THE CULTIVATOR. 
well manured, and plowed deeply f manured again 
in a few weeks, and plowed one-half as deep as 
before. It was again plowed twice, and repeated¬ 
ly harrowed. Our readers will recollect we have 
often and strongly urged the importance of tho¬ 
rough pulverization and mixing the ingredients of 
the soil, and the large crop here obtained proves 
its value. After these bar rowings, furrows were 
drawn two feet apart, and four loads, {equal to 
16 per acre,) of rich compost drilled into them. 
The soil was replaced with a plow. Over these 
furrows the seed was planted. The plants were 
properly thinned, well hoed, and harvested in an- 
turan. The product was over 300 bushels, or 
more than 1,200 per acre 5 and after counting all 
expenses, including removal of stones, four plow- 
ings, four harrowings, cost of manure, planting 
by hand, hoeing, harvesting, and rent of land, the 
cost per bushel was hut Jive cents. 
Caterpillars in August. 
In the Cultivator, a year or two since, was an 
account of the ravages of a caterpillar or worm 
among the trees ef Cayuga county, in the months 
of August and September, by David Thomas, 
We have noticed the regular periodical appearance 
of what we presume to be the same species during 
several years past. They are of a dirty ash color, 
and, : when full grows, about an inch long. Like 
the common orchard caterpillar of spring they 
weave a web on the limb of a tree, from which they 
sally forth and devour its leaves. They seem to 
prefer the black ash, (Fraxinms sambucifolia) to 
all other trees, next hickory, black walnut, and 
all the fruit trees in common cultivation, seem to 
be highly relished. They generally eat the pa¬ 
renchyma and leave the veins of the leaf, espe¬ 
cially of apple and cherry trees. 
In the years 1850 and ’51, they were very abun¬ 
dant in certain localities in Western New-York. 
At the head of Honeoye lake, in Ontario eount 3 r , 
is a swamp of more than an hundred acres, cover¬ 
ed with trees which are mostly black ash. These 
trees were stripped of their leaves during the 
month of August of those years - ash trees first, 
and then the remaining, until all were naked. On 
visiting this swamp during the height of their ra¬ 
vages, a confused crackling noise was heard among 
the branches, caused by the falling caterpillars and 
the millions of their moving jaws among the leaves. 
In 1850, a similar swamp near Ezekiel Birds¬ 
eye’s, in Hopewell, Ontario county, shared the 
same fate.- After the leaves of this swamp were 
destroyed, they went into an adjoining cornfield 
and eat the leaves of more than two acres of corn, 
reducing the crop at least one half. Had not the 
ears of corn been partly formed when they entered 
the field, the damage would have been much great¬ 
er, -or rather the entire crop would have been de¬ 
stroyed. As it was, the ears were shivelled and 
fodder gone. On the same farm they crawled to 
a hickory tree, situated in a field about forty rods 
from any other tree., which they divested of its 
leaves. 
The last season they were less abundant than in 
the two preceding years, and it is to be hoped that 
they will not at least increase. Your truly, S. 
B. Buckley. West Dresden , N. Y. 
The idea of producing good crops without manure or 
tillage, is equalled by the man who expects to draw milk 
from the cow that has not first been fed, or to raise su¬ 
perior calves without care and good feeding. 
Patent Bee Hives. 
Will some of the correspondents of the Country Gen¬ 
tleman inform us, which, among the many patent bee¬ 
hives, is the best adapted for producing honey. T. B. 
Vermont. 
We have made some observations, and conversed with 
different bee-raisers, all of whom, with scarcely an ex¬ 
ception, bad come to the same conclusion, substantially, 
as those contained in the following statement of Lewis 
F. Allen, copied from a former volume of the Transac¬ 
tions of the New-York State Ag. Society: 
“Ihave seen, examined, and used several different 
plans of Patent Hives, of which there are probably 30 
invented, and used, more or less. I have - found all 
whieh I have seen unsatisfactory, not carrying out in 
full the benefits claimed for them. 
*‘ The bee works and lives, I believe, solely by in¬ 
stinct. I do not consider it an inventive, or very in¬ 
genious insect. To succeed well, its accommodations 
should be of the simplest and securest form. There¬ 
fore, instead of adopting the complicated plans of many 
of the patent hives, I have made and used a simple box, 
containing a cube of one foot square inside— made of 
one and a quarter inch sound pine plank, well jointed 
and planed on all sides, and closely put together per¬ 
fectly tight at the joints with white lead ground in oil, 
and the inside of the hive at the bottom champered off 
to three-eights of an inch thick, w ith a door for the bees 
in front of 4 inches long by three-eights of an inch high. 
I do this that there may he a thin surface to come in 
contact with the shelf on v r hich they rest, thus prevent¬ 
ing a harbor for the bee moth. (I have never seen a 
patent hive which would exclude the bee moth, nor any 
one so well as this, having never been troubled with 
that scourge since I used this tight hive.) On the top 
of the hive, an inch or two from the front, is made a 
passage for the bees of an inch wide and six to eight 
inches long, to admit the bees into an upper hive for 
surplus honey, (which passage is covered when no ves¬ 
sel for that purpose is on the top.) For obtaining the 
honey I use a common 10 or 12 quart water^pail, in¬ 
verted, with the hail turned over, in which the bees de¬ 
posit their surplus. The pail will hold 25 to 30 pounds 
of hone} 7 . This is simple, cheap, and expeditious; the 
pail costing only 20 to 25 cents, is taken off in a mo¬ 
ment, the bail re-placed, and the honey ready for trans¬ 
portation, or market, and always in place. If there is 
time for more honey to be made, (my bees made 2 pails 
full in succession this year) another pail can be put on 
at once. 
“ Such, gentlemen, in short, is my method, I have 
kept bees about 20 years. ^ I succeed better in this plan 
than with any other, it being cheap, simple, convenient 
and expeditious.” 
Manure for Roses. 
Thomas Rivers, in his last Rose catalogue, says 
that for a neat surface dressing for Autumnal 
Roses, to be applied late in spring, wood ashes and 
guano have proved most excellent fertilizers, in the- 
proportion of half a peck of guano to a bushel of 
ashes, applying two quarts of the mixture to each 
tree, in a circle eighteen inches in diameter round 
the stem, and suffering it to remain undisturbed 
upon the surface. The ashes retain the moisture 
from the dew and showers, and the effect, in giving 
a vigorous growth, with an abundant crop of the 
flowers in the autumn, has been very apparent. 
In our dryer climate, an occasional copious water¬ 
ing or a thin grass mulching, placed over this 
compound , would doubtless be of decided benefit, 
and during dry periods would in fact be indispen- 
sible. 
