Mr. Shaw on Patent Hives Again. EDITOR FARMER: In the January No. of the FARMER I gave some of my experience, with the present style of movable frame bee-hives; hoping also to gain information from its columns that would assist me in my disconsolate wandering, not to find a selfrunning institution, but one that with good, common care will reward its owner fairly. The upright part of the frames are about 5-16 of an inch from the side of the hive; theoretically to enable the bees to traverse the sides of the bive and keep it clean; but their habits are not to travel around the on banging six combs on five frames. I well know that all have not the same tact or facility for handling, and a very large majority of the people prefer to have as little to do with them as possible. Yet they would delicious sweet. To such I would say that like to have their tables supplied with the I have now under my observation a hive (it is no patent right) that commends itself to abodes bees select for themselves, more my feeble senses, as it approximates the nearly than any I ever saw out of the old is not overlooked; the near and uninterrupstyle of hive. The comb removing principle ted access to the supers is a superior feature; the extension principle is another prominent feature by which one extended colony will do much towards supplying one table with honey, with but with little or no trouble to its owner, needing no shower baths of sweetened water, puffing of narcotic opiates, trimming, pairing off, or twisting of combs, or drawing of frames; no cumbersome supers and honey board to move before we can get at the stock department—all of which are inconvenient to those who have no time to move u necessarily, Patent, cos'ly hives may do for those who keep bees for amusement, but not for the farmers. DARTFORD, Feb. 19, 1864. JOHN A. SHAW. edge of their combs, as we can see in all abodes selected by themselves. Consequently the space between the frames and the side of the hive is not properly cared for, and will be studded with webs and THE HORTICULTURIST. cocoons as often as we can properly take them out, except in strong, heavy stocks in which the bees are crowded out the side of the frames. A. G. HANFORD, : CORRESPONDING EDITOR. Horticultural Dogmatism. I will not condemn a grape because it does not do well with me.-Dr. JOHN A. WARDFE, Cincinnati. There is mnch good sense in this manly, candid utterance of Dr. Warder. We have never supposed that modesty was an element altogether wanting in the members of the hort cultural profession, and yet there One case to illustrate. Mr. B., a neighbor of mine, who has had the managen ent of bees some forty years, thought, like many others, that the movable frames were what he wanted; but being a cautious old gentlemen he would satisfy himself with one before further investing. He declared to me that while one side was being filled with is so much of unbecoming dogmatism in comb, &c., the other (a h`ve with a division board) was being filled with spiders' webs, from which he removel more worms and cocoons than from eight others of the old style. With his best management, his patient but sensitive little workers insisted up some of them that the words above quoted, of their own accord, arranged themselves the moment they came to our notice in the form of a text and challenged us for a sermon on the fault they imply. If Horticulture were a complete science, with its principles and facts established beyond all possibility of a question; if the circumstances under which the operation of the laws of vegetable growth and development were perfectly uniform in different parts of the world and absolutely exceptionless; and if the conditions under which ex On Wine Making. John E. Mottier, a well-known vintner, of Cincinnati, Ohio, writes as follows to the Horticulturist: In order to make good wine, it is necessa periments are made were also identical with-ry to have a good cellar, clean casks, press, We do not affirm that horticulturists as a class are very much more obnoxious to the charge of dogmatism than are some other classes-simply that they are somewhat, if not seriously at fault in this respect and would do well to profit by the quiet, incidental reproof of the worthy leader whom we have quoted at the head of this article. There is always some danger that men who devote themselves to a single branch of a more enlarged and comprehensive business, and one concerning which the knowledge of the public in general is known and acknowledged to be very limited, should come to realize their advantage and to assume to have, themselves, more knowledge than they really possess; and yet it is only by subdivision of labor and study that the world is enabled to make real progress. We do not find fault therefore, we only point out the danger and give the warning. Hobby-riding is unworthy the Horticulturist. If any are mounted with the unworthy object in view of foisting this pear, that strawbery, grape, or aught else upon an ignorant craving, and gullable public, without the most absolute and unfaltering conviction that it is really pre-eminently worthy of adoption, let them get off again and repent them of their mean intention. Such men are nothing more nor less than narrow conceited, selfish and unscrupulous sha pers, utterly unworthy of a place in the noble profession they have so profaned. etc. First of all, have your grapes well ripened; gather them in dry weather, and pick out carefully all the unripe berries, and all the dried and damaged ones; then mash and grind them with a mill, if you have a proper mill for the purpose. Be careful not to set your mill so close as to mash the seed, for they will give a bad taste to the wine. If you wish to have wine of a rose color, let the grape remain in a large tub a few hours, the grapes before pressing, after they are before pressing. The longer time you leave mashed, the more color the wine will have. For pressing the grapes, any press will answer, provided it is kept clean and sweet. After you have collected the must in a clean tub from the press, have it transferred into the cask in the cellar. Fill the cask within ten inches of the bung; then place one end of a siphon, made for that purpose, in the bung, and fix it air tight; the other end must be placed in a bucket containing cold water. The gas then passes off from the cask without the air coming in contact with the wine, which would destroy that fine grape flavor, which makes our Catawba so celebrated. When properly made, the must will undergo fermentation. Keep the end of the siphon that is in the water fully four inches deep, so as to exclude the air from the wine. When it has fermented, which will be in fifteen days, fill the cask with the same kind of wine, and bung it loosely for one week; then make it tight. Nothing more is needed till it is clear, which, if all is right, will be in January or February next. Then, if perfectly clear, rack it off into another cask, and bung it up tightly till wanted. If the wine remains in the cask till fall--about November-it will improve by racking it again. Be sure to always have sweet, clean casks. Do not burn too much brimstone in the cask. I have seen much wine injured by excessive use of brimstone-generally by new beginners. For my part, I make little use of it. You can make different qualities of wine with the same grape, by separating the different runs of the same pressing. The first run is the finest, if you want to make use of it the first season; but it will not keep long without losing its fine qualities. To make good, sound wine, that will improve by age, the plan is to mix all up to gether. The very last run will make it rough, but it will have better body and better flavor when two or three years old and will improve for a number of years The first run will not be good after two or three years. I have fully tested the different ways of making and keeping wine these last twentyfive years. Thinning of Fruits. One lesson which experience has taught us, is the importance of thinning the fruit, especially of apples and pears. This branch of omology has received comparatively but little attention. There is a limit to the ca. and culture of the pear. His system allows no useless wood, nor more fruit than the tree can properly sustain. Some have doubted whether this practice can be made remuner ative, except i its application to the finer fruits. But another cnltivator who raises an annual crop of the best apples, assures us that the secret of his success is the thinning of the fruit, and he has no doubt of the economy of the practice. No good farmer doubts the necessity of thinning his root crops, no vignernon the propriety of thinning his grapes. Analogy of cultivation, therefore, justifies the practice, and I entertain no question of its great importance. Light, air and moisture are essential to the production of vegetable products, and especially of fine fruits. Who has not observed that the best specimens of fruits on a tree are ordinarily those which are most Who doe not exposed to these elements? select the full-sized ruddy fruit, which has had free communion with light, heat and air in preference to the half-fed specimen which has shared its own p oper nouri hment with five or six crowded rivals on the same spor? pacity of all created things. If you tax the energies of an animal too severely for a long time, the result will be premature age decay. Subject any vegetable or mineral substance to too great pressure and you destroy its powers of cohesion. So if you permit a tree to bear beyond its strength, you injure its fruit, retard its growth, and shorten its life. All have observed that superfecundity one year, produces barrenness the next. Hence we hear among our An experienced English cultivator says: farmers and gardeners what they term the "The bending of branches of trees by an bearing year. hey invariably designate over c op of fruit, is most in!urious, for the the Baldwin apple as a tree that bears on pores of the woody stalk are strained on the alternate years. But is ot the cause of this one side of the bend, and compressed on the olternation found in the fact that the abun- other, hence the vessels through which the dant crop of the bearing year exhausts the requisite nourishment flows, being partially energies of the tree, and absorbs the pabu shu up, the growth of the fruit is re arded Inm so as not to leave sufficient aliment for in pro, ortion to the stalk." This is illusthe formation of truit spurs the second trated in the overbearing of some varieties, year? Many varieties have a tendency to which, from a redundancy of fruit without overbearing, especially those which produce the process of early and thorough thintheir fruit in clusters. Nature herself teach. ning, seldom roduce good specimens es us the remedy for this evil, and a super. and in a few years become stinted and unabundance of blossoms is generally followed healthy trees. The overbearing of a tree by a profuse falling of the embryo fruit. is as much a tax upon its energies and conWhen and where this dropping is not suf.titution, as the exhaustion of a field by exficient to prevent everbearing, we should resort to the process of relieving the tree of a port on of its fruit. However cessive crop of the same kind, year after year, without a return of nutritive materials. Inexhaustible fertility is a chimera of the The organism which carries on healthful imagination. Sooner or later, the richest development, in order to repeat its cycle of soils will equire restoration of what has functions from year to year, cannot be overbeen abstracted by vegetation. worked without time for recuperation. fertile at first, the constant overcropping of Whatever of nutrition goes to the support of the soil is a reduction of the elements on useless branches, or a redundancy of fruit, which health and fruitfu ness depend. This abstracts that strength from the tree which great principle of sustenance and reciprocal would oterwise be appropriated to the per relation runs through the whole mass of 1 fe, fection of the crop, and the development of of mind and of matter. the spurs which would bear fruit the next year. One of the best cultivators in the vieinity of Boston, has reduced this theory to practice, with the happiest resul s, in the Intimately connected with this process of thinning, is th time when the work should te executed. It should not be done before we can distinguish the choicest specimens in a cluster of fruit, nor delayed so long as Yet Another.-The French preserve to waste the energies of the tree. This grapes the year round by coating the cluspractice, judiciously followed, will super- ters with lime. The bunches are picked cede the necessity of staying up the just before they are thoroughly ripe, and branches, will prevent injury to the tree by dipped in lime water of the consistency of breaking, and will prove decidedly economi thin cream. They are then hung on wires, and when dry are dipped the second time, and them hung up to remain. The lime coating keeps out the air and checks any tendency to decay. When wanted for the table, dip the clusters into warm water to remove the lime. cal Associated with the thinning of fruits is the expediency of gathering a part of the crop as soon as it approaches maturity.-The remaining specimens will thereby be much increased in size and excellence. The fruit of a tree does not all come to maturity at the same time, hence the successful gathering will turn the crop to the highest prac tical account; and will keep the productive energies of the tree in a healthful and profitable condition."-Marshall P. Wilder. Keeping Grapes--Recipes. How to Kill Gophers. MR. HOYT:-I have seen, in one of your late numbers, a complaint against pocket gophers destroying apple trees. I had many valuable trees destroyed by them, but I have overcome this pest. I bought crysDining with a friend recently, we had the tallized strychnine, and poisoned carrots. unusual luxury of a desert of Catawba and A quantity half the size of a wheat grain, Isabella grapes. Their mode of preserva inserted into a piece of carrot, is sufficient tion being the theme, we learned that they for a gopher. I find their main passage, were picked when perfectly dry and ripe, where they have worked last, place the carand packed carefully in bunches, in a box, between layers of cotton, and as much as rot in, and replace the earth carefully, withpossible excluded from the air and light. out stopping their passage. With two days' More recently a gentleman from Pennsylva- labor, a man can rid them out of a good nia tells us that he has seen them success-sized farm, with little cost. Try it, you fully preserved till spring, as follows: "Into who are troubled with them. the bottom of a small keg or nail-cask put a layer of grape leaves fresh from the vines. Truly yours, On these carefully place a layer of sound, LANSING, IOWA, July, 1864. ripe, dry grapes, then leaves and grapes in Discouraging News from Peachdom. alternate layers, till the keg is full. Head up the keg and bury it in some well drained ground, below the depth of the frost." Like other things excluded from the light and air, they will change rapidly on exposure, and hence when a keg is opened and they are found good, use them freely.-Ex. Another. We are in the habit of keeping grapes for common use during the winter in the following manner: Take clean, small boxes, pick off the bunches of grapes carefully, and pack them in dry grape leaves. Keep the boxes in a dry, cool place, being careful to not let them freeze. We generally have grapes till May. JOSEPH COPE. Another --Cut the bunches carefully off the vines, dip the stem where cut into melted wax, then wrap with paper or cloth. Put a layer of cotton on the bottom of your box, then a layer of grapes, and a layer of cotton, and so on. Set the box where the grades will not freeze and they may be kept good till spring. PETER REISER. A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer, who lives in Egypt, and knows whereof he affirms, reports as follows on the peach and grape crops: "Pretty much all the bearing peach trees, whether budded or natural, are dead, or so much injured as to be worth nothing. Two years old trees, moderately thrifty, are doing finely and promise to bear a little next year, or in two years to be loaded. Those of this age, very thrifty, are dead, particularly if in new land. Grapes are cut down to the ground and will not do anything this year; the roots are yet sound." THE Scotish Farmer says that water from a gas tank is very destructive to all kinds of garden insects. HORTICULTURISTS, do not forget the State Fair. The Fourth of July Apple. For a week or more past our market and fruit stores have been supplied with a very handsome, showy apple, bearing this name. Its history is briefly as follows: Over twenty years ago, an old German of this city imported a lot of fruit trees from his native place, Cassel, Germany Among them was an apple from the garden of his brother, known there as the "August apple." When it fruited here, specimens were found nicely colored, and nearly or quite ripe on the anniversary of our national birth-day, for which reason, being very patriotic, Mr. Jaeger called it "the 4th of July apple." Under this name it was introduced into the Columbus Nursery, and quite largely disseminated. stripes of red in the sun, and covered with a delicate white bloom. acid, of good, though not high flavor. It is Flesh yellowish white, tender, juicy, quite a fine kitchen apple, cooking very tender, its brisk acid, when properly tempered with sugar, making a very agreeable sauce. It is an early bearer, and productive; ripens a little before the early harvest, and for several weeks thereafter; valuable for famiceived for a season's crop, from a single tree. ly use, and for market. $20 00 have been re The outline was originally prepared for the Prairie Farmer, from a specimen sent by us a year or two ago, and represents one rather above the average, though not the largest, A. G. HANFORD. COLUMBUS, July 16, 1884. [We are indebted to Mr. Hanford for beautiful specimens of the apple above described. They were the first fully ripe apples we had seen, and with their beautifully striped, The tree is a handsome, vigorous, upright grower, forming a neat pyramidal head; like most of the apples from the north of Europe, the leaves and blossoms are very large; it is also extremely hardy. The memorable win-smooth surface, tender pulp and pleasant ter of 1855-6, which destroyed so many trees throughout the country, appeared not to affect this in the least, though other varieties growing beside it were destroyed. The fruit is above medium to large, roundish oblate, sometimes inclining to conical, and more or less angular, especially in the earliest ripening specimens, pale yellow, nearly white in the shade, with distinct acid taste, they proved most acceptable to us and a few fortunate friends with whom they were shared -EDITOR FARMER.] FOR UNFRUITFUL GooseberrIES, prune freely in the fall, cutting out old wood and be cut back one half to advantage. If still shortening in the new. An old bush may inclined to wood without fruiting, pinch in the summer growth. |