on others by placing the prise of honey 
within the reach of those who need it most 
—the working classes; then it would no 
longer pay to adulterate it. The present 
price of honey amounts to a prohibition, 
because the demand exceeds the supply, 
and bee men take advantage of this to over¬ 
charge. This is plain talk, I know. If the 
production of honey were unprofitable or 
even only moderately profitable, there would 
bo some excuse, but I can produce evidences, 
from such men as Langstroth, King, Grim, 
Harbson and others, that tt is one of the 
most profitable undertakings a person can 
enter Into. Some of these gentlemen Uuve 
assured me that a profit of from 100 to 500 
per cent, can be realized on the amount 
invested, 
I am anxious to see who the man is with 
moral courage enough tointroduce resolutions 
into these bee keepers’ conventions, doing 
away with these extortions. 
Henry Macy. 
Rkpoiit of Judge* at the trial of mowing ma¬ 
chines at TTnlonvilie Station, New York and 
Harlem Railroad, under the auspices of the 
Society of Agriculture and Horticulture of 
Westchester Co., on Wednesday, July 8,1874: 
To the Board of Directors of said Society. 
Gentlemen— Your committee, appointed 
as judges on this occasion, would respectfully 
submit the following report; 
That they recommend that the Diploma 
^ WftI ' do “ Jo the “Wilber’s Eureka” as 
HOME-MADE TOOLS, 
Bee Journal :—“ One word about bees eating 
grapes. The past three falls have been dry 
with us. I have two fine vines on the south 
side of my house, within twenty feet of my 
bees. Not a grape did they touch. In my gar¬ 
den, not 40 feet from my bees, I have several 
vines. Two years ago I caught the yeliow 
birds eating the grapes. They would*alight 
on a stem and pick a hole in every grape ; 
then the bee3 took the balance. I put up 
some rags and scared the birds away, I had 
no more trouble with the bees. Those ou my 
house they did not touch. I had 171 stands 
of bees. I have watched them closely, and 
I don’t believe a bee ever molested a grape 
until they had been opened by birds or some- 
U hii.e using to-day a tool which just suits 
me for killing weeds, &c., it struck me that 
it might just suit others even if it is home¬ 
made and not patented. To make it, take 
an old twelve, or fourteen-inch, half-round 
file ; grind off the teeth, bend it as shown in 
figure 1 and put it in an ordinary handle. 
Judges, 
About Bee Hives.— It would fill one bee¬ 
keeper’s soul with joy if gome of the Rural’s 
readers who keep bees with success, and who 
do not use patent hives, would describe the 
hives they use in detail. I want the best 
hive I can get, but I have been so fooled and 
bamboozled by patent-hive peddlers that I 
never speak to another one of them except 
to tell him to “git up and git.”— Tyro. 
DWARF JUNE BERRY, 
There are probably very few of our read¬ 
ers residing in the Northern States who do 
not know the June Berry, Shad Berry, Serv¬ 
ice Berry or May Flower, for it is called by 
all these local names, and for aught we 
know, many otherg. The botanical name of 
this shrub or tree—as it is both, according to 
circumstances—is Amelanehier canadensis. 
It is one of the most variable of all our native 
plants, and has been a great, puzzle in times 
past to botanists ; formerly, there were sup¬ 
posed to be many species of Amelanehier a 
in this country ; but Prof. Gk ay has reduced 
them all to one, 
THE AILANTHUS AGAIN. 
Of late a few articles on the Ailanthus ap¬ 
peared in your most excellent journal. These 
articles, if my recollection is not faulty, dis¬ 
cussed the question whether the Ailanthus 
would cause by contact, in some persons, an 
inllamed vesicular eruption of the skin, and 
one writer stated it produced a rash similar 
to that of the poison vino (Hints toxicoden¬ 
dron) ; and another, our valued friend of the 
“Diary,” was rather inclined to believe the 
Ailanthus innoxious. 
1 have never known the Ailanthus to be 
poisonous when applied externally, but 
knowing Its poisonous effects on the system 
when used internally, as well as the place 
assigned it in our works on botany, I Bhould 
not be surprised to find it cause an eruption 
on those susceptible to poisons. Let us look 
briefly at the history of the tree. 
I have heard this tree called the Paradise 
tree, but it is not named so in any of the 
works 1 have seen. It is called the A ilanthus 
Glandulosus, or “Tree of Heaven.” The 
tree certainly seems to be in bad company ■ 
. as above, but retaining the 
old specific names, to indicate the natural 
wild varieties. 
There appears to be no method in the sport¬ 
ive characteristic of this tree or shrub, for 
we find oue specimen becoming a tree 30 or 
40 feet, high, with a stem a foot in diameter, 
while by its side, with no apparent cause for 
thu variation, another plant of the same age 
is but a slender, bushy shrub, eight to ten 
foot high. These extremes in size of speci¬ 
mens are chiefly confined to tho variety 
known as A. Bo try aptum, which is abundant 
tli i oughont the Eastern States, fringing every 
river and creek, blooming about the same 
time that shad come up from tho ocean, 
hence one of its common names. 
•u a. Having live acres in grapes of many 
varieties, my daughter, in gathering Con¬ 
cords, called my attention to the bees alight¬ 
ing on the fruit on the other side of the 
trellis and eating the grapes; and both of 
the past seasons all of the family have 
watched the bees alighting on perfect ber¬ 
ries, cut the skin and fill themselves with 
juice. It is so with the finer kinds of plums, 
pears and the thin-skinned peaches. 
My logs in this manner has been quite 
considerable. 1 love the bees, love to keep 
them, do keep them, and just so with fruit, 
but the facts are true and it is only just that 
they should be known. Having had about 
30 colonies, the damage was considerable, 
but, then, bees are kept by my neighbors and 
they feast on the fruit as well as my own 
in a recent issue of your paper I noticed 
the comments of a writer to the Boston Cul¬ 
tivator, wherein he speaks against the adul¬ 
teration of extracted honey and recommends 
the use of box honey alone. Now, inas¬ 
much as you devote a space to the bees I 
suppose you would not object to me pre¬ 
senting a fact for consideration of apiarians, 
even if it does grate against their ideas a 
little. I am a groeerman here in New York 
and sell considerable honey to consumers. 
All the box or cap honey which I buy, the 
meu oblige me to pay for gross weight. 
Uke most other men I make it a point to 
chouse the least of two evils (when it is just 
as convenient and profitable for me to do so) 
and I confess truly that I have less pangs of 
conscience when I sell a full pound of adul¬ 
terated honey than I do when I charge mv 
customer for—say a four-and-a^half pound 
cap of honey, knowing that at least one 
pound and a half of it is Indigestible wood 
glass. There are some queer things in 
this world, and how a man can reconcile 
mi self to the idea that it is wrong to seJl a 
decoction of slippery elm, &c., and right to 
sell wood and glass for honey, is oue of 
them. Of course, it is useless to undertake 
to have these compounders stop their adul- 
terati ons as long as it is profitable. Bee men 
can put an end to both these wrongs, make 
as much money, and bestow a blessing 
Figure 2. 
tire, reversing the bend so as to bring the 
flat side down, bending it to fit between the 
rows and with the two ends brought togeth¬ 
er bo as to bolt to an old plow beam as shown 
in figure 2. Make one, hitch okl Tom before 
it, and go to work, and if it don’t work to a 
Milburn, N. J. 
MOWER TRIAL IN WESTCHESTER 
COUNTY. 
July 8 , there was a trial of mowers at 
UnionviUe, under the auspices of the Society 
of Agriculture and Horticulture of West¬ 
chester Co., N. Y. There were live competing 
machines. The first trial took place in a 
field of timothy, each machine having a 
fourth of an acre to cut against time. The 
Warrior cut its section in 11% minutes ; the 
Eureka in 1 2 minutes ; the Dutton in 12% ; 
the Advance in 13%; W. Anson Woods 
"Eagle "in 14%. All did their work well. 
The second trial was in heavy clover. Here 
the Eureka stood the strongest test, and 
although the committee awarded the Ad¬ 
vance the second prize, our reporter thinks 
this machine did the poorest work, We 
give herewith the report of the committee ; 1 
