No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 349 



Apiculture is one of the most interesting of vocations, yet it is 

 not unattended by failures and reverses. The Apiculturist has 

 enemies to contend with as well as diseases to fight. The disease 

 of foul-brood which prevails in different parts of the State has been 

 known to wipe out entire apiaries. It is to the bee what smallpox 

 is to the human race, and is as deadly in its contagion. A single 

 bee, carrying a load of honey from a diseased colony, may infect a 

 whole apiary, and if proper precautions are not used the disease will 

 destroy the whole apiary in a short time. A number of states have 

 passed laws for the control of this disease. State inspectors are ap- 

 pointed whose duty it is to inspect apiaries with the power to use 

 remedies to control the disease similar to the powers of other de- 

 partments of the State with reference to other diseases. The Penn- 

 sylvania bee-keepers tried to have a similar law passed in this State, 

 but so far have failed. It is the sincere hope that this Board will 

 give the Association their support in the passage of a law during 

 the present session of the Legislature, to stamp out this disease and 

 place this State on equal footing with other states. 



There is no line of work that affords a keener pleasure and deeper 

 interest than keeping bees. It gives an opportunity for nature study, 

 and with proper attention will bring in ample rewards for the labor 

 expended. Apiculture is a branch of agriculture and its relation 

 and value to it and to horticulture are perhaps not fully understood. 

 Bees help in polleuizing the blossoms of plants and fruits and help 

 Nature in perfecting its processes. The fruit grower has no better 

 friend than the bee-keeper. On the other hand the fields and or- 

 chards that are not visited by bees waste upon the air a fragrance 

 and delicious sweetness every day that would satisfy many an appe- 

 tite and even grace the table of a king. The horticulturist and the 

 farmer are friends of the bee-keeper in supplying the pasturage for 

 his bees, but when the horticulturist and the farmer becomes a bee- 

 keeper also, then he Vv'ill realize the truth that "the Lord helps him 

 who helps himself." 



WHO GO MAD? 



Insanity Not a Rural Disease. 



By DR. GEO. G. GROFF. Sanitarian. 



Frequently, views widely held, and zealously propagated by earn- 

 est writers and speakers, have yet no basis whatever in fact. Such 

 is the belief that insanity is especially a disease which attacks people 

 A^ho live on farms and in small country villiages. The idea has 

 recently been put forth in the following form: 



"It has almost passed into a proverb that the chief recruits to the 

 insane asylums are farmers' wives and women from small quiet 

 centres, whose horizons are so narrowed that at last the contraction 

 shuts out reason. The tendency to this dreary state of things is 

 far from being the woman's fault; it is her misfortune, and one doees 



