Rvmiw. 
HQlA'E. 
PRICE srx CENTS, 
®«.50 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S7C by the Rural Publishing Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress nt Washington.] 
from others is because we had cabbage on 
the ground last year, and I want to find out 
whether it was the cabbage or not. One of 
my neighbors planted some of if in his gar¬ 
den, and he says It was just as bad us mine 
where there had been no cabbage grown. 
He also says he has heard complaints from 
others, so much so that he thinks it a hum¬ 
bug. I thought I would like to try it once 
more where there had been no cabbage 
grown, and see if it will not do better; if it 
does not it is not worth much, for it only 
averaged little over one ear to a hill. 
Westport, Conn. A. N. Nash. 
quarters in tlie best condition, but am of the 
opinion that a long hive containing 5 or 6 
colonics, divided by thin division boards, 
would bo the best for out-door wintering. 
Hon. M. A, O’Neil,—Have wintered on 
both, but am most successful with out-door 
wintering. Place blankets on top of the 
frames; fill the top boxes with hay, and 
place a board up in front of the hive to pro¬ 
tect the entrance from the wind. 
O. Badders.—1 have wintered in a cellar 
very successfully, but am of the opinion that 
they will not increase as fast as out of doors, 
although a great amount of honey can be 
saved. 1 have been astonished at the result 
of an experiment of placing two colonies in 
one hive and dividing it by a wire cloth, 
placing the hive in a large box and packing 
around the hives with common print paper. 
CAN BEES BE WINTERED WITHOUT BEE-BREAD OR POLLEN < 
Hon. M. A. O’Neil.—I am of the opinion 
that they can bo brought through, but would 
not amount to much. 
Mr. Riling.—I never have had any experi¬ 
ence in tlie matter, but I think it a hazard¬ 
ous undertaking. 
O. Badders.—I am of the opinion that it 
could be done with success, but it depends 
entirely upon conditions. I think that if 
plenty of young bees were placed in the hive 
late in the fall and with a favorable early 
spring, so that the bees could get out to 
gather from maple and early bloom, so as to 
encourage breeding, they could be made a 
success. 
ANDLRSONIAN MUMMY PEA, 
WINTERING BEES, 
At the September meeting of the Kansas 
Bee Keepers Association the following dis¬ 
cussion upon the question, “What is the 
Cheapest and best plan of wintering bees,’’ 
is reported: 
Mr. King.—Have fed coffee sugar, and 
consider it very good. 
O. Badders,— l consider cream candy, in¬ 
serted between the combs over the cluster, 
the best winter food that can be given, but 
think sugar syrup the best to stimulate with 
in the spring as t.he candy is a slow feeder, 
and does not encourage breeding fast enough 
ill the early part of the season. 
Mi'. Jacob—Have fed candy, and was 
astonished at the result; consider it the best 
winter feed that could be given, especially to 
colonies In a cellar or winter repository. 
“THE MOST SUCCESSTUl PLAN OF WINTERING.” 
Mr. Jacob—I think the Quinby plan, in the 
cellar, with plenty of top ventilation, the 
best. 
Mr. Riling.—i have wintered very success¬ 
fully in the cellar. To some colonies I give 
upward ventilation ; to others only bottom 
ventilation ; think that those ventilated only 
at the bottom came out of their winter 
The Loudon Graphic saysAbout three 
years ago Gen. Anderson visited Guernsey 
and lived at Old Government House Hotel. 
During his stay he presented Mr. John Gard¬ 
ner, the proprietor of the hotel, with three 
peas from a number which he had collected 
in Egypt, supposed to be from 2,000 to 3,000 
years old. The following year Mr. Gardner 
hud them sown, and was successful in rear¬ 
ing two plants out of the three peas, and the 
year after was still more fortunate. This 
year lie had a large patch of these peas, some 
of which were seven feet high, the stems 
being of an unusually large size, with flowera 
of a beautiful pink and white color. The 
stalk of this Egyptian pea is peculiar. Near 
the ground it is attenuated, but at the sum¬ 
mit it is several sizes thicker, so that it ap¬ 
pears a necessity to support it, and the more 
so as the pods are also clustered together at 
the head of the plant, instead of being, like 
the ordinary peas, distributed along t he stalk. 
An area sown with this Egyptian pea would 
have a singularly fine effect when llowering. 
The editor of the Guernsey Comet, from 
whom vve have borrowed the foregoing de¬ 
tails, indulges a hope that the progeny of 
these mummy peas, taken from an embalmed 
corpse in the laud of Memnon, may prove of 
such a delicious flavor as to supplant our mar¬ 
rowfats and other green peas, but Mr. Bar¬ 
ron, the chief gardener at the Horticultural 
Society’s grounds at Chiswick, says that 
though tlie Egyptian pea is edible it is not 
pleasant in flavor, it resembles grey field peas, 
a species which are most palatable when 
fried with butter and pepper, a custom still 
prevailing m the north of England on the 
fourth Sunday in Lent, commonly called 
“Casting Sunday.’’ Mr Gardner informs 
us that this Egyptian pea undoubtedly be¬ 
longs to the same family as the ordinary gar¬ 
den pea, but it possesses characteristics dis¬ 
tinct from any variety that he has ever met 
with, such a3 the tapering of the stem, and 
the carrying'of the blossom in a circle at the 
top. The color also is very distinct. There 
is no resemblance whatever in habit to the 
ordinary pea.” 
Seedless Watermelon.— The Sutter (Cal.) 
Banner says :—We are informed by Mr. Wm. 
Mawson, one of the champion watermelon 
growers of Sutter county, of a novel way of 
producing seedless watenneloiiB. When the 
vine begins to bear he lets the first water¬ 
melon on each branch grow undisturbed, but 
covers the branch up with dirt, from the 
first melon to the second one, or within six 
inches or more from tlie end of the branch, 
and the watermelon that grows near the end 
of the vine will bo a seedless watermelon, 
the melon nearest the body of the vine hav¬ 
ing kept all the seed. We have never had 
an opportunity of seeing such melons, but 
can imagine while choking and slobbering 
over a seedy piece that it would be a vast 
improvement. 
HOW TO GET THE MOST BOX HONEY 
D. D. Palmer, Mercer, Ills., writes the 
American Bee Journal;—“Taking our loca¬ 
tion where we have almost u continual flow 
of honey from early spring till heavy frost 
cuts it short, wo would proceed as follows : 
Get our hives crammed full of bees by giving 
no more room to the bees than they can fill ; 
to accomplish this we use a division board 
and crowd one or more, combs to one side, as 
soou as they have sufllcient bees we insert an 
empty comb and move the partition board 
and contiuue thus to do till the hive is full of 
bees and combs full of brood, we then, and 
not till then, put cn our surplus boxes. If 
previous to this time they gathered more 
honey than they consumed in raising brood, 
we empty with the honey slinger so as to 
give the queen “elbow room,” after our 
boxes have been on a month we remove them 
and see the condition below, if they have 
tilled the side combs with honey, which they 
are apt to do, we remove them and sling the 
honey out, placing the empty combs in the 
center and those with most brood outside ; 
give the queen room to deposit eggs ; raise 
all the brood we can and the honey will 
come. The nearer the brood we put our 
surplus boxes the less honey will be stored 
below and the more in the surplus boxes. 
“All hives with surplus boxes or a set of 
frames above for slinging should be ex¬ 
amined below once a month and in case 
much noney is stored there it should be 
slung out, as it cramps the queen’s brood de¬ 
partment. Many queens are called unpro- 
lific because they have no room to deposit 
eggs. Keep hives strong by raising all the 
brood possible and the honey will be gath¬ 
ered.” 
MINNESOTA SWEET CORN 
Will the readers of the Rural New- 
Yorker please report their success with 
Minnesota sweet corn—t; lose who have tried 
it f 1 would like to hear from them all, and 
hope they will be kind enough to report. 
Now, it is not a good plan to ask of any one 
what you are not willing to do yourself, so 
here goes. I purchased one peck of Min¬ 
nesota corn and planted it, making about 
thirty-five hundred hills, from which I picked 
the corn green (leaving some for seed) and I 
realized from the thing five hundred hills 
—less than fifty dollars, or about a cent and 
a third per hill. It was planted on good 
ground, well manured with barn-yard ma¬ 
nure and leached ashes. 
The corn did not come up very good and 
grew very slow after it did come. It began 
to show the top-gallant when it was about 
six inches to a foot high. The largest of it 
grew about four feet high, and once in a 
while a stalk would have two fine ears on ; 
but a great share of them had nothing but 
nubbins, too small to sell. 
Now, one reason why I am anxious to hear 
The philosophy of wintering bees is a right 
temperature of atmosphere and a proper 
escape of the surplus moisture accumulating 
from the respiration and perspiration of the 
bee» 
