9 
285 
,f APRIL 2S THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
don't tell them what you said of me in your 
magazine when I commenced writing for it, a 
few weeks only before I wrote the offensive 
criticism. I may. however, be pardoned for 
quoting your words, as follows: 
“ Mr. Miner confined his writings on bees to 
his own publications for twenty years ; but now 
haring retired from business, and having some 
leisure time, he has promised to become a con¬ 
tributor to this magazine; and as few men have 
devoted so many years to the careful study of 
the nature and domestic economy of that in¬ 
sect, we do not hesitate to say that our next 
volume will be particularly valuable to bee¬ 
keepers in consequence of Mr. Miner’s contri¬ 
bution.” 
Then the letter you wrote me April 6, begging 
me not to say anything in the Rural of a 
“personal" character, was a sublime concep¬ 
tion ! I can readily imagine the tortures of a 
guilty conscience that you Buffered, iu view of 
a just retribution which yon feared I would in¬ 
flict on you for violating my nom de plume aud 
calling me various hard names. Yes. that sup¬ 
plication was rich ! Well, friend KiSo, I will be 
lenient, if not for your own sake, at least for 
that of others. 
Now, suppose we look a little into thnt •• tissue 
of falsehoods" which you say I wrote. You 
remember that you wore delighted with my 
writings, copying from other papers what I wrote, 
till I began to talk of humbugs. The idea that 1 
should doubt the story you published about the 
New York City lady who was reported by you to 
have bought five hives of boos for 510, kept 
them five years, sold 22 hives, aud then was 
offered *1,500 for what she had left, which sum 
she refused, was too much for you to stand! 
The visions of enormous sales of Italian bees, 
hives, etc, (not Italian bee-hives, as the printer 
made me say In the Rural), being dispelled by 
my remarks, moreover my exposures of othor 
humbugs m your paper, were offenses that you 
could not forgive. Then came the penalty for 
speaking the truth.. You insultingly throw my 
replies to attacks made oti me, into your waste¬ 
basket, without the ordinary courtesy of giving 
me a reason for so doing; called in your brother, 
writing over tho signature, “ Fairplay,” to help 
to writ- mr down. lie, by his abuse and insults, 
incited your “ink-slinger” corps of scalawag 
writers to oontinue their attacks for over six, 
mouths, taking their cue from “Fairplay," ami 
all the while you gave me no hearing, and Anally 
wound up the one-sided drama by one of tho most 
false and meanest accusations against me that 
your venom could dictate. Then, sir, l appealod 
in sclf-dofense to the readers of this paper, as 1 
was known to many readers of the magazine, 
although I wrote under a nom de plume. 
What else hut the deadliest animosity against 
mo could have induced you so to act ? What 
could have caused this belligerent attitude but 
my criticisms of your plans for extending your 
business at the expense of truth and fairness ? 
You deny that this was tho cause, and cite a case 
in which you did make a fow milk-and-water 
remarks about the liability of bee-keepers to 
fail to succeed; but this was an eleventh-hour 
repentance, forced on you by public opinion. 
You remember how you abused poor old Mr. 
IIed don, the Michigan bee-keeper, in the Feb¬ 
ruary number of your paper for 1870, for Haying 
that ho did not think extractors of much benefit 
—that false allurements wore held out to cause 
people to keep bees—“ Where were the fortunes 
that Quuibv and Lahghtroth ought to have 
made ?" etc. You called his remarks “ twaddle," 
“ tho braying of a donkey,” and said, “ Saltpeter 
will not save him from the contempt of progres¬ 
sive bee-keepers." like yourself, who deal in ex¬ 
tractors. bees, hives, etc. Juet consider what a 
rush for bees, etc., that account of a woman 
obtaining “ 380 pounds of box honey from one 
hive of bees iu a single season, which was sold 
for .*133,'’ that you published in your February 
paper for 187C, ought to have produced, and tho 
numerous other such humbugs that appeared in 
your magazine 1 
In your statement in the Rural, you say, 
“ we (that is you, the editor) have never said 
this or that, or denied the truth of certain state¬ 
ments made by me ! Why, sir, I never referred 
to you as having your, elf had anything to say 
about bees at all, as I am well aware that you 
know little or nothing about bees, and that you 
biro Mr. Nellis to answer all questions asked . 
by your corr&spoudendents, who know still less 
about bees than you do. But I do hold you re¬ 
sponsible for what your brother (“Fairplay") 
said, as well as for what you published from 
correspondent* in regard to me; and there was 
substantially a general denial of the correctness 
of my arguments in your paper, as I previously 
stated. " j 
1. Take tho assertions, “ Kingbirds destroy 
bees.'’ The tenor of “Fairplays” remarks was 
to discredit that fact. 
2 “For ilizing queens in a cage." You say 
that you never said they could he thus fertilized; 
but your brother said emphatically, iu the De¬ 
cember number of your paper. 1870. page 264, 
“ It has already been accomplished, as we know." 
3. “Bees cannot be wintered with perfect 
safety every time.” You deny over having said 
that they could be so wintered, yet your brother 
said they could be thus wintered, and in the 
December issuo he said, “ We know several ex¬ 
tensive bee-keepers who winter entirely without 
loss." 
1. “ Moses Qutmby was not the first person 
who discovered that cold woather would kill 
bees." You defy me to prove that you ever 
published that he was the first person who made 
that discovery. In your July uuraber for 1876, 
page 147, T find tho following:—“ Mr. Qumby's 
famous assertion then made, so ably defended, 
that cold usually kills bees, has never been suc¬ 
cessfully contradicted.” What is that but imply¬ 
ing that be was the first person who had made 
the discovery ? 
To sum up, Mr. Kino, you have not proved 
that I was wrong in a single case, and by your 
own pettifogging yon made yourself out to be a 
reckless defamor, when you said in your maga¬ 
zine for March, 1877. page 53, that my ' criti¬ 
cisms consisted largely in strong denials of 
facts, known to be such by all modern apiari¬ 
ans,” and that said criticisms “called forth a 
host of articles (of the “Ink-slinger” stripe) 
which re-established by proofs the questions 
that I discussed." 
Now, you ought, to be ashamed of yourself for 
thus abusing a man for telling the truth ! As I 
said before, you have not shown me to be wrong 
in a single case, not having the face to adduce 
tho “proofs” of my being wrong from that 
“host of correspondents who re-establish,” as 
you claim, the humbugging character of your 
paper. What is vour assertion worth, or that of 
any other man, to the effect that you have 
“ known " (not seen) two laying queens to ho In 
a hive at tho same titno ? You don’t profess to 
have seen two queens Ihus laying. Out on such 
bosh ! We need scientific investigations of such 
questions to bo “ proofs " iu the premises. 
Now, Mr. Kino, let me advise you as a friend 
that you hereafter treat correspondents, who 
ditYer with you on bee matters, with ordinary 
civility at least. If they teach false di otrinos, 
lot thorn be heard, like a man, and don’t fly into 
a passion and insult thorn. Show editorially, in 
a respectful manner, wherein they err, if you 
cm; but never again expose yourself to tho 
contempt of all honorable and fair-minded men, 
by refusing a correspondent a hearing in his 
own defense, again.t calumny heaped upon him 
for over six months by your asseut and approval! 
Your case must have been a ilesporate one. if 
you could not sustain your position by your own 
pen, without suppressing his communications, 
written in a fair and liberal spirit. 
One remark more: You seem to think that 
you caught me in a gross error, when the types 
made me say that several young queens do 
sometimes “visit" iu a hive. I wrote “exist," 
etc. Ah I lately wrote you, I do not intend to 
quarrel with you. Within tho prosont month I 
have sent you some twenty customers for your 
boc-hives, and 1 shall thus continue to render 
good for evil. I look on you somewhat as I do 
on a spoiled child that needs the rod. Take the 
castigation kindly, and I will try to make a man 
of you. T. B. Miner. 
Linden, N. J. 
[Inasmuch as both parties to this controversy 
have said, in regard to it, all in which, the public 
can be interested, wo amicably suggest that the 
matter should bo allowed to end right here. If 
suffered to continue, it might possibly, judging 
from present indications, become spiced wilh a 
dash of acrimony and personality, which wo wish 
strictly to exclude from these columns.— Ed.] 
- 4 -*~*- 
PROFITABLE BEE-KEEPING. 
As a reader of the Rural, I send you a state¬ 
ment of my sucocss with bees. I am wintering 
this season fifty colonies of them. I use a hive 
of my own invention, so constructed and ar¬ 
ranged that I oun prevent swarming if I wish, 
or if I want swarms, I can have them issue any 
week in the swarming season that may suit my 
convenience. Tlnn, i Lave no trouble of watch¬ 
ing for swarms with uncertainty. The hive is 
arranged for thirty small, glass boxes, each 
holding about four and a half pounds, I ob¬ 
tain, on an average, about 200 pounds of box 
honey from each hive yearly. I have obtained 
aB high as 380 pounds from one hive in a single 
season. 
I have made bee-keeping a close study for 
many years. With us the honey season is short, 
and therefore the quantity of honey is not as 
large as in some sections, but the quality is un¬ 
surpassed. I have the Italian bees, and find 
them very much superior to the common variety 
in many points; uioreovor. they are much hand¬ 
somer, more hardy in withstanding our severe 
winters, less inclined to sting, etc. I will treat 
of this subject again through the columns of 
your valuable paper. Mrs. L. F,. Cotton. 
West Gorfinm, Me. 
fdoitnfo tljc llqniblir. 
A TRIP TO THE SOUTHERN TIER. 
Bath, Steuben Go., N. Y., April is, 1877. 
A few words from this part of the State may 
not be amiss at this time of the year, even 
though I send them to you myself. The usual 
cry of hard times prevails hero as elsewhere, 
but I have very little faith in its correctness. 
Many people cry hard times to save themselves 
from the numerous calls upon their purses, 
while others do it from a long-nurtured habit of 
paying always with reluctance, and again, others 
have mot with misfortunes iu their crops, and 
actually feel tho want of money. But by far the 
greater number keep np tho cry from habit. 
In my travels through tho country yostorday, 
I ran upon a curiosity, in its way. You Rural 
editors have always appeared to loan toward the 
position that poultry could not be kept, upon a 
large scale with profit. 1 stumbled upon tho 
refutation of this position bv making the ac¬ 
quaintance of Mr. W. D. Robinson, who lives 
about three miles from Kimona, on the Hill" 
Road to Howard. 
Ho began raising poultry about seven years 
ago, and seems to have made a careful study of 
all its economies. Since 1871 ho has kept an 
accurate account of expenditures and produc¬ 
tion, and shows tho following results: 
Year. No. of bens. Net profit, 
is? i.non.fa.'io oo 
1S72. 200 208 00 
18711. 200 100 OH 
1871. 300 ;in0 oo 
1875. 100 200 no 
1H76. 300 156 00 
Thus he shows a net profit in six years of 
iiil,194, or, upon an average of 266 hens, a yearly 
average net profit of 5199. 
Iu making lip Ills expenses, he charges against 
the poultry as expenses (to cover wear and tear) 
14 per cent, interest upon tho cost of buildings 
and yards, 7 percent, interest upon tho original 
cost of the poultry, the food, medicine, and new 
stock at actual oost, and also charges rent for 
the land upon which they run loose (a large 
field adjoining the coops), 7 per cent, on tho 
cost of an acre of land for each 100 fowls. IIo 
offsetp against the manure the littlo time he 
spends in caring for them, and says he has made 
an excellent bargain against the poultry and in 
his own favor. He credits the poultry with what 
they produce at actual market rates, and as ho 
sells largely, it is mostly cash. Thus it will bo 
seen that, charging every possit le expense 
against the poultry, he produces the net profit 
above shown. 
He has tried numerous experiments in breeding 
and has finally settled down to Brahmas and 
Leghorns and their crosses as combining the 
best producing qualities with the fewest vicious 
habits. He has also experimented largely in 
feeding. In conducting those experiments lie 
has kept a certain number of hens in separate 
coops and fed one coop cokl corn, another corn 
which had been steeped, softened aud fed warm 
and still another to which ho fed t.ho egg food 
made by C. R. Allen of Hartford. He found 
the production of the warm fed coop in a given 
time to be sixty eggs iu excess of that of the 
cold fed and the production of the coop fed on 
Allen's Egg Food to be one hundred and seven 
eggs still further in excess. One pound of egg 
food which cost him 51, produced an increase of 
eggs which at market price brought 51.34, thus 
showing a clear profit of thirty-four cents upon 
the egg food alone without counting the subse¬ 
quent effect which maintained an increased pro¬ 
duction for some weeks after the feeding was 
stopped, of which no accurate account was kept. 
His hens acquired the bad habit of eating 
their own eggs. This he obviated by building 
peculiar nests, in such a way that the houB could 
not see tho egg after it was laid and has had no 
trouble from that quarter since. His coops and 
yards occupy about half an acre of ground and 
are constructed upon the most economical plan. 
In my conversation with Mr. Robinson, I 
found that his system of accounts which he kept 
for hia poultry was applied by him to every pro¬ 
duction of hia farm. He could tell mo accurate¬ 
ly the cost per acre of every crop he raised, and 
just what it yielded him in money or otherwise. 
He kept tho books for hia whole farm, and at the 
end of the year knew just how much ho had 
made or—I was about to say lost; but men of 
this kind do not generally have anything on tfiat 
Bide of their books. He said that bis first at¬ 
tempts at keeping farm books were rather dis¬ 
couraging and difficult; but, after a littlo prac¬ 
tice, be found it easy aud exceedingly valuable. 
It Beeius to me that this system of being able to 
account for everything, in dollars aud cents, 
weald be conducive to success and profit on every 
farm in tho country. 1 know that many will say 
it is impossible; but let them try it. and if they 
run upon a snag, write to friend Robinson for 
his experience upon the point. If he answers 
lh«',m asinl-'iljgeiitly sjj no did pm y>hile T pljec] 
him with questions, they will have no difficulty 
in understanding. 
After a pleasant conversation with Mr. V. S. 
Robinson, our poultry friend’s lather, I started 
toward the pleasant little lown of Bath, to write 
to the Rural the wonders I had seen. I al¬ 
most forgot to mention one Important item which 
Mr. Robinson told me—viz., Unit ho first con¬ 
ceived the idea of raising poultry for profit from 
an article which he read in tho Rural, and that 
his early ideas on the subject wore imbibed large¬ 
ly from the department of yonr paper. This I 
can readily believe, when I oxamiuo the table of 
profits and find the largest proportion in tho 
earlier years of the account. In a few days r ex¬ 
pect to go up Cayuga Lake, among the vineyards, 
from whence you will probably hear from me. 
Shorthorn. 
®Ijc Ijorsfinait. 
ENGLISH ROADSTERS. 
Though a horse that can trot a mile in very 
much loss than three minutes is, in England, 
quite a rare animal, there is an unnumbered ar¬ 
ray that can, on an ordinary road, attached to a 
common two-wheeled vehiole containing several 
persons, trot ten, twelve, or fourteen miles iu an 
hour without. soriou«ly distressing themselves. 
Indeed, this does not aeoni to be tho limit of 
their powers, for, if 1 remember rightly, about a 
year siuco a small cob, under 15 hands, when 
trotting against Stanton, the byciclist, at Lillie 
Bridge, though beaten, managed to cover, to 
the saddle, his 17% tuileB in an hour—or a mile 
in about 3% minutes for eighteen continuous 
heats. 
Much of this remarkable endurance is the re¬ 
sult of steady training, for there—unlike what is 
the custom here—when a horse is attached to a 
vehicle, from the moment ho leaves his yard 
until he returns, ho is not expected, and does 
not expect, to let up on his swinging pace, un¬ 
less a stiff hill, or some such formidable ob¬ 
stacle be encountered, or his driver’s business 
necessitates a halt. Here, of course, I refer 
Only to ordinary' journeys of ten or fifteen miles, 
and except occasions where a much greater dis¬ 
tance has to he traversed. Thus tlioy become 
accustomed to n. ten or twelve-mile gait,, which 
they will keep up without much urging either 
from whip or voice, it being no uncommon oc¬ 
currence for two drivers to engage in a friendly 
contest for seven or eight miles, to see who 
shall bo first home from town on a market day. 
English farmers usually keep one or two road¬ 
sters—or as they call them, hackneys—which 
they do not work on tho farm, except, perhaps, 
occasionally on a horso-ruko or hay-maker, 
during harvest, but simply use for riding and 
driving to fair*, markets, and other purposes of 
pleasure. These are commonly what are known 
as “half-bred” horses—that is, a cross be¬ 
tween tho old-fashioned farm horse whereon 
our respected ancestors wore wont lo ride pil¬ 
lion-wise—and tho thorough-bred, ranging about 
15 or 15% hands high, with neat legs, compact 
body, and an unusual degree of muscular power. 
Crossed again with tho racer, they produce ex¬ 
cellent hunters over heavy ground, where the 
strain on tho muscles is too Bevore for the more 
delicate and highly-strung thoroughbred. 
w. H, 
Industrial Implements, 
RUE’S HAND CULTIVATOR. 
Mr. G. W. Rue, the well known manufacturer 
of the Potato Digger, has perfected his Hand 
Cultivator recently by the addition of various 
adjustable implements that greatly enhance its 
value. Of the Cultivator itself we need not 
speak. It is made of the best material and does 
work that is satisfactory, but to it can bo easily 
aud quickly adjusted rakes, shovels, a mold 
board, large or small hoe, cultivator fork and a 
spike roller. With this handy little maohiue a 
man is nicely equipped to do a great variety of 
work, 
--- 
AN IMPROVED GRAFTING SAW. 
This saw and cion cutter, although known in 
a limited way for the past few years, possesses 
merits that deserve more extended recogni¬ 
tion. Grafts made by these implements aro 
about perfect, and “take" every time. Mr. 
Wagner has put them on trial whore they would 
be thoroughly tested, and has, as a result, the 
most complimentary reports of their work from 
(’has. Downing, The Pleasant Valley Wine Co. 
and others who would be most likely to appreci¬ 
ate merit in implements of this nature. J lvtha 
A. Wagner, Holtsville, N. Y., is the inventor, to 
whom pur readers are referred for particjlurs. 
