38 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Jan. 
hives being all inside, and some distance from the walls; 
in the second place, all the bees of all the hives are in 
immense numbers inside the houses, in vigorous and ro¬ 
bust health, ready to attack and destroy any moth that 
may venture to approach their domicil. For, although 
there may be in the house fifty different hives, each with 
its queen, the bees of the whole mingle socially togeth¬ 
er, and are ready at all times to make war upon the en¬ 
emy. 
This plan also enables the proprietor to have his honey 
“ put up and packed ready for market,” in large or small 
packages or boxes, by the bees themselves. This is a 
most beautiful feature of the plan. The purchaser can 
get a box containing two pounds or twenty pounds, of 
virgin honey, that human hands have never touched, pure 
as u twilight dews.” 
But I have said enough, probably you will think too 
much, upon so small a subject. But when we consider 
that the production of honey may be made as important 
a subject of rural industry, as the dairy itself, I think 
you will agree with me,that much more might be said in 
reference to it. 
The Drill Culture of Wheat, &c. 
Eds. Cultivatok —No branch of improved husbandry 
has attracted greater attention among the wheat grow¬ 
ing farmers, during the past six years, than the drilling 
of wheat and other small grains, by the use of. appro¬ 
priate machinery for the purpose. The drilling machines 
in use in this country, like the plows, have peculiar dis¬ 
tinctive features, differing in many important particulars 
from those of Great Britain, or any other portion of the 
globe. There are already ten or twelve different patents, 
embracing each some particular quality of merit which 
entitle it to favor among their respective friends and ad¬ 
vocates; but upon a practical examination of their work¬ 
ing powers, a few will be found to possess such extraor¬ 
dinary advantages over the others in use, that even a 
person unacquainted with them would find no difficulty 
in determining which would, under all circumstances, be 
the most efficient and profitable. It is not our purpose 
at this time to decide in favor of this or that drill, but 
shall rather show a few reasons why the system of drill 
culture can in many cases be profitably adopted, and 
also, the effects it would produce upon growing crops of 
grain, when performed by an experienced and skillful 
workman. 
We have been much amused in reading the flaming ac¬ 
counts widely circulated by interested parties in the sales 
of those drills, in favor of drill husbandry, and in many 
cases the most extravagant calculations have been made, 
having a tendency to deceive those who may blindly 
purchase the machines. It certainly cannot be ques¬ 
tioned at this day, but that drilling in wheat possesses 
many valuable claims over the broadcast system of sow¬ 
ing grains; and what those claims are, and the circum¬ 
stances under which the system could be advantageously 
practiced, will be presently satisfactorily explained. 
A small saving of seed; regularity and precision in 
covering the seed to a good and suitable depth; an in¬ 
crease of product; a superiority in the quality of grain; 
less liability to the crop in lodging, and a protection to 
the crop against winter-killing and rust, are among the 
many reasons that may be adduced in favor of drill cul¬ 
ture. The saving of seed is not much of an item, al¬ 
though many of the venders of machines set forth that 
a saving of from two to three pecks per acre is effected 
over broadcast sowing. In most cases too little seed is 
sown in this country, and even when seeded with a drill 
not less than six pecks of wheat should be sown per 
acre. 
This practice is opposed to the theory set forth by many 
of the most enlightened farmers in England who have re¬ 
duced their average seeding from three bushels per acre 
down to three pecks! and that too with an increased pro¬ 
duction, ranging from five to ten bushels per acre. In 
England, those who employ the drill for the sowing of 
wheat and barley, either horse or hand hoe, their crops 
in the early spring months, which practice has in no in- 
instance been carried out on a large scale on this con¬ 
tinent. The stirring of the soil between the rows of 
growing crops of grain, produces stimulating effects on 
the plants equal to what are obtained on corn, potatoes, 
turneps, and on other crops, that are ordinarily band or 
horse hoed; and therefore their sowing cannot be profi¬ 
tably practiced, unless the hoeing system be adopted, 
Avhich cannot be done on a large scale, in a .country like 
this where agricultural labor is enormously high, wdien 
compared with the low price of produce. A less quan¬ 
tity than six peeks of seed per acre, will lessen the ave¬ 
rage yield of wheat rather than increase it, although the 
drilling machine may be employed in seeding the ground . 
This is obviously the case in all locations where the win¬ 
ters are severe, and the plants are apt to be destroyed 
by frost, or seriously retarded in their growth by the 
freezings and thawings that occur during winter and early 
spring months. The ordinary distance that drilling ma¬ 
chines deposit the seed in parallel rows, ranges from eight 
to ten inches asunder, and on most, soils ten inches is pre¬ 
ferable to eight, from the fact that the greater the dis¬ 
tance between the row r s, the better opportunity will the 
rays of he sun have to directly strike on the growing 
plants, thus maturing and hardening the outer surface 
of the straw, which in connection with wind and other 
atmospheric influences, will in a great measure prevent 
rust, mildew, blight and other diseases indicated by pre¬ 
mature growth and maturity. If the seed be liberally 
and uniformily distributed to the depth of from three to 
four inches, in rows of not less than seven nor more than 
twelve inches asunder, it must be obvious that the plants 
will form a mutual protection to each other throughout 
the whole line of rows, and the roots will become so com¬ 
pletely intenvoven in each other that the one cannot be¬ 
come dislodged by frost, without removing with ita solid 
phalanx of neighboring plants. This by good manage¬ 
ment on the part of the farmer need not happen, from 
the fact that if the surface of the ground be kept free 
from a superabundance of water, the frost under such 
influences will rarely have a prejudicial effect upon the 
crop. In ordinary cases the sowing of wheat commences 
about the first of September and closes with that month. 
By early sowing and liberal seeding the plants obtain a 
rank growth before the setting in of winter, and the tops 
of those plants form a sort of umbrella covering to the 
roots, which to some extent protect them from the se¬ 
verity of late autumn and early spring chilling winds, 
which advantage cannot be reaped when the broadcast 
system is adopted. From this influence alone under fa¬ 
vorable circumstances, the crop will attain a much ear¬ 
lier and more perfect development, and a perceptible 
difference in favor of drilling may be seen in the crops 
during the whole of the season, so much so that the most 
skeptical would readily accord to the system a decided 
preference over the broadcast sowing. 
If the machine employed be efficient, and the ground 
be brought to a proper state of cultivation, the seed may 
be distributed with the greatest degree of precision, and 
the field throughout will present a perfect uniformity 
exacting from all portions of it a relative product in pro¬ 
portion to its powers of production, which could not be 
so perfectly done, if even the most experienced seeds¬ 
man be employed, by the common process. 
By using the drill, the seed may not only be sow ? n . 
much more evenly, and buried under the surface at a 
given uniform distance, but unlike the common plan, the 
work may go on successfully somewhat regardless of the 
