THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
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was called by the contributor (who was not 
present), “Windsor Chief”—(doubtless the 
same described lately in the Rubai, under 
that name). The Society, having been author¬ 
ized to impose a name, did so by dropping the 
“Chief," leaving it simply’ Windsor. Of the 
peculiarities of the plant and its bloom, we 
know nothing. The variety (as were also the 
Marion and Shirts) was recommended as 
worthy of trial. 
South Haven, Mich. 
and west, the hives may be arranged in rows 
on the north side of the trellises. Shade must 
be had. If the hives are exposed to the sun at 
this season of the year, the temperature within 
will become unbearable to the bees, and they 
the west. The Norway Spruce is admirable for 
this purpose. It will bear cutting back almost 
to any extent, stands the severest winters, and 
is not particular as to the kind of soil. They 
should be planted in rows of eight by ten feet 
FIELD CULTURE OF STRAWBERRIES 
The present outlook of the strawberry busi¬ 
ness is such as to make it expedient for grow¬ 
ers to adopt some method of culture by which 
good fruit can be produced cheaply. The 
time is past when poor, inferior strawberries 
will sell in the market for a price that will 
well repay the producer. 
The chief requisites for success in growing 
strawberries for market, are a well-prepared 
soil, a proper selection of varieties, and good 
care and cultivation. If the soil is naturally 
heavy, it Bhould be the more thoroughly pre¬ 
pared, so that it will be loose and mellow. If 
the ground in which the plants are set, is foul 
from grass and weeds, it should be summer- 
fallowed the season previous to the planting. 
There are several modes of cultivating the 
Strawberry, all of which have some advan¬ 
tages, but on a clean soil, and with prolific va¬ 
rieties, the method known as the “ matted- 
row ” system will, perhaps, produce the best 
results. The plants are set in spring or fall in 
rows, three and a half feet apart, with plants 
a foot apart in the rows. The soil should be 
kept mellow and free from weeds by frequent 
hoeing and cultivating. 
When the runners begin to take root the cul¬ 
tivator teeth are narrowed up so as to leave a 
space a foot or eighteeu inches wide, for the 
plants to occupy. Considerable hand weeding 
will be necessary to keep the matted rows free 
from grass and weeds; bnt if the soil is compar¬ 
atively clean, the expense of weeding will not 
be more than is required to keep the runners 
picked off, which is necessary when the plants 
are kept in hills. 
There are some varieties of Strawberries that 
will bear equally good fruit if allowed to run, 
aud the yield per acre will be much greater 
than if kept in hills. It is important in select¬ 
ing varieties to choose those be&L adapted to the 
soil in which they are to be planted. If poor va¬ 
rieties are set, good crops cannot be obtained, 
even with the best culture. It costs little more 
to grow large, firm strawberries, that will bear 
seeding a long distance to market, than those 
which are small in size and too soft to be 
handled, while the difference in the price re¬ 
ceived for them will be decidedly in favor of 
the former. G. Goff, Jr. 
Elmira, N. Y. 
FOHITION OF HIVES IN THE AFIAHY 
will then cluster idly on the outside instead of 
attending actively to their work ; the uncapped 
honey will become so liquid that it will run out 
of the cells, aud often out of the hives, afford¬ 
ing cause for contention and robbery by other 
bees, while sometimes the wax may be so 
weakened in its consistency that heavy combs 
fall down, causing, of course, both bees and 
bee-keeper extra trouble. The Tartarian Honey¬ 
suckle, Lilacs, Philadelphus, or auy kind" of 
shrnb of compact growth and a dense mass of 
foliage, may be planted in the apiary at inter¬ 
vals of eight or ten feet, and the hives placed 
on the north side of these. Evergreens may 
also be used for this purpose, and they have 
the advantage over deciduous shrubs that they 
shed no leaves to be raked up or blowm about 
by the wind to make the place untidy. 
apart, and so arranged that one stands opposite 
the opening between two Planting them thus 
in rows may not be sanctioned by landscape 
gardeners, for it gives the place a certaiu stiff¬ 
ness^ which would be avoided if they were scat¬ 
tered about in groups without any regularity, 
but it is a decided advantage to the apiarist to 
have the stands in rqws, and, of course, all 
numbered, especially in large apiaries. Colonics 
will uot then be so likely to be overlooked and 
forgotten as is tbe ease w hen they are scattered 
irregularly. 
The hire should be raised only four or five 
inches from the ground, as seen in the engrav¬ 
ing. When raised on stands two or more feet 
high, many bees are lost in the early spring. 
Coming home heavily laden, tired, and, chilled, 
they often miss the alighting board, and falling 
Tardy Germination of Seeds.— I ivish to 
say to M. F. J. s of Uniontown, Pa., not to be 
discouraged. My seeds from the Rural, which 
included C-allicarpa and Yucca, were sowed in 
a seed-bed, with bottom heat, near the last of 
April, beside ray annuals, which I always raise 
in this way, thinking it more certaiu than to 
sow them in the open garden. The annuals 
have been transplanted several weeks, and 
some of them are coming into bloom, but the 
Callicarpa seed is just up, and cannot yet 
boast of the second leaf. The Y uccas are 
about two inches in bight. I have learned 
that the seeds of shrubs and perennials are 
usually much longer in germinating than 
those of annuals. Besides those mentioned, I 
had also Deutzia, Weigela, aud the Hy’brid 
Aquilegia. I think none of them made its 
appearance above ground till four to six weeks 
from sowing, aud not until tbe annuals beside 
them were large plants; but they are all up 
now and doing finely, though the Callicarpa is 
much the smallest of them all. Several times 
1 was about to write aud ask, “ What ails the 
seeds ?’’ hut concluded to wait a little longer, 
and now I have the reward for my faith and 
patience. MRS. w. c. o. 
Jamestown, N. Y., July 7. 
POSITION OF HIVES IN THE APIARY 
It is of importance that the hives should be 
sheltered to some degree, both from the 6trong 
winds and from the full blaze of the sun. 
Such protection may be given by erecting 
board fences along which the hives are ar¬ 
ranged, a method employed in some instances; 
but, besides being expensive, a board fence is 
neither so efficient nor so decorative to the 
premises as are trees or shrubs. The apiary 
may be located in au orchard, which is a good 
plan if the orchard is near the house. The 
spreading trees will give the desired shade, 
while high winds are not apt to be severely 
felt. 
If the bee-keeper has a vineyard of large, 
spreading vines, tied to trellises running east 
FRANKINCENSE 
The accompanying cut, which appears also 
in Cook's “Manual of the Apiary” and has 
kindly been furnished us by Prof. Cook, shows 
the position a hive should have in the apiary. 
The evergreen on the south Bide, shelters it 
alike from the sun during the hottest part of 
the day and from the strong winds that may 
comefrom southerly points between the east aud 
under the stand they are unable to rise again. To 
have the hive on a raised stand also causes in¬ 
convenience in the transferring of bees. Tbe 
grass immediately around the hive should not 
only be kept down, but under and in front of 
the hive a place, five by five feet square, should 
be dug out six inches deep, and filled with 
gravel, sand or sawdust. This is easily done, 
and is by far the cheapest in the end. Once 
well done, there will be no grass to mow every 
w’eek during the summer. The queen is not 
so liable to be lost, neither in transferring nor, 
when in the case of sw arming, she crawls out 
and her wing being clipped, is unable to follow 
her army. ODe is also better able to observe 
what the bees expel from the hive. Those who 
are about to begin bee-keeping, will do well to 
consider these points. 
FRANKINCENSE. 
The common frankincense of commerce, 
also known as gum Thus, is a resin which 
exudes from fissures in the bark of tbe Nor¬ 
way Spruce—Abies excelsa. Wheu melted in 
hot water aud strained, it constitutes Burgundy 
pitch. The turpentine obtaiued by making 
incisions in the trunk of a species of our South¬ 
ern Pines—Pinus australis—when old and hard, 
is also often called by that name; though com¬ 
mercially known as “ Bcrape.” 
The true frankincense of the ancients, how¬ 
ever, is the fragrant gum resin known in medi¬ 
cine as olibanum. the product of certaiu spe¬ 
cies of trees of ibm genus Uoswellia, which 
grow among the mountains of Central India, 
upon the Coromandel Coast, and also in the 
interior of Arabia. The members of the genus 
have the followingeharactcristicsBark often 
papyrus-like; leaves deciduous, compound, 
alternate, imparipinnate. with leaflets serrate 
or entire; flowers in racemes or panicles, 
white, green, yellowish or pink. The trees 
are described as growing on the coast of Adel, 
without soil, out of polished marble rocks to 
which they are attached by a thick oval mass 
of a substauce resembling a mixture of lime 
aud mortar. The purer the marble the fluer 
appears to be the growth of the tree. The 
young trees furnish the most valuable gum, 
the older yielding merely a clear glutinous 
fluid resembling copal varnish. To obtain the 
frankincense a deep incision is made in the 
trunk of the tree and below it a narrow Btrip 
of bark is peeled off. When the exuded milk- 
juice has hardened by exposure to the atmo¬ 
sphere, the incision is deepened. In about 
three months the resin has attained the desired 
degree of consistency. The season for gather¬ 
ing lasts from May until the first rains in Sep¬ 
tember. The clear globules are scraped off 
into baskets, and the inferior quality that has 
ruu down, is gathered separately. , 
Bombay and Calcutta are tbe chief markets 
for frankincense. It is in the form of round¬ 
ish lumps or tears, semi-opaque, of a pale 
yellow color and covered with a whitish pow¬ 
der, produced by friction. It has an agreeable 
balsamic odor, but its taste is acid and bitter ; 
it softens wheu chewed, adheres to the teeth 
and whitens the saliva. It bums with a bright 
white flame, diffusing a fragrant odor. It was 
this property which made it so highly esteemed 
by the ancients, who used it largely’ to conceal 
the smell arising from animals at their religious 
sacrifices. It was also thought that the smoke 
of its buruiug was au acceptable offering to 
the deity, as typical of prayer and interior 
worship. At present the Roman Catholic 
Church largely uses it at religious services, 
aud it is also, to some extent, employed medi¬ 
cinally. as an ingredient in plasters aud for 
fumigations. 
--- 
BOOKS, PAMPHLETS AND CATALOGUES. 
Illinois Crof Rkfouts, consolidated from 
returns to the Department of Agriculture. 
June 1; issued June 12. 8. D. Fisher, Secre¬ 
tary. The dry weather early in the seasou en¬ 
abled farmers to plant to corn a large area of 
low flat lands that for years have been too wet 
to plow early enough in the spring. More¬ 
over, many unpromising fields of wheat and 
oats were plowed up aud planted with corn, 
so that although 8,072,055 acres were under 
corn in 1878, there has been au Increase of 
293,706 acres this year, making a total of 
8,965,761 acres. As shown by our special re¬ 
ports. the stand was very uneven, much re¬ 
planting was needed, and the growth was 
slow. There has been much complaint of de¬ 
fective seed. The best corn is on fall-plowed 
land, and it is expected that the advantages of 
fall-plowing for corn are so manifest that the 
practice will become general, where the favor¬ 
able results are known. Drilling is strongly 
recommended by many of the more successful 
corn-growers. Late rains and unusually’ good 
attention, it is expected, will produce a fair 
crop. The stand of winter wheat was gener¬ 
ally good ; the straw was Bhort, but the heads 
well filled; the acreage was above, the average, 
aud a good many patches of winter wheat 
were sown in the “ corn belt,” thus indicating 
an advisable tendency to “ mixed farming. 
The acreage under sprlug wheat is about the 
same as last year ; any decrease is mainly due 
to plowing up fields injured by drought aud 
planting them to corn. The early-sown wheat 
will alone be fair; and the aggregate yield 
