THE CULTIVATOR 
151 
Tobacco Scaffolds. 
It is an old saying that necessity is the mother of invention. 
Living in a part of the country where wood and timber is 
scarce, especially those kinds which are used in housing a crop 
of tobacco, (which has been extensively cultivated in this re¬ 
gion from 40 to 60 years)viz. poles and forks, and having neglect¬ 
ed to prepare forks and poles for the housing of my last crop un¬ 
til they were wanted, we found a good deal of difficulty in get¬ 
ting such as were suitable in a convenient distance. I then 
thought of the substitute, which I will briefly explain, as the 
tobacco grower will shortly have a use for them. Procure 8 
poles 22 feet long, (every grower will know how large,) 6 blocks 
2 feet long, 15 inches in diameter. Place 3 blocks on end in a 
row about 8 feet apart; then the other 3 parallel to and 12 feet 
from the first; upon these two rows of blocks, place two of the 
strongest poles, the ends extending 3 feet at each end, beyond 
the outside blocks; across these two bed poles arrange the oth¬ 
er 6, equidistant, which is about right for sticks 4 feet 6 inches 
long. These 6 blocks and 8 poles will give a scaffold 22 feet 
square, which will hold about 200 sticks of tobacco, which scaf¬ 
fold can be enlarged to any desired extent. This seems to be 
so plain and simple that it is hardly worthy an insertion, but 
if it should be the means of helping a young planter out of a 
tight place in housing season, I shall be highly gratified. 
Buckingham co., Fa., Aug. 5, 1841. G. M. 
Management of Bees—No. 5. 
( Continued.from page 134.) 
About the 20th of September, or a little later in the season 
than this, according to the climate, is the appropriate time for 
uniting swarms of bees for wintering, as the young ones are 
principally hatched out at this time, and the breeding season 
closed for the year; moreover, feeding should be attended to 
before cold weather will prevent the bees from carrying down 
the honey from the chamber, which is the best feeder I have 
tried to use. 
To unite the bees of two hives most easily, the hive designed 
to receive the bees of the other is inverted, and the stranger hive 
set over it, bottom boards off, entrances closed to prevent the 
escape of bees or the smoke of fungus (puffball,) when.that is 
blown into the lower hive. When this experiment is performed 
by a skillful manager, the bees of both hives are paralized with¬ 
out injury, and are all found together in the lower hive, in five 
or six minutes, ready to be returned to its place in the apiary, 
after confining a screen wire bottom board to the hive, to pre¬ 
vent suffocation. The entrances to the hive at this time should 
be kept closed a day or two, to allow the bees of both swarms 
to mingle and become associated with each other before they 
have liberty to go out to work. 
The fungus (puff ball) recommended should be picked soon 
after it begins to turn brown, to prevent the weather from ex¬ 
hausting it of its paralizing quality. As too much heat might 
injure its quality, it is recommended that the balls be laid in 
the oven after the bread is out, so as to render it perfectly dry ; 
then it will burn like touch wood without blaze. This fungus, 
when prepared in this way, is placed in the fumigator, ignited 
by a lamp, and blown into the hive, which soon accomplishes 
the experiment. And here I ought to remark that I am greatly 
indebted to Col. H. K. Oliver, of Salem, Mass., for this valuable 
information. Col. O. is the inventor of the Fumigator. It is a 
sheet iron box that will hold about three pints with <fO*> 
a cover, and a tube each side, with a strainer like a tea-pot, to 
keep the fungus in its place, when the smoke is blown into the 
hive from the mouth of the operator. I can state, on the au¬ 
thority of Col. Oliver, who is one of the most skillful apiarians 
of the present age, that “ notwithstanding the bees are so per¬ 
fectly paralized by this operation as to appear lifeless, yet they 
all resuscitate in a few minutes, and are as active and ambitious 
as ever.” Old weather-beaten puff balls will not do this. “It 
will paralize the bees, and injure them too !” But one serious 
objection can be urged against uniting feeble swarms in the 
fall; most of the bees of the stranger swarm are unconscious 
that they have been removed, and when they commence work¬ 
ing from their new abode, they will return to the place where 
the hive stood, from which they were removed ; and if they are 
not soon taken care of they will cluster there in small bunches 
and finally perish, or many of them may attempt to associate 
with other hives, and are taken as robbers and put to death. 
But this may be remedied by placing an empty hive, containing 
an empty piece of comb, where the old hive stood, as all the 
wandering bees will cluster on this empty comb in the day 
time, the comb and bees may be returned to the chamber of the 
hive containing their companions every night. This need not 
be continued but a few days, for the cluster on the empty comb 
will gradually diminish, and in a short time the bees will all 
become accustomed to their new residence. 
The practice of uniting feeble swarms of bees in the fall ha 
already been adopted by many apiarians in this country, witi 
the finest success: and I hope soon to see this system general! 
adopted. Tobacco smoke may be substituted for the puff ball 
but should not be used when the former can be obtained. 
M. D. E. Gelieu, the modern French apiarian, uses tobacco 
By blowing a little tobacco smoke into the entrance of the hiv 
from a pipe, the bees are disarmed at once of all hostile feel 
ings; the hive is then turned over on its top, the combs am 
honey all taken out, the bees brushed off into the hive with : 
goose quill, and the hive set in its place. At evening all th 
bees will be found in their own empty hive. Now a littl 
smoke is blown, into the hive designed to receive them, and alsi 
a few whiffs blown among the stranger swarm, to render th 
scent of the two colonies as near alike as possible. When thi 
is done, the hive containing the bees emptied of its combs am 
honey is raised from its place, so that when the hive is droppei 
suddenly upon a table cloth with one end fastened to the bot 
tom board ot the hive that is to receive them, the whole swarn 
is round on the cloth. Now a trail of bees is made on the clot! 
by a few spoonfuls of bees to the entrance of the hive, and th 
swarm enter like an army of men storming a fort withou 
slaughter; and the bees of both hives mingle and work as om 
family. 
Hives nearest each other, only,, are to be united in this way 
Nearest neighbors, only, among bees associate easily, whil< 
swarms standing at a distance, others residing between, ar 
united with “ infinite labor.” But I must hasten to anothe 
improvement m the life-preserving principle, which is referrei 
to in my Manual on Bees, page 105, new ed., but omitted in th 
copies forwarded to the printer by mistake. It is this Prum 
out the dark colored combs so that the bees may never he com 
pelted to ra l* e . their young broods in combs more than threi 
years old. This is done by taking away about one third of th 
combs yearly, in the month of March, before the breeding sea 
son commences, so as to avoid taking away any of the eggs o 
young bees; thus in three years the whole hive is renewe, 
by removing the black and filthy combs which were renderei 
useless by being filled up with the bee bread, cocoons of th 
young, and other filth. Hives of bees that have been pruned ij 
this way have been known to continue in a healthful state, am 
throw out swarms every year for 25 years. I have made it; 
a practice of pruning my old stocks several years with th 
finest success. The first tiling done by the bees in the spring i 
tffrn « U iL tlle sp \ ce 1 have made by the pruning knife, with beau 
!SiivT te Comb 5 this gives the bees new cells to breed in 
wmch they so greatly desire and need, and keeps them vieorou 
and ambitious. I am sensible that most bee keepers will rais 
fAnnwTT \° the pi ; actiee cni account of stings; but when.5 
is Known, by trying the experiment, that a little tobacco smok 
blown into the hive perfectly disarms the bees of any hostility; 
the objection will no longer be urged against it on that account. 
When the hive is thinly populated by bees, I have usually pruned 
the combs without the aid of smoke, or any thing to guard my 
face and hands; and I have no recollection of ever receiving a 
sting during the operation: but when the hive has an abundance 
of bees in it, four or five whiffs of.smoke from a pipe or cigar is 
blown into the hive, then it may be taken from its place, set on 
its top, and such parts of the combs taken out as the owner de¬ 
sires. Every bee master should be furnished with a pruning 
knife for this purpose; moreover, it is used for a variety of 
purposes about the apiary. This instrument should be made 
of steel, (spring temper,) with a straight blade at one end to 
cut the combs vertically, while on the other end a small blade 
like a penknife should be turned in a right angle with the shank 
to cut horizontally, so that the combs may be cut in any de¬ 
sirable shape, without mutilating or destroying any except the 
parts removed. It has been stated that pruning the combs 
should take place early in the season; if, however, it is found 
that the combs are diseased by moths or any other cause, the 
combs should be pruned at any time during the warm season. 
Respectfully, JOHN M. WEEKS. 
A Hen House. 
Messrs. Editors —If you think the accompanying plans of 
a hen-house worthy of the attention of your readers, I shall 
be gratified to see them in the Cultivator. Some farmers are 
of an opinion that a few boards tacked together, or set against 
the side of a wall, answer very well for the purposes of a 
hen-roost; but I have come to the conclusion that to render our 
hens and other fowls profitable, as much care must be taken 
of them as of our horses and cattle. This house may be built 
of pine boards, or it may be clap-boarded and plastered with 
lime; in either case, it should have a good plank floor. It is 
12 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 7 feet high from the bottom of 
the sill to the top of the plate. 
(Fig. 75.) (Fig. 76.) 
Fig. 75—View of the east end—A, a door 2 feet wide and 5 
feet high—E, a small window. 
Fig. 76—Interior view—I, a door—O, O, O, O, boxes for nests, 
12 inches square, to he placed in three tiers, one above the oth¬ 
er—U, a door, of the same dimensions as the outer one—B, B, 
are poles or roosts ; these may be either of sassafras or wild 
cherry tree. They are fitted to swing up and hook at the upper 
floor. 
(Fig. 77.) (Fig. 78.) 
Fig. 77—View of the west end—N, N, two holes a foot square 
lor the entrance of the hens—F, a door to throw out the ma¬ 
nure ; it turns up and hooks at E—C, C, windows with small 
wire grates. 
Fig. 78—Side view—M, M, nests or boxes for brood hens; 
these should have a long door to swing down and hook at the 
bottom. j. p. c. 
North Scituate, It. I. 1841. 
On farming, Silk and Vineyards. 
Messrs. Editors— Being greatly in the arrears to you on the 
score of often intended, but as often procrastinated communi¬ 
cations, I sit down to write you one to embrace or touch upon 
a diversity of matters, and not unaptly, perhaps, entitled as 
above. Mine has been, for a few years past, the complicated 
or three-fold agricultural business of farming, vineyards and 
silk. Press of occupation thereon may excuse me, perhaps, for 
writing to you so seldom, and for this promiscuous irregular 
matter. 
The late Mr. Herbemont, of S. Carolina, the pioneer of vine 
culture and wine making in the South, if not in America, re¬ 
marked, as a comment on a piece of mine in Mr. Ruffin’s 
“ Farmer’s Register,” advocating the union of silk and wine 
business, that the business of the dairy should be added there¬ 
to, or that the same hands could be profitably employed the 
year round in that three-fold operation. [See Farmer’s Regis¬ 
ter, vol. vi. page 92.] But the dairy concern cannot well be 
separated from other farming operations. In short, I employ 
the same hands, and sometimes parts of the same day in com¬ 
mon farming operations, and also in those of my cocooneries 
and vineyards, and find no particular inconvenience in it; but, 
properly regulated, not an unpleasant change of employment to 
the hands, and the general superintendence of all not perplex¬ 
ing to me. For, as in studies, some diversity and change is 
resting and soothing to the mind; (three different studies a day 
when I was at Union College, N. Y. state,) so of cares, some 
diversity is far from being unpleasant. It is true that in my 
farm and cocooneries, some hands are mostly confined respec¬ 
tively to both, as children and females to gathering leaves and 
feeding worms, &c. 
To encourage perseverance in new and laudable enterprises, 
and to give some idea of our three-fold operations, I would here 
draw a contrast. About a dozen years since, I purchased here 
300 acres of mostly poor worn out land. So exhausted was the 
soil that my predecessor, though owning slaves and farming 
the ordinary way here, was forced to sell his place, not to soon 
have his all swallowed up by debt. To purchase and begin, I 
had to incur debt. And since, with hiring all my help, except that 
of my elder children latterly, I have been enabled to more than 
double the quantity of my land, and instead of the sterile ap¬ 
pearance of my first purchased place, now is presented the 
sight of near five acres of flourishing vineyard, about the same 
portion covered with multicaulis trees, fine fields of clover, and 
good crops of corn and other grain. And also buildings corres¬ 
ponding, as a silk house '32Meet square, another of smaller 
compass; a wine house and other buildings requisite for the 
establishment. Again 1 would contrast the employments and 
products of these and the present , about this time of the year. 
Then, or at the time I purchased, hands were cultivating the 
two crops only on the premises, viz. cotton and corn. The 
corn planted without manuring, one stalk in a hill, and hills 
four and a half feet each way, and each stalk destined to 
have one edr, not to say nubbin. And the plow tearing the 
roots to help produce the result of the nubbin instead of the 
ear. Now may be seen my beautiful and promising drilled 
rows of Baden corn, seven feet apart, and stalks thick in the 
row, and each stalk to have 3, 4 or 5 ears, and flourishing 
rows of southern peas between all _ those of corn; all work¬ 
ing or worked over for the last time with cultivators and 
small harrows. In a piece of low ground, formerly grown 
over with weeds, hushes and briars, now may be seen tow¬ 
ering corn on the ditch hanks as well as elsewhere, with pump¬ 
kins, and pea vines and young turneps between the drills, as 
the strength of the ground admits. In short, after the early 
morning feed of 100,000 or so of silk worms, different hands 
may be seen repairing to their allotted tasks, as one to the 
ruta baga patch, another to the sugar beets, another getting 
clover seed, another mowing, and others attending to plow¬ 
ing, working in the garden, vineyards and the like. While 
writing, I look from my office and see under my larger silk 
house a poor widow, a tenant, reeling a batch of cocoons 
that had lately wound up on her premises, and a little son 
of her’s turning the Piedmontese reel. I say under the silk 
house; for, by lengthened posts placed on rocks, I raised the 
building or room (12 feet high) 10 feet from the ground; and 
this plan, besides effectually barring against the annoyance 
of rats, mice and ants, affords an excellent facility for dry¬ 
ing mulberry branches in rainy weather. Again I see an¬ 
other elder son of this widow just coming in with a crate 
load of pine leaves or straw to cover over my field just 
sowed with rye, buckwheat, and clover, (to be a three-fold 
crop,) for which load and the spreading I allow his mother 
20 cents; hut as my sheet is nearly written over, I must for 
the present draw to a close, and if you choose io publish 
such as this, and wish more I will shortly take up my pen 
again for you, and tell you more about my silk and wine 
operations, and successful farming experiments; particularly 
a discovery of making clover a sure crop in the South, now re¬ 
duced to a certainty by 3 years’ trial. Also a kind of grape 
bearing my name in part, or Weller’s Halifax^ which for attest¬ 
ed excellence in our best Southern vineyards is second to none. 
Also of some particulars of the facts that myself and sons 
from my wife’s manufacturing, have silk garments made of 
perforated cocoons—that our sowing silk is pronounced first 
rate, and brings 10 dollars a pound. And I add, we calculate 
50 pounds of this season’s product, and 12 barrels of the pure 
juice of the grape (no adulteration of brandy or the like) which 
as heretofore, will sell at rates of two dollars per gallon. 
But I must stop, and in haste subscribe myself yours and the 
public’s, with all due respect, SIDNEY WELLER. 
Brvnckleyville , Halifax co., N. Carolina, Aug. 5, 1841. 
Odds and Buds—No. 3. 
Post* and rail fence, or'board fence with posts set in the 
ground, can never be made to be durable upon our prairie land. 
The soil is so rich, deep and loose, that in the spring of the 
year the posts will be continually “ on the lean.” In my opin¬ 
ion, the best way to make such fence is to use posts with heavy 
butts sawed square and set on the ground, and make the fence 
crooked, like the common rail fence. It will be much more 
durable, and the loss of the land in the fence corners is a small 
item where land is so plenty and cheap as it is in the West. 
(i Sod Fence.” 
Upon this subject I have bought some wit—my conclusions 
are, that all attempts at fencing with sods, or banks of earth 
upon such a loose friable soil as ours, is buying wit too dear. 
The only fence that can be made of the earth, must be made in 
the earth. A deep well made ditch may answer a good purpose 
for a fence, and in almost all places, will be a lasting benefit to 
the land. But, eventually, the “Chinese system” must be adopt¬ 
ed upon all of our large prairies. Whole tracts of country will be 
cultivated without fenee. There are now upon the Connecti¬ 
cut river many thousand acres of land enclosed in one common 
field, and cattle when permitted to run at large are tended by a 
shepherd. The same plan must be adopted on the Western 
Prairies. — 
Secret of Soap Making-. 
Many persons are much troubled to make soap come ■ but 
there is no art and mystery or “luck” about the business.’ The 
whole secret consists in having strong lye—and it must be 
strong. If the ashes are clean, the soap will come without 
using lime. If the ashes are made from dirty chips, or burnt 
upon a clay hearth, lime in the leach at the rate of one quart 
to the barrel of ashes, may be used to great advantage. If lime 
cannot be procured, boil down the lye until there are coarse 
grains of salts in the bottom, then pour off the lye and throw 
away the salts. It will ‘ spoil your luck’ to attempt to make 
soap with the salts in the kettle, for it is the salts of earth, not 
ashes. If your lye is strong, and you put in as much grease as 
it will dissolve, you will have soap whether it is put in hot or 
cold. — 
Flowers. 
“ Why is it that the love of flowers takes such deep hold of the 
heart?’’ Why! Why it is because they are the emblems of 
love. Show me one who does not feel his own heart expand as 
he watches the expanding beauties of some delicate flower, and 
you will show me one who knows nothing of that pure and per¬ 
fect affection of the heart which binds the human family to¬ 
gether. Teach your children to love and cultivate flowers. 
Birds. 
Next to the love of flowers is the love of birds. —Teach your 
children in mercy to spare the nests of the harmless little bird-, 
and if you have a heart to be thankful, it will rise up in union 
with the little songster’s carol, to think your lot is cast in 
such a pleasant vale of flowers and singing birds. These are 
some of the many things provided to lighten the toil of labor, 
and it is only a vitiated taste acquired from a false system of 
education, that prevents us from deriving a great deai of hap¬ 
piness from such small accompaniments of the journey of life. 
Shade Trees. 
What a singular and unaccountable strange thing it is that 
those who settle in forests wage a war of extermination against 
every tree, not even leaving a single one for shade for man or 
beast. Look at his log cabin, standing alone in the bright broad 
glare of sunshine, with nothing upon which the morning larks 
could perch but a stump near his window, to wake him with 
her cheerful cheering song. 
What a perverted taste has that man who builds his house 
upon the open prairie, and for years lives on in his solitary 
black looking prison, with not a single green and waving 
branch to add to the look of cheerfulness and comfort to his 
abode. Is it possible that his children can grow up to be good 
citizens and never know the youthful luxury of a gambol under 
a green shade ? 
. Reader, go plant a tree. And when the birds come and rest 
in its branches and pour forth their melody, it will be more 
soothing to thy mind than ever was that cup to which so many 
resort to sooth the cares and troubles of life, and which is the 
cause of sending so many to that dark shade from which they 
can see no gleani of sunshine, or have no lovely melody of the 
pleasure inspiring birds, or see the expanding beauties of the 
