ILLINOIS STATE BEE- KEEPERS' ASSOCIATIOlSr. 205 



cation is progress. You cannot give it out as you would clothes or a 

 pair of shoes, it is growth; it takes time to get ideas across, and extension 

 bee-keeping is nothing more than an educational idea apphed toward 

 better bee-keeping. But I know some of you say, what is the use 

 of talking these things — the bee bulletins have said these things and 

 are saying them. Right there is where it lies — there is more power in 

 the live voice — viva voce. A point can be brought home by the voice 

 that no printed article can reach; if there were no merit in the living 

 voice, what good are text books? Why not hand the text books out 

 and say no more about it — that is all you need, go to it. 



How many would be educated if you followed that practice? 

 Extension, friends, is just that idea applied to the bee-keeping problems 

 of to-day. It is a human trait — a weakness I recognize, but it is char- 

 acteristic of all of us that we do not get the critical point, the necessary 

 point in a written article; the point that ought to be stressed. The 

 speaker can do it because he can put the stress where it ought to be. 



I want to state two or three cases that are illustrative. A man 

 wanted to build a bee cellar after a model that had been described in 

 detail; he read the description carefully, and then he built his cellar, 

 and when he got through, he had missed the essential point in the 

 whole article; when he took the writer to task for it, the writer showed 

 him the point he had missed. The man remarked, "But you shoved it 

 off in a side corner where I didn't notice it." 



A bee-keeper in Northern Indiana had made what he supposed was 

 a model packing case. He had also after packing the bottom and 

 top and side, inserted a thermometer, at which he looked almost daily 

 and was surprised to find the temperature only a few degrees higher 

 than outside air. He sent for an extension man. Sure enough this 

 was true; then he was asked to open the case so the packing could 

 be seen, and it was then apparent what the trouble was; he had used 

 coarse forest leaves, this year's gathering; when the extension man 

 pressed the packing down, it went almost half way down; the advice 

 given was to take out that packing, put in proper fine insulating 

 material, saw dust or something of that kind; he did so and after a 

 cold spell in January he wrote that the temperature stood 47 to 57. 

 And he said, ''Why could I have not seen that thing without your having 

 to come up here to tell me about it?" After telling some one about 

 swarm control he said to me: ''I am so glad you told us that; I have 

 read that many times in bee journals, but somehow I never seemed 

 to get the thing quite clear in my mind; you told us the reason for 

 every step as you went along; now I see it." 



Such statements as these are not uncommon, and this encourages 

 the field man who is endeavoring to do his best. 



Then again, a printed article oftentimes is biased, unconsciously 

 perhaps on the part of the writer, but there is prejudice in it, and the 

 article takes the side of trying to prove the point the WTitter has laid 

 down, so that the reader does not do his own thinking. 



The field man, if he is doing his duty, will not be a slave to any 

 one method. Unthinking bee-keepers are all too common; they never 

 get into the class of the best bee-keepers, and seldom the better bee- 

 keepers — so the field man has got to try to help his hearer to be broad 



