282 
permitted to get that glance. In this case it becomes 
necessary to remove the frames with their clinging 
bees from the hive and shake them in front of the 
entrance which has been closed by a queen excluder. 
This queen excluder is a piece of zinc perforated with 
holes of such size that while the worker bees can 
pass, the queen cannot. After most of the workers 
have entered the hive the queen may usually be seen 
running excitedly about trying to poke her head 
through the excluder, or hunting for another entrance. 
She may then be picked up, though this requires a 
little nerve upon the part of an amateur, for while 
the queen never uses her sting upon anyone handling 
her, the other bees have no such compunctions, and 
if one of these is gotten hold of by mistake the conse¬ 
quences are apt to be disagreeable, for the end of 
the finger is a sensitive place. 
The old queen being removed, all that remained 
was to place the little wooden cage containing the 
Italian queen in the hive and permit the bees to re¬ 
lease her by gnawing away the sugar candy with 
which the exit from the cage was closed. By the 
time they had done this they had fully realized that 
their oM queen was gone, and they were glad to in¬ 
stall the new' one in her place and pay her all the 
honors due to royalty. This change of queens was 
made evident the next season by the color of the 
young bees, which, instead of being a dull black, 
were of a lighter hue and marked by three yellow 
bands about the abdomen. These three yellow bands 
are the mark of a true Italian; they may have more, 
but never less, if fhey would claim blue-blooded 
lineage. 
No attempt to increase my holdings materially in 
this form of productive energy has ever been made, 
for from four to six hives is all that I care to at¬ 
tend to, and I have found that with bees, as with hens, 
the percentage of profit is apt to be in inverse propor¬ 
tion to the number kept. Neither would I care to 
part with the few that I have of the conscienceless 
little robbers who store a part of the neighbors’ crops 
in our own granary. The time given to their care is 
quite negligible; it is doubtful if more than an hour 
to a hive is given them in an entire year, and the 
returns are out of all proportion to the labor spent. 
No strong colony fails with us to fill at least one super 
with surplus honey each season, and often two are 
secured without encroaching upon their necessary 
Winter stores. As each super contains 32 one-pound 
sections, and such as we do not care to keep or give 
awajr readily sell for from 10 to 12 cents each, it will 
readily be seen that, the bees pay their way. 
It is difficult to understand why the keeping of a 
few skeps to supply the family table with a delicacy 
enjoyed by nearly everyone has so largely gone out 
of fashion, unless it is that modern hives seem so 
complicated as to discourage the busy farmer, or that 
he is thinner-skinned than his hardy forefathers, and 
less inclined to intimate acquaintance with the busy 
little people whose moods are so fickle and methods 
of expression so pointed. I would not advise the 
attempt to make a business of bee-keeping, as where 
they are kept upon a large scale the matter of pas¬ 
turage becomes an important one, and unfavorable 
weather during the season of the natural honey flow 
frequently results in disaster. A few people are so 
located and adapted to the work that they can, and 
PEACH TREE SHOWING OPEN TOP. Fig. 80. 
do, make it a profitable industry, but the average 
country family may supply itself, and have a little 
surplus. . 3 ' M. B. DEAN. 
THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
CROSS-BREEDING KAFFIR CORN. 
I had a nice patch of Kaffir corn growing last year, 
which I planted along about May 20 and which should 
have ripened October 3-15. Some had ripened and all had 
turned October 15, when we had a pretty hard frost, 
killing the plants. 1 had the same results the previous 
year with a somewhat smaller patch, which I harvested 
immediately and thrashed. But as I had considerable 
trouble with it heating 1 and finally molding I thought 1 
should try to dry it out on the stalk. My object in try¬ 
ing to raise it, is for poultry, my only stock. The 
problem is this: I don’t wish to give it up, but I do 
THE GASOLINE SCRATCHING HEN. Fig. 81. 
want to know how I can cross the earliest maturing 
heads with Millo which I understand ripens in 90 days, 
and from this cross select a strain which will ripen in 
about the same length season as Millo, with a nice black¬ 
hulled white-seeded head of Kaffir from which the seed 
does not fall out so readily as Millo. Can you tell me 
how to plant these seeds and care for them to get these 
results? m. K. 
Kaffir corn and Millo maize both appear to be culti¬ 
vated forms of non-saccharin sorghum, known botani- 
cally as Andropogon Halapense, and it is to be sup- 
ttcion. Tacks. Puncher. Scion. 
BRIDGE GRAFTING OUTFIT. Fig. 82. 
posed they will readily intercross if properly handled 
at blooming time. The flowers, however, are perfect, 
containing both anthers and stigmas like those of 
most grains and grasses, and this structure, together 
with their rather minute size, firm consistency and 
dense crowding in the jlower head or panicle will 
doubtless render the work of hand pollination rather 
difficult, and quite unlike that of true maize or Indian 
corn, that bears its silks and tassels so widely sepa¬ 
rated. To make a practical attempt to hybridize these 
plants it will be necessary to time the seed sowing 
March 1. 
of the two varieties that they will bloom together. As 
Millo maize is of the earliest maturity the Kaffir corn 
should be first planted and it would be well to make 
successive sowings of both varieties so as to increase 
the chances of a simultaneous bloom on at least a 
portion of the plants of each. Having selected the 
seed-bearing plant of either variety all the flower¬ 
bearing spikelets but the two or three that are to be 
operated on should be clipped from the panicle and 
the individual buds or blooms on the reserved spike- 
lets thinned to allow space for working. The scaly 
plumes of the nearly developed flowers should care¬ 
fully be forced apart and the unopened anthers picked 
out with slender tweezers as with oat or wheat cross¬ 
breeding. This careful operation is best done early 
in the day, and the prepared blooms immediately pro¬ 
tected from foreign pollen by inclosing the mutilated 
panicle in a one or two-pound paper sack, which 
should be closely tied or pinned about the stalk. 
Pollen from the desired variety may easily be pro¬ 
cured by cutting a bloom head before the exposed 
anthers have burst, and placing it on a sheet of paper 
in the sun in a room free from flying insects. 
The emasculated .blooms of the seed-bearing plants 
should be visited daily, the sack removed and the 
proper pollen dusted over the developing stigmas, 
taking the opportunity to prepare funner blooms until 
all are operated on and eventually pollinated. This 
is tedious and often exceedingly trying work con¬ 
sidering the season of operation and often incon¬ 
venient location of the minute parts worked on, but 
if successful will result in undoubted hybrid off¬ 
spring. There is no royal road to the breeding of 
small-flowered plants. The sacks or other coverings 
are to be replaced after each emasculation and pol¬ 
lination to avoid the possibility of wind or insect- 
borne pollen from the wrong plants getting in. When 
all the stigmas of the prepared blooms finally wither 
the sacks may be removed, as their continued presence 
invites mildew and otherwise hinders the proper de¬ 
velopment of the ovules into seeds. The panicles 
operated on should be carefully labeled and the 
proper records made of each attempt to hybridize. 
If seeds form they must be secured at ripening time 
and sown next season with the care such hard-earned 
trophies deserve. The making of successful crosses 
between varieties or species of seed-propagated plants 
does not imply that the desired characters, even if 
they appear in the immediate progeny, can successfully 
be maintained. We have, of course, no certainty of 
even securing our ideal combination at all—most hy¬ 
brids or cross-breds being inferior to their parents— 
but if it does appear in seed-propagated plants the 
Mendelian laws of inheritance often play strange 
tricks with subsequent generations, rendering it practi¬ 
cally impossible so to “fix” the desired hybrid va¬ 
riety that it will breed reasonably constant. Oc¬ 
casionally, however, a lucky combination of reces¬ 
sive characters will appear breeding true enough to 
well please the manipulator. With plants that can 
be propagated by cuttings, buds, grafts or other 
forms of division the matter is greatly simplified. 
Once the desired characters appear vegetative propa¬ 
gation, which simply multiplies the individual, admits 
of almost indefinite increase. 
In this instance it is desired to combine the earli¬ 
ness and vigor of Millo maize with the non-shattering 
PERFECT TYPE COMMERCIAL POTATO. Fig. 83. 
habit and desirable seed qualities of Kaffir corn. Who 
can say without prolonged trial, that it cannot be 
done ? v. 
