Ada, Harding O., Ohio.—I planted 144 
grains of the Rural Heavy Dent Corn on 
May 8 in a clay loam soil; size of plot 33x33 
feet. On account of cold rainy weather only 
04 grains grew. I manured them in the hill 
with stable manure and worked five times with 
the hoe. Two of the stalks broke off in a 
wind storm in July and two smutted, leaving 
me 90 stalks of corn. On Nov. there were 190 
pounds five ounces of corn on ear and 142 
pounds 13 ounces of shelled corn. There 
were 1S6 ears and 42 nubbins the greatest 
yield from one grain being nine ears, making 
3380 grains of corn which weighed four pounds 
seven ounces. The heaviest ear weighed one 
pound 13 ounces. Two of the longest ears 
were 13 and 13Jq inches long. Two of the 
tallest stalks were 13 feet seven inches and 14 
we gave it a hoeing. Corn was husked and 
shelled as directed. When shelled, it weighed 
187^ pounds. Jas. Stinchcomb. 
[Yield at tbe rate of 132.9 bushels shelled 
corn per acre.— Eds ] 
! easily as possible, it is necessary to make it 
run somewhat on the point, by giving it 
plenty of “suck" and at the same time prevent¬ 
ing it from running too deep by notching it 
upon the sulky Thus you can carry the weight 
of the plow and furrow-slice on the truck. 
Some of the Rural correspondents seem to 
think that sulky plows are not wholly carried 
upon the truck ; this at first sight appears to 
be true, but by a closer investigation, they 
will find that the implements are so carried. A 
sulky plow while standing is not wholly sup¬ 
ported by the truck, but it is while at work. 
This seems contradictory. Let us see : The 
plow is bitched to the sulky by tbe beam in 
fiont of the plow, the plow proper being be¬ 
hind the trucks, and it will tip down when 
raised while standing, throwing the front end 
of the beam up, but the moment the team be¬ 
gins to pull, the plow is level*d up and held in 
this position as long as the team pulls and the 
plow moves, and thus by the draft of the 
team the weight of the plow and furrow is 
held on the truck. 
Another cause of heavy draft in sulky 
plows is brought about by the farmer himself, 
by allowing the plow to become dull and worn 
to such an extent that it will not run deep 
enough without being held in the ground by 
the weight of the sulky and driver, so that 
the whole weight is carried by the plow in the 
manner of a sled. Then, indeed, the sulky 
plow becomes a horse-killer. 
Bellefontaine, O. D. B. Tanger. 
nailed to the body of the hive. The alighting 
board, c, speaks for itself. It is nailed to two 
right-angled triangular pieces, as shown in 
the figure sc d. d. In moving tbe bees into the 
cellar it is better to hav® the alighting board 
separate from the hive on bottom board. 
Feeders —The advantages of feeding bees, 
though questioned hy some, are beyond doubt 
very great. When bees lack stores, it is often 
necessary to preserve their lives. When bees 
are not gathering, stimulative feeding to keep 
them breeding pays a wondrous percentage 
on the expense, as I have thoroughly proved 
many times. The requisites of a good feeder 
are cheapness, position just above the brood 
so that the bees can take feed on cold days, 
and so arranged tbet the feed can be put in 
without any disturbance to the bees. The 
feeder illustrated at Fig. 30, is one made by 
John White, of Chicopee, Mass. It is a mod¬ 
ification of tne Simplicity feeder and the 
Shuck feeder, aDd in my opinion is superior 
to them both. As the engraving shows, it is 
made of a piece of two-inch plank about six 
inches wide and nine inches long. In this 
[The above reports are for the seventh, 
eighth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth prizes, 
as awarded. The sixth and ninth prize tak¬ 
ers have been requested to furnish further de¬ 
tails, which have not been received.— Eds.] 
Some Potatoes.— With the White Ele¬ 
phant Potato I am better pleased this year 
than I was last. It has yielded better and 
been of finer quality. Beauty of Hebron was 
among the best and Queen of the Valley 
was the largest-sized. The American Mag¬ 
num Bonum is good, except that the eyes 
are deep-set. I. J, Blackwell. 
Having read the discussions on sulky plows 
with much interest, and having had some 
experience with them, I will here give 
Rural readers a few thoughts on the sub¬ 
ject. The first thing that strikes a tyro in 
the use of a sulky plow is the difficulty expe¬ 
rienced iu driving. He will, in ail probabil¬ 
ity, think that if the lead horse is in the fur¬ 
row, the plow, being held Dy the sulky, will 
land itself properly, but this it will not do, 
and it is necessary to drive carefully with a 
tight line and hold the team as steady as in 
laying off a land. This, in my opinion, wor¬ 
ries the team as much as any other feature 
about the sulky plow. Th^ natural walk of a 
team will cause it to vibrate more or less con¬ 
tinually, and each vibration will change the 
width of the furrow that the plow is cutting; 
and as a consequence it is very difficult to 
plow straight. The inclined-wheel plow pro¬ 
fesses to overcome this difficulty, but my ex¬ 
perience with it is to the contrary. 
Another cause of heavy draft in sulky plows 
is the stiffness with which they necessarily 
run; being held level by the sulky, they are 
not allowed to cant from side to side as a hand 
plow does, but are forced to cut straight 
through any and all kinds of ground; where 
as a hand plow is allowed to bunt the easiest 
way through by canting from side to side. 
That this is a cause of heavy draft in sulky 
Bee Feeder.—Fig 30. 
wide, deep saw cuts are made. Five are cut 
in the one illustrated. The center one is 
marked a. At one end these troughs do not 
reach to the end by two inches This leaves 
the platform marked 6. An inch hole, c, is 
cut through the middle of this platform. By 
tacking narrow strips about the upper outside 
edge of this we form a rim a quarter of an 
inch high, and to this we tack a piece of wire 
cloth. Thus the wire cloth is raised above the 
edges of the troughs and the platform, so 
that the bees can pass easily over. 
To use this feeder we place the hole c over a 
corresponding hole in the quilt or honey 
board. To feed we simply turn the honey or 
sirup on to the wire cloth. I keep a piece of 
pasteboard on the feeder, so as not to daub 
the chaff cushion as I lay it over the feeder to 
make all close and warm after feeding. As 
this is kept in the upper story above the bees, 
which from the tight fitting quilt or honey- 
board cannot be reached by the bees, we can 
feed with no disturbance to the bees, and 
with no danger of being stung. 
My 8 oraper —Fig 31 represents my iron 
scraper, which is very convenient to scrape 
off propolis, to pry up frames and to draw 
aebs. It is made of iron, and costs but 
very little. 
The Bee Tent. —Every bee-keeper knows 
how unpleasant it is to handle bees in the 
Autumn or at other times when they are not 
gathering. The handling of bees at such 
times is quite likely to incite robbing, and so 
often results in no little damage. The bee 
tent is so made that it covers the bee keeper 
at such times and the danger of being stUDg 
and of inciting robbirg is entirely avoided. 
The one which I have and which 1 illustrate, 
Fig. 29, is made of light pine strips, and sur’ 
rounded at the top and ends by thin factory 
cloth, and at the sides by wire cloth. It is six 
feet high, six feet long, and four feet widp. The 
side faces are square, with a cross-bar in the 
center, and it is well braced at the upper 
corners, as seen in tha figure. There are no 
permanent eud cross bars, except at the top, 
and these, e, e, in Fig. 29 are double and 
hinged together in the middle, and also 
hinged to the vertical pieces, so that the sides 
can be brought close together by simply al¬ 
lowing these bars, c, c, to fall down. The 
center end cross-bars are not made fast, but 
are put in as we wish to use the tent. These 
Bar8, a, a, are rabbeted at the ends, to fit into 
middle side-bar, and when in place stretch 
t yivmtwtt 
BKE-HrvK.—F ig. 27. 
feet. Some of the stalks were eight inches 
in circumference. Whole number of stalks 
and suckers 236, C. Pugh. 
[Yield at the rate of 145.3 bushels shelled 
corn per acre.— Eds.] 
PROFESSOR A. J. COOK. 
The Hive. —The characteristics of a good 
hive are simplicity, cheapness, ease of con¬ 
struction, and ease of manipulation. It ought 
also to have a capacity of at least 2,S00 cubic 
inches. After long trial of the various hives, 
and close attention, I have decided in favor 
of the hive illustrated herewith. The hive is 
one-an-one half story. The body, a, is one 
foot wide and deep, and two feet long, inside 
measurement. A rabbet is cut from the inside 
of the side pieces at the top to form a shoulder 
on which the frames may rest, Just below 
Montickllo, Piatt Co., Ill—The Rural 
Heavy Dent Corn was planted in a plot 33 
feet square on sandy loam. No manure had 
been used for two years on the land, which 
produced cabbage last year. The ground was 
plowed, then raked and divided into ten 
rows with 15 grains in a row. One hundred 
and ten grains grew'. The stalks aver¬ 
aged from ten to thirteen fe-t in bight. 
The corn ripened the last week in October; 
there were 216 ears and a few nubbins, and 
the weight in the ear was a little more than 
200 pounds, and the shelled corn weighed 
154 pounds. Phillip H. Conard. 
[Yield at the rate of 136.1 bushels shelled 
corn per acre.—E ds.] 
La Grange, La Grange Co., Iud.—On May 
10 , I planted 153 grains of the Rural Thor¬ 
oughbred Fiiut Corn on 3S feet square of land 
that bad been planted to corn the year before. 
The soil is a sandy loam, with a yellow clay 
subsoil, mixed with gravel. All the stimulant 
I used was, perhaps half a ton of the con¬ 
tents of an old sheep stable. The ground was 
deeply plowed aud thoroughly cultivated 
with a spring-tooth hairow, after which I 
maiked it off iu rows 4x2 feet apart, and 
planted one grain in a hill. At this time the 
weather was very unfavorable for any kind 
of vegetation. The corn was very long in 
germinating, but finally 121 sprouts ventured 
above ground. Stoles, birds, and cutworms 
reduced the number to 110. This remnant 
soon began to make a vigorous growth. I 
cultivated shallow, thoroughly, and often, 
keepiug the ground as nearly flat as possible. 
I never let a weed get a start 1 watched its 
vigorous growth with much pleasure. Now 
for the result:—On or about the first of No¬ 
vember I gathered aud weighed my corn, 
and had 211 pounds in the ear; which, when 
shelled, gave me 152>, pounds of shelled corn. 
V 011 will please observe that I had a stand of 
1 *fSf 
plows is proved by the fact that the 
share of a sulky plow wears much 
faster than that of a hand plow 
under similar circumstances. A 16-iDch plow 
is too large for three horses in most kinds of 
ground when plowed at the proper depth, al¬ 
though a 16 inch plow will do better w-ork 
than a smaller one for the reasm that it 
raises the furrow higher and throws it farther 
and, as a consequence, pulverizes the ground 
better and turns trash under better. 
We have several kiuds of sulky plows as 
well as hand plows made expressly for ease 
of draft. This thej r get at the expense of 
quality of work. They may be know u by the 
cut of the moldboard. In them this is cut 
this is nailed or tacked a narrow strip of 
tin which projects a little above the rab¬ 
bet, so the frame may rest on the edge of 
the tin. This prevents the bees from gluirg 
the frames too tightly to the hive. One inch 
from the top a narrow strip of board, b, in 
Fig. 27 is nailed to form a support for the 
upper story c. The entrance is cut from the 
end and shows in the figure. 
The second etorv is like the other, only P is 
but seven Inches high, is two inches wider and 
longer, and nas no rabbet, no tin, or any en¬ 
trance cut. It is marked 0 in Fig. 27. The 
frame shows in the hive, and is marked d. It is 
know n as the Gallup frame, and is 11 and 14 
Inches square. Its advantages are lightness and 
consequent ease of handling, the firmness with 
which it holds the comb and its convenient 
size for foiming a compact chamber for win¬ 
tering and for forming nuclei in queen rear¬ 
ing. The cover is not shown in the figure. 
It may be made flat or with a gable. I pre¬ 
fer the slanting roof, as I think this kind betr 
ter and neater. Such a one is represented in 
Fig. 29, at the left. 
The bottom board, Fig. 28, aisa plain board 
nailed to two by-four scautling, b, b 1 pre¬ 
fer it separate from the hive. Perhaps if I 
sold many bees, or moved my bees much, or, 
kept a great many bees, I might prefer it 
Bottom Board.—Fig. 28. 
a little less than three-quarters of the plot. 
T planted cabbage in the missed hills. 
Nelson Slater 
[Yield at the rate of 134.8 bushels shelled 
corn per acre.—E ds.] 
Scraper.—Fig. 81. 
the sides apart. Hinged to these are the 
braces i. i, which when booked at the end 
above, where the two pieces, 0 , c. binge to¬ 
gether, stretch the tent, and make it appear 
as shown in the figure. At one end the cloth 
is not tacked, but is fastened by a loop over 
a nail, so Ikat it is easy to get under the tent. 
In preparing our bees for the Winter this 
Fall we have used this and we have not been 
troubled with th»ir stinging at all. They are 
Syrian bees too. The engraving is penciled 
l ikfiw, Seneca Co., O.-The Rural Thor¬ 
oughbred Flint Corn was planted about tbe 
first of June. Dt n’t remember tbe precise 
date; 162 kernela were planted, and 137 giew. 
I he soil, a mixture of sand aud clay, was not 
underdrained. Ground plowed 10 days be¬ 
fore planting. Fertilized with hog manure, 
'hen harrowed aud planted, as directed in 
Rural. Cultivated four times w ith douhle- 
shovel plow; the second time we plowed it. 
