DAIRY FARMING,

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FARM OF THE WRITER.

BY ZADOCK PRATT, PRATTSVILLE, GREENE COUNTY, NEW YORK.

This article is not designed to describe the methods of dairy farming which are successfully practiced by the writer. In the Patent Office Report (agricul tural) for 1861, the reader will find a very full and minute account of the Prattsville dairy and the method of butter making practiced there, to which, for the better understanding of the statistics appended to this article, his attention is directed. My object here is rather to show the results of dairy farming for seven successive years, as ascertained by a careful and systematic method of keeping an account of all the products of the farm-the expenses incurred, deducing therefrom the net. profits of cultivating it. By doing this, I hope to encourage my brother farmers to manage their farms more inteiligently, and by ascertaining the net profits of wool growing, dairy farming, stock breeding, or the culture of parti cular grains or grasses, to learn whether their labors meet with the proper reward. In the article referred to above it was remarked that butter making in this country has been most successfully carried on within that belt of territory, va rying from twenty-five to fifty miles in width, which begins with Orange county, near the city of New York, and extends from the Hudson river in a northwesterly direction perhaps one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles into the heart of the State of New York. Within this belt lies the town of Prattsville, situated in the northwest corner of Greene county, adjoining Delaware county; and this town and the adjoining town of Ashland may be fairly called the butter making region of Greene county.

In 1824, when the writer first located here and began to build his tannery. which afterward turned out a million sides of sole leather, all this region dense forest of hemlock, which yielded to the tannery one hundred and fifty

thousand cords of bark. After the hemlock forests were cleared

away

was a

and the

turned

tannery was removed to another locality where hemlock was nearer at hand, the writer, who, like many old tanners, had a regard for hemlock lands, felt confi dent that these lands would prove good for butter making, and at once his attention to the subject. The success which has attended his enterprise is best shown in the statistics below. It will be seen from these tables that order, regularity, attention, "minding your business," are essential to butter making as they are to success in any department of farming. To this may be added a good thick sod, which hemlock lands afford, and an abundant supply of pure. soft, cool water.

The farm, as heretofore referred to in the report for 1861, contains 365 acres, 40 of which are fine alluvial soil. The residue is hemlock land, the soil of which is loam and gravel, and lies on the eastern slope of the Catskill mountain. The average number of cows kept on the farm was eighty, though at one time the number was one hundred. The average quantity of butter for each of sixty-four cows in 1862, as will be seen by a reference to the table, was 223 pounds. The present season this very high average has been a little exceeded; but as the number of cows has been increased to eighty, the large product which they ar erage is still more remarkable.

From the accounts, which have always been kept with accuracy, of the management, products, and expenses of this farm, a summary in the most concise form possible is presented in the following tables:

BEE KEEPING.

BY MRS. ELLEN S. TUPPER, BRIGHTON, IOWA.

Bees, from the earliest ages of the world, have been invested with peculiar interest, and have claimed the attention not only of the unlearned and ignorant but of the student and naturalist. The mystery which so long enveloped them and their habits added not a little to the zest with which their history was investigated.

The discoveries of the last twenty years, however, have so elucidated the laws of bee instinct, that no important point is longer a subject of controversy or mystery; and in the light now thrown upon the subject no branch of moral economy can be more definitely regulated, or conducted with such absolute certainty of success.

The management of bees can only be successful when conducted with a per fect understanding of their natural history, and in accordance with the instincts which govern them. In the words of one of the most eminent apiarians in our country, "The business may be viewed, first, as a science having for its object the attainment of a correct knowledge of all that pertains to the life, habits, and instincts of the honey bee; and, secondly, as a practical art, which regards all the attainments thus made, and to be made, as the only reliable foundation of successful management." The laws which govern these wonderful little insects are peculiar to themselves, differing from those which govern everything else. They are simple, and one can manage them in almost any way so long as he does not go counter to their instincts; but they are fixed and immutable, and when we deviate from them in the smallest particular loss must follow. To be successful, then, in the practical art, the science on which it is founded must be thoroughly understood.

All these laws have been so fully and clearly explained in various able works on the subject that to enter on them here would be superfluous; this paper, therefore, will treat only of the practical, and aim to give direction and advice as to the management of bees, in such a way that they shall ever be the season, yield a profit to their owner.

every year,

what

rules

I shall recommend nothing that I have not fully tested, and give no which I have not myself followed with profit. The business requires but lite capital, and so little strength that it may be made an agreeable recreation far the man of toil, and a most remunerative employment for invalids. There is n part of the work required which is not suitable for women; and now, when many are looking for new avenues of female labor, I would that I could induce some to find health and pecuniary profit in this business. In almost every part of the United States honey-producing plants abound; no other country world is so rich in them, and yet this great source of wealth is comparatively undeveloped.

in the

By the official report of the Department of the Interior, it appears that there was produced in 1860, in the whole United States, only 23,306,357 pounds of honey, which is about half the amount of maple sugar produced the same year. For the same year the little kingdom of Denmark produced 4.758.20) pounds of honey. The island of Corsica paid, for many years, an annual tribute of 200,000 pounds of wax-which presupposes the production of from two

three million pounds of honey. The island contains only 20,200 square miles. In the province of Attica, in Greece, containing only 45 square miles and 20,000 inhabitants, 20,000 hives were kept, and an average obtained from each of thirty pounds of honey and two pounds of wax. East Friesland, a province of Holland, containing 1,200 square miles, maintained for twenty years an average of 2,000 colonies to the square mile.

I mention these facts here to show what is done with bees in different parts of Europe. Now, if these results can be obtained there, what may not be done among our rich plants, by a system of intelligent bee culture. No part of the world is more rich in honey (excepting, perhaps, California) than Iowa, and yet here, in 1865, were found but 87,118 hives of becs, or little more than 15 to every square mile. These hives yielded only 1,117,833 pounds of honey and wax, or about 13 pounds average to each hive. In view of facts like these, how important to encourage, in every possible way, the increase of bees, and circulate facts regarding their intelligent culture.

HIVES.

For fifty years Yankee ingenuity was busy in the construction of hives which should secure marvellous yields of honey and increase of bees. The idea was to invent something which should do the work for them. All such inventions (and their name is legion) proved failures, as might have been expected, since it is a fixed fact that bees will gather and store just as much honey in an old hollow log or an old barrel, while all is right with them, as in any hive of any patent. The object, then, in having anything else for them is not to aid the bees in storing honey or raising a brood, but to assist the owner in getting the surplus honey in the best form, without injuring the bees, and also to give him the control of the interior of the hive, so that he can tell what is wrong, and apply the remedy. From the time of Huber such an invention has been thought desirable, but it was not until our day that such a one was made.

Dzierzon, of Germany, in 1838, invented a hive in which the combs were made upon bars, and which were intended to give control of the combs; but they were too imperfect in their construction for general use. In 1852 Rev. Mr. Langstroth patented a hive, in which each comb was to be made on a movable frame which could readily be lifted out at pleasure, and thus a new era in bee keeping was cominenced. There is nothing in these hives which is intended to perform the labor of the bees or their keeper. They are simply aids to the work. The great advantage which they possess is the command which they give of every comb, placing it in your power to know certainly the condition of your bees.

In the common hives it is easy to tell when your bees are prosperous and all is right. It is equally easy to tell when something is wrong, but not so easy to find out what that something is. You may perceive that the bees decrease, and suspect that they have lost their queen; or notice that they work with less energy, and think possibly (as is often the case) that they have too much honey stored in combs where the young should be. But there is no way to ascertain positively, and often before you decide the matter it is decided for you by the colony becoming worthless. In the movable-comb hive it is your own fault if you do not know positively all the time that there is no trouble. If a hive is queenless it is soon ascertained by examining the combs, where the presence or absence of gs determines the matter. In this case another queen, or the egg from which to raise one, can be at once provided. If too much honey has by some accident been stored in the centre combs, one or more can be exchanged for empty ones, which the queen will gladly fill with eggs to replenish the hives.

And here let me say that this trouble I find to be one of quite common occurrence. During a plentiful yield of honey the bees, in their eagerness to store it, often stint the queen for room in which to deposit her eggs. I have often seen

this in movable.comb hives, where the remedy can be applied in a moment. This is only one proof among many that it is not always safe to trust to the instinct of bees any more than that of any other animals.

Another advantage of these hives is the facility with which drone comb can be removed, or its building prevented. One who has not examined the matter would be slow to believe how much honey is needlessly consumed every year in drone raising. Here, again, the bee instinct falls far short of reason. When bees live wild, in isolated situations, the rearing of many drones no doubt conduces to the safety of the young queens; yet a preponderance of drone comb is, I am convinced, partly accidental. Late in the season, if honey is very abundant, and little brood being then raised, many colonies construct drone comb to enable them to store faster than they can do in the worker combs. The next spring they do not, of course, tear it down and build others, and, being there, the queen deposits her eggs in it, and drones are thus reared. It is also well known that colonies, while queenless from any cause, build drone combs, if they build any, and in the hives of such colonies there is a surplus for the next year. Now, if a hundred hives are kept together, and drones are raised in one or two of them, it is enough for all. Therefore, it is easy to see the economy of a hive in which drone raising can be restricted at will, and the honey used in raising and afterwards in feeding them be saved.. I say "restricted," for I have never found it best to leave any hive entirely without drone comb. It is better to leave a few inches in some central comb in every hive; otherwise, at the swarming season, they will lengthen out the worker cells and raise some drones. If they have room for a few it seems to satisfy them.

Again, the prosperity of a colony depends much on the age of the queen. All must have perceived the difference in prosperity of swarms side by side, in the same kind of hives and in the same location; one will vigorously increase and store up honey, while the other barely lives. In many cases this is caused by the difference in the age of the queen, as any one will ascertain who takes the trouble to mark the hives containing young queens. After the second year the queen is far less prolific, and then much is gained by removing her, which is easily done in these hives. It is objected by some that this is "unnatural;" but I would ask, is it any more so than to kill a hen after she is too old to yield many eggs, or to shear a sheep, or break a colt? Why may we not use bees contrary to their nature as well as domestic animals?

The strengthening of weak swarms is also facilitated by these hives. Such colonies will always be found where many bees are kept, and by the aid of these frames they may be built up into strong and vigorous ones; honey, bee-bread, and young bees being taken from a stand well able to spare it, and given to those perishing from the want of it. In this way many worthless swarms have been converted into excellent colonies. In the fall all such weak swarms may be united with strong ones, which are improved by the addition. In the spring the same thing can be done, and your hives kept always equalized and strong. Old or soiled comb can also be taken away when you please. But the pruning of old comb, which is practiced by many every year, is in most casti unnecessary. So long as it is free from mould, it is good to store honey or to rear brood in. I invariably find, all other things being equal, that bees winter better in old comb than in new. Bees have been kept in the same comb twelve years in succession, doing as well the last year as the first. When the cost honey in building new combs is considered, the advantage of hives in which you can save all good pieces is very apparent.

It is not necessary to have these frames in a complicated hive; nor in com mending them do I mean to indorse the hundred and one traps for the ignorant, which in many hives are added to them. You need no slides, nor hinges, net moth traps, nor patent ventilators, nor non-swarmers. These are not only use less, but most of them injurious to the bees. Neither would I ever keep

bees