Watercress should be carefully prepared for market. Gather and bunch at once, to prevent unnecessary handling. Cut the stalks evenly after the bunches are tied up, and pack in light crates lined with hay or moss. Place bunches closely together in rows, with hay or moss between layers. Ship on late trains if they have to go by express, to avoid exposure to the heat of the sun during transit. When small quantities are going to private customers, pack in strawberry or grape boxes, as there is less likelihood of the cress heating and spoiling when packed in this way. MY EXPERIENCE WITH BEES The old-fashioned hive was so inconvenient and wasteful that many people who date their knowledge of bee-keeping from the old homestead will find it difficult to believe that apiculture has developed into a practical, money-making industry during the last twenty years, until now the average amount of honey put on the market each year is upward of a hundred million pounds, representing a money value of from eight to ten million dollars. In a favourable locality one hive, with its average colony of thirty-five thousand workers and a queen, will turn out from thirty to forty pounds, besides the fifteen or twenty necessary to feed the hive through the winter. The vicious temper of the old-time black bee has much to do with the neglect of this profitable industry. The Italian bees are, however, so much better as honey-gatherers that they are almost universally kept now, and are so gentle in disposition that even a nervous person can easily learn to manipulate them without fear of stings. The principal honey-producing plants in our Eastern states are fruit bloom of all kinds, locust, white clover, crimson clover, basswood, sumac, goldenrod, buckwheat, sunflowers, grapes and asters. Of these, clover, basswood and buckwheat provide the bulk of our honey crop in most localities, although large yields are often obtained from others. Fruit bloom, though yielding much honey, comes so early in the season that it is mostly consumed by the bees in brood-rearing. Clover commences the last of May, lasts several weeks, and yields a light-coloured honey of fine flavour. Basswood blooms the first part of July, lasts about ten days, and produces a very white honey. Buckwheat blooms in August and the first part of September. It gives a dark-red honey with a strong flavour. My apiary started with three hives, bought for two dollars at a farm auction. I knew nothing about bees or hives at the time; the owner was not there to be questioned, so it was a truly risky proceeding, not to be recommended. But if chance makes it possible to pick up one or two good hives of the box, movable-frame style, and bees of any sort for a few dollars, take them and improve the stock by introducing good Italian queens, which can be bought for two dollars and fifty cents each from any bee-supply house. They can be shipped through the mail in small cages.