck, as ii 
is called; his stocks arc in excellent condi¬ 
tion for wintering, no doubling or feeding 
in winter being required, as be lias fed at 
the proper time to feed ; for 1 hold it to be a 
fixed fact that spring aud summer is the 
proper time to feed. Keep your bees in the 
right condition to store honey, and when 
the harvest comes they will store it, Thera 
may be seasons and localities where bees 
have to be fed in winter, but I never have 
seen such when they were properly taken 
care of in summer. The whole secret of suc¬ 
cessful bee keeping is contained in the above 
nutshell. 
- +-++ - 
BEE NOTES AN1) QUERIES, 
Adulteration of Honey. —it is a terrible 
blow at those who find it profitable to ex¬ 
tract honey from the comb, that there are 
rascals enough left in this world to adul¬ 
terate it. A writer in the Boston Cultivator 
finds that most of the so called strained 
honey sold in bottles is composed as follows -. 
Cane or other sugar is melted in a decoction 
of slippery elm bark in water. Borne man¬ 
ufacturers use, instead of elm, a solution of 
gum arabic and starch, to give it consistency 
and save sugar ;.but this last does not re¬ 
semble honey so much when dropped, as it 
lacks the stringy appearance. These mix¬ 
tures, with or without the addition of a little 
cheap Cuban honey, are flavored with es¬ 
sence, and the mess is ready for sale. The 
oulv true way to obtain real honey is to buy 
it with the comb. 
Dees Destroying Fruit. —Ciias. V. Riley 
sa y S ; —“I have seen bees cut into fruit, and 
there is no imagination about it. The wisdom 
of my recommendation to the horticulturist 
who in extreme cases suffers from bee-injury, 
may be questioned; but none but prejudiced 
persons will doubt my statement of fact, aud 
call my opinion based thereon presumption. 
Facts so often witnessed in the vineyard are 
not overthrown by a single udverse experi¬ 
ment.” 
Homological. 
DIMORPHISM IN FRUIT8. 
The Cottage Gardener says ;-We have 
frequently met with and heard of two va¬ 
rieties of fruits apparently quite distinct be¬ 
ing found on the same tree, and not unfre- 
quently have we heard the correctness of 
statements to that effect disputed. The cir¬ 
cumstance has been att ributed to budding or 
grafting ; and to some it has never appeared 
possible that such a tiring as bud-variation 
could possibly take place. It. Is not unusual 
to see variations of various kinds on plants. 
Leaves, shoots and flowers “sport” on the 
same plants, and why not fruits ? 
The instance of two distinct apples being 
produced annually on the same tree in the 
garden of Mr. Lee at Clevedon is now well 
known. The origin of the Scarlet Golden 
Pippin by bud-sport iB also well known to 
ourselves ; and a similar instance of two dis¬ 
tinct pears being produced on the same tree 
in the garden at Badminton is also a well- 
ascertained fact which we have investigated. 
A new example has appeared in France, in 
the collection of our friend, M. Durand of 
Bourg-la-Reine. It is thus described by M. 
Riviere in the llerue Horticole :—“ Among 
the apple trees we saw a young vertical cor¬ 
don bearing two beautiful fruits of the same 
size, but each of different form and color. 
One was on a spur above a yard from the 
ground ; its color of a beautiful greenish- 
yellow, golden toward the sun, with numer¬ 
ous white dots. It was slightly irregular in 
shape, the stalk almost wanting, and it ex¬ 
haled a strong, very agreeable perfume. 
The other, produced on a spur higher up, 
was larger than the former, conical and 
regular in shape, washed and mottled with 
lively red, and with a violet bloom in some 
parts, a third only remaining yellow. Un¬ 
like the other fruit, this has no perfume. 
The variety on which this dimorphism has 
shown itself is Menagere, and the conical 
colored fruit bears a strong resemblance to 
Emperor Alexander.” 
--- 
HASTENING THE RIPENING OF FRUIT. 
Acting upon the principle that renewal 
of the earth immediately surrounding the 
roots increases their activity and accelerates 
the maturing of all parts of the plant, in¬ 
cluding the fruit, Mr. Stall removed the 
earth about an early pear tree eight weeks 
before the normal period of ripening, for a 
space of 13 to 15 feet in diameter, and to 
such an extent as to leave a depth of earth 
over the roots of only about 2 to 4 inches, 
which could be thoroughly warmed by the 
sun. He was surprised not only by the ripen¬ 
ing of the fruit in the middle of July, but 
also by its superior juiciness and flavor. In 
another experiment the removal of the earth 
from the north side of a tree alone caused 
the fruit on that side to ripen several days 
earlier than that on the south side. Fre¬ 
quent watering was of course necessary in 
the above experiments.— Vineyard Gazette, 
■ -- 
POMOLOGICAL N0TE3. 
Fameuse Apple in the West. —The Western 
Fanner says -.—This apple is a special favor¬ 
ite with us. If we were called on to select 
one variety which would, if planted exclu¬ 
sively, be of moat value in Wisconsin, we 
should name the Fameuse. We arc very 
glad not to hear that other varieties have 
failed but that this has done so well much 
further south. M, L, Dunlap 130 miles south 
of Chicago, writes the Chicago Tribune that 
this variety is the only one. that has escaped 
injury in the past two years. They have 
borne heavily and now promise a good crop. 
The Laib Cherry is attracting attention 
in the West. It originated with a Mr. Laib 
of Galena, Ill.; is hardy, the fruit delicious 
for eating, whether raw or cooked, and is 
about three times the size of the best Earl} 
Richmond. Such is the report of Prof. J. 
WoRMLYof Galena. A Missouri cultivator 
says:—“It certainly has the finest foliage of 
any cherry that we know of—smooth and 
velvety, a sure indication of good quality.” 
That is all we know about it. 
Plums ip Pots.— The London Cottage Gar¬ 
dener says ;—There is now in a house in the 
garden of the Royal Horticultural Society 
at Chiswick a collection of 100 varieties of 
plums, growing in pots, in full bloom. There 
is every appearance that there will be a good 
crop of fruit, and for the first time for many 
years an opportunity will be afforded of 
making valuable comparative observations 
on the many varieties of this valuable fruit. 
