to 1 T. 
THfcC RURAb NEW-YORKER 
put on we had a heavy shower. On September 7 The farmers can testify that they had it all weighed 
we drilled in a mixture of 150 pounds nitrate of at the,'..'one place, and the local weigher will make 
soda, 400 pounds acid phosphate and 200 pounds affidavit that the amount weighed was but 17 tons, 
sulphate of potash. The same day we drilled'in our In such a case the shipper will insist upon payment 
inoculating soil, which had been run over a mason’s for 20 tons, and he is pretty likely to be able to collect 
sand screen, sowing 30 pounds seed from the grass- 
seeding attachment, the pipes set to sow in front 
of the hoes, and these set to run shallow, finishing 
by rolling both ways. Notwithstanding the extreme 
drought of the past two seasons, the growth has been 
astonishing. Our third crop for this season went into 
the barn August 18, and to-day, August 29, a fourth 
crop stands over four inches high. The crops for 
the past two seasons have each averaged 4(4 tons per 
acre at three cuttings. Last Winter we left an 
eight-inch growth standing which held the snow, and 
1 believe was very beneficial to this season’s growth. 
As soon as the land was sufficiently dry in the 
Spring we top-dressed with 400 pounds fine ground 
bone, and rolled the land, later we applied a half ton 
lime per acre and the results have justified the outlay. 
We are so favorably impressed with Alfalfa that we 
are laying down an additional seven acres now, will 
add 6 1 /2 acres next year, and another 11 acres two 
for that amount. Another instance is the purchase 
of five carloads of lime to be paid for in accordance 
with the railroad company’s weights. These cars 
weighed out locally at an average of approximately 
lj/> tons under the railroad weights. Care was taken 
in every instance to have the weighing correct at 
the consignee’s end but the settlement had to be made 
by the weights of the railroad people. It would be in¬ 
teresting to know if other people have had similar 
experiences. If this is common there should be some 
remedy for it. h. h. lyon. 
New York. 
R. N.-Y.—We have had several complaints like 
this. The trouble seems to be that the car has a 
certain weight marked on it. The shipper does not 
weigh the car nor do the railroads. They weigh the 
car and contents and deduct the weight marked on 
the car. In some cases, we understand, contracts are 
made out at railroad weights.’ We have cases 
where carloads of manure were sold and 
charged at, say 20 tons. Farmers 
weighed every load as taken off and 
found a loss of 15 to 20 per cent, but 
they were held up for the full amount, 
banners should buy only on condition 
that they pay for what comes out of 
the car, with some public weigher to 
certify the true weight. 
A HANDFUL OF HONEY BEES. 
Swarming is the natural way bees have of increasing 
the number of colonies. During a season of plenty, 
if the hive is full of bees, the old bees and queen 
swarm out, and leave the old hive to the young bees 
with a new queen ready to hatch. After emerging 
from the hive, the swarm usually clusters on some 
nearby tree!, and it is then that the beekeeper must cap¬ 
ture them, or, after hanging an indefinite time they will 
abscond to some new home which may be miles away. 
About one o’clock June 26, a swarm from one of my 
hives was discovered in the air. It settled in a young 
pear tree, a most difficult place, for they were clus¬ 
tered around three or four long slender top branches. 
I got a ladder and sawed off one of them, but when 
I pulled it away from the others, it parted the bunch 
of bees, and I found I did not have a great many on 
mv limb. However, I passed it down to a friend 
standing on the ground, and as he took it, he happened 
to see the queen, but before I could descend, she ran 
out of sight under the other bees. Knowing the 
queen was there, I shook the bees on a board in front 
of a new hive, and when I saw the queen, I caught 
her in a little cage made of wire netting. I was then 
master of the situation, for without the 
queen the swarm would never leave. 
But most of the bees were still in the 
tree. So taking the caged queen in my- 
right hand I again ascended the ladder, 
and with my left hand shook the tree. 
The bees that were shaken off took wing, 
and when they lit again they clustered 
around the queen. In about 15 minutes 
I had almost every bee!, except those 
few left at the hive, on my arm, and as 
each bee was full of honey they must 
have weighed over five pounds. After 
having my picture taken, I shook them 
in front of the new hive and let the 
queen run in. With the queen inside 
the other bees readily entered, and this 
swarm has since gathered about 20 
pounds of surplus comb honey, which at 
this writing, September 1, is still on the 
hive. The operation is easy after find¬ 
ing the queen, but it is almost futile to 
look for her in a clustered swarm. 
R. N.-Y.—Fig. 369 shows Mr. Ellis 
with the cluster of bees. 
A STRUGGLE FOR ALFALFA. 
Like many others, we got the Alfalfa 
fever, and started in to grow it with 
the idea that we could cut out much of 
what we considered unnecessary trouble 
in starting it. We selected for trial a 
two-acre field, which presented the ad¬ 
vantage of natural drainage, with about 
eight inches of light loam top soil, under¬ 
laid in parts by gravel, but in other parts 
by hardpan about 2(4 feet below the 
surface. The field had been in potatoes, 
was very foul and low in humus when 
we took possession five years ago. We 
planted sweet corn, and late in the Fall 
manured heavily and plowed the land 
deep, leaving in the furrow over Winter, 
and sowed to oats in the Spring. This 
was cut and removed to the barn, the 
land again plowed deeper late in July, 
and disked both ways. We harrowed at least once 
each week, both ways, up to about August 20. We 
used only a half ton of lime per acre, harrowed four 
times, patted ourselves on the back, and said, “Alfalfa 
will grow there.” About August 25 we sowed 30 
pounds of good seed, using 600 pounds of a corn 
fertilizer which we had on hand per acre. In five days 
the Alfalfa came up a perfect stand, and grew on 
beautifully (so did my head), going into Winter quar¬ 
ters with a six-inch growth. I watched that field 
as the Spring advanced but the Alfalfa did not 
appear to make much of it. In May it gave up the 
struggle, and the skin of my head slackened consid¬ 
erably. We disked twice - in June and sowed Japanese 
millet which cut about eight tons of field-cured hay, 
a little coarse perhaps, but relished by stock in Winter. 
In August we repeated the former operations in pre¬ 
paring for Alfalfa, for we had made up our minds to 
get it. I frankly state that I was still too stubborn 
to admit that there was anything in inoculation and 
did not do it. The next Summer we cut one ton of 
Alfalfa, grass, etc., from this two acres. 
Meanwhile our friend, Prof. F. C. Minkler, advised 
me to use more lime, and to inoculate. This we did, 
using one ton of lime and 500 pounds inoculating 
soil per acre. Three days after the lime had been 
THE HEN’S WAYS AND LAYS. 
To the hen man the acme of sweet 
music is that familiar cackle, an assur¬ 
ance that the hens are happy and busy 
and the money rolling in. Tariff bills 
may come and go. Congress may peter 
out, and presidential booms “have their 
day and cease to be,” but the hen, 
though often set in her ways, moves on, 
making dollars for her owners and feed¬ 
ing the multitudes. One most useful 
function of the hen is providing work for 
humans, who thus escape the resultant 
penalties of “idle hands.” Building hen¬ 
houses and fences, supplying food, 
shooing away gapes and roup and the 
various ills of infant and adult poultry 
life, and sometimes gathering eggs, keep 
the hen man busy. The young farmers 
shown in Fig. 370 appear to be gathering 
a good crop, though the house and its 
furnishings are rather back numbers. 
MULCHED ORCHARDS. 
For a good many years past we have 
talked about Grant Hitchings, the 
mulched orchard man. If Hitchings 
were on the race track he would be 
known as a “game sport.” He started 
out with a most radical method of 
handling an orchard, and stuck to it. At 
a time when practically all the horti¬ 
cultural teachers in the East were 
urging intense culture, Mr. Hitchings 
advocated the plan of never plowing or 
cultivating the orchard at all. Sonic 
of the “mulchers” fell by the wayside, 
and plowed or cut some of the grass and hauled 
it out as hay. Hitchings never permitted a 
blade of grass to be taken away—for that, he claims, 
is the only way to mulch. It requires great 
nerve for a poor man to keep on year after year 
feeding good hay to trees with no returns, but Hitch¬ 
ings did it and got his reward in a fine orchard. 
Now a company has been formed to mulch more 
trees. They have bought 290 acres and will plant 
10,000 trees, all mulched from the start. Hitchings 
has not proved that the mulch method is the only 
one, or that it will succeed everywhere. He has 
shown that the way to succeed with fruit is to study 
the situation, block out a plan suited to it, and stick 
to it like a bulldog, no matter what the experts or 
the croakers may say. 
Axd now wc hear of a .$1,000,000 company in Massa¬ 
chusetts which “plans” to grow pecans in Guatemala! Of 
course we shall soon hear of stock for sale. Let it alone. 
There is no sense whatever in trying to grow pecans in the 
tropics! 
The Germans have a new form of life preserver for 
ocean service. There are two air cushions to be strapped 
around the body. There is also a small lamp fed by an 
electric battery. When you clasp the hook which fastens 
the preserver on, this lamp is started and will burn four 
hours! This will help locate a “man overboard” at night. 
HARD CONDITIONS FOR THE BUSINESS HEN. Fig. 370. 
years hence. We do not lose sight of the fact, 
however, that “man proposes but God disposes.” In 
my opinion, if the land is otherwise suitable, success 
with Alfalfa may reasonably be expected when the 
essential points are kept in view. Lime in abundance, 
inoculation, good seed, thorough preparation of the 
soil, and rolling firmly after seeding. 
Connecticut. alex. couston. 
TAKING THE RAILROAD WEIGHT. 
farmers seem to be buying more in a cooperative 
way than formerly, but they seem to be up against a 
new problem now. Others may or may not have had 
similar experiences. For an illustration I will take a 
case of recent occurrence. Several farmers ordered 
a carload of ashes, casting in the neighborhood of 
$10 a ton. The car was billed at 20 tons, and in 
transit it passed through the hands of three railroad 
companies. Each of these companies had the car 
weighed and each made it 20 tons. When the farm¬ 
ers came to unload the car, they employed a man in 
whom they had perfect confidence to weigh out the 
loads as they were taken away. The result was that 
the car fell short almost three tons weight. The 
shipper and each of the three railroad weighers 
will furnish affidavits that 20 tons were in the car. 
