1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



143 



really " guilty as charged "he ivould confess; 

 if not, he would fight it out. We decided to 

 have the "fracas" all in one issue, and ask- 

 ed Dr. Miller to reply, which he does. — Ed.] 



Mr. Pressler is anxious that no injustice 

 shall be done to one who can no longer de- 

 fend himself. For this I thank him heartily, 

 whether I am guilty or not of having done 

 any injustice to Mr. Alexander. Moreover, 

 if I have in any way made any wrong impres- 

 sion as to the truth about the treatment of 

 foul brond, the man who calls my attention 

 to the wrong does me a friendly turn; so 

 again I thank Mr. Pressler. 



I must confess that it comes to me as a 

 great surprise that in writing what I did I 

 should be found doing gross injustice to the 

 memory of Mr Alexander, fur it was my de- 

 sire and design to give him the fullest credit 

 for having given to bee-keepers his treat- 

 ment of European foul brood. Certainly, 

 without his teachings I do not think 1 should 

 have tried any other treatment than throw- 

 ing the diseased bees upon found tion. 



I think, however, that the injustice Mr. 

 Pressler has in mind is not so much— per- 

 haps not at all — trying to withhold any credit 

 due Mr. Alexander as it is misrepresenting 

 his teachings. I am very sure that nothing 

 of that kind was mtentional, and I think it 

 quite possible that Mr. Pressler's understand- 

 ing of the matter comes from having the two 

 treatments mixed — the Alexander treatment 

 and the treatment I used. And right there 

 may be seen the danger of getting into trou- 

 ble by taking either one of two courses If 

 I made no attempt to give credit to Mr. Alex- 

 ander, then s me one might say, "That's the 

 Alexander treatment, distorted, to be sure, 

 and the fellow gives no credit for it, trying 

 to palm it off as his own " If I took the oth- 

 er course, which I did take, giving Mr. Alex- 

 ander full credit, then there is the danger of 

 the understanding that something I have 

 done may be understood as being according 

 to Mr. Alexander's teaching. Well, ''d rath- 

 er be thought a liar than to be thought both 

 a liar and a thief, so I'm glad I took the course 

 I did. 



I beg, however, friend Pressler, that you 

 will not bel eve me guilty of either of the 

 bad things 1 have named; but if I have in any 

 way misrepresented, please set it down to 

 the fact that I am not an adept at properly 

 expressing mjself (the use of the English 

 language always has bothered me) ; fori want 

 very much to retain as much as I can of that 

 regard you say you have for me. 



And now let us look at the bill of particu- 

 lars. The first item is "That neither Dr. 

 Miller nor its editor is even familiar with the 

 literal knowledge of the Alexander treat- 

 ment." I am not solicitous about the editor 

 — meaning, of course, the editor of GLEAN- 

 INGS— for if he isn't guilty of that he is guilty 

 of other things; but I want to plead for my- 

 self that at least I have read with very much 

 interest the article by Mr. Alexander in 



Gleanings for 1905, page 1125, which I be- 

 lieved, and still believe, gives correctly the 



Alexander treatment for European foul 

 brood. I am willing to say at least this much 

 for the editor: That, as he appended an un- 

 usually long footnote, the probability is that 

 he read the article. 



You say, friend Pressler, that nowhere in 

 all Mr. Alexander's writings can you find 

 where he speaks of "ten days." Well, no- 

 where in all my writings do 1 know of any 

 place where I said any thing about his speak- 

 ing of ten days. In the article in question, 

 page 760, I speak of ten days four times, but 

 each time as being part of my treatment 

 varying from the Alexander treatment, and 

 the footnote mentions it in the same way. 



You say you can't find where he speaks of 

 ' ' introducing a laying queen on the twentieth 

 day." Well, I can't find where 1 said he 

 spoke of it. But I came so near it that there's 

 no use quibbling about the difference. I 

 gave as the Alexander treatment, page 760, 

 to let the colony be queenless three weeks 

 and then give it a laymg queen. And now I 

 have the very humiliating confession to make, 

 that, until I began writing this paragraph, I 

 didn't know that in giving the resume of the 

 Alexander treatment quoted by you, I had 

 in the least misrepresented the said treat- 

 ment, and turned to page 1125, 1905, to quote 

 Mr. Alexander's own words about giving a 

 laying queen. (I think I had never before 

 given his own words in quotation marks.) 

 What was my amazement to find that, instead 

 of "laying" the word was "virgin"! I had 

 read it over a number of times (twice at 

 least after reading your article), but each 

 time thinking "laying" as I read "virgin," 

 discovering my error only when I went to 

 make a direct quotation with the proper 

 quotation marks. Talking it over in the fam- 

 ily, one member asked me, with just a touch 

 of reproach in the question, "How did you 

 come to make such a mistake ? " 



"1 don't know," I replied, "do you ever 

 do any thing of the kind? " 



"Um-huh,"she replied, with her mouth 

 full of pins. 



And there you are. It's a queer trick of 

 the mind that I don't suppose I'm at all alone 

 in. I've done it occasionally all my life, and 

 I'm afraid I'll never outgrow it. I can only 

 say that I am exceedingly sorry for the blun- 

 der, and express my thanks to you for call- 

 ing attention to it. 



You say you do not find "where he 

 'thought' his cure was efficient for Ameri- 

 can foul brood." Neither do I. Nor did I 

 say he thought so. As you put it, it is a pos- 

 itive statement that I knew he thought his 

 cure was efficient. There is some difference 

 between making a positive statement and 

 saying "I believe." There's a very wide 

 difference between saying "I believe he 

 thought his cure was efficient for foul brood" 

 and saying "I believe he thought it mighthe 

 so." I do not at all think that within the 

 next year three C' nts will buy a bushel of 

 good wheat, but I think it is within the range 

 of possibilities that it might do so. 



But I do not believe that you intentionally 

 misrepresented what I had said, for you im- 



