502 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Aug. 1 



basin in such volume that nobody need 

 fear "wasting the water." In fact, a clean 

 wash-bowl stands on a bench right beside 

 the reservoir, and anybody who chooses can 

 take a bowlful of thewater out on the green 

 grassy lawn, and wash off the coal cinders 

 and dust to his heart's content. If more 

 railway companies would add such a lava- 

 tory, or a similar one, what a boon it would 

 be "to a tired and dusty public! There is 

 one trouble, however — not every locality 

 can well furnish such beautiful clear water 

 as we find everywhere in Northern Michi- 

 gan. The streams tliat come down from 

 the springs \\\) among the hills are all pure 

 clean water. When they run over the peb- 

 bles they do not lea\e that disagreeable 

 muddy incrustation so common here in 

 Ohio. " I suppose it is owing largely to the 

 sandy soil and the sandy hills. 



Iceland and 1 took a trij) on the train of 

 about ten miles, which landed us within 

 half a mile of our cabin in the woods. Al- 

 though our suit-cases were rather heavy, 

 together with a basket of ]irovision to last 

 over Sunday and during the 4th of July, we 

 took a short cut through the woods to see 

 the spring that supplies the water for our 

 ranch. There it was, sure enough. A ^4- 

 inch iron pipe was pouring a stream the full 

 size of the pipe into a barrel set in the 

 ground right in the midst of the cool dense 

 woods. This water is soft enough to wash 

 with soap; and the severe drouth seemed 

 to make no difference with the volume of 

 it. That old home in the woods had been 

 neglected for two full years. I did not get 

 around to see it last summer at all. Two 

 years ago I told you about the beautiful 

 mulberries on two trees near the door. 

 They w^ere just the same on this visit. One 

 of the trees bore black mulberries, while the 

 other one bore pink or white ones: and it 

 seemed to me as though I never saw fruit of 

 any kind packed so closely together on 

 every limb and twig as I saw on that whole 

 tree. Here in Ohio the birds get about all 

 of our early mulberries and cherries, almost 

 before they are ripe; but up in that great 

 fruit region of Northern Michigan there do 

 not seem to be enough birds to go around. 

 The berries were so ripe that they are dro])- 

 ping on the ground; and by spreading out a 

 newspaper and shaking a limb it is an easy 

 matter to fill a berry-basket in a twinkling. 

 I do not know the name of this pink mul- 

 berry. The fruit is small — nothing like the 

 mulberries in Florida in ])oint of size; but 

 they have a rich and delicious taste, remind- 

 ing me every time I taste them of some 

 beautiful custard. Besides the mulberries 

 there was a great plenty of currants from 

 the eight varieties I planted there years 

 ago. There were also a few ripe cherries. It 

 is interesting to note what varieties of fruit 

 and shrubberj^ would make their way with- 

 out any care in pruning or cultivation in 

 two years or more. The mulberries grew 

 all right. The apple-trees, or most of them, 

 were making a satisfactory growth and con- 

 tained some fruit, but they were hardly old 



enough, however, to bear very much. The 

 cherry-trees, or most of them, have suffered 

 either from lack of cultivation or a suitable 

 mulch. The ])each-trees were getting along 

 very well, but were damaged by many dead 

 limbs from a lack of judicious ])runing. 

 My asi)aragus jjlantation did finely; but 

 most of the other stufT put out years ago 

 had gone down in the battle, or what Dar- 

 win called "the survival of the fittest."' 



Sunday morning we were up bright and 

 early and over in the Bingham Sunday- 

 school. As the teacher was absent I had 

 my old class of thirty or forty bright boys 

 and girls. Before closing the school the 

 good woman who had been for so many 

 years superintendent asked me to give the 

 school a little talk. Our lesson for that 

 Sunday was the one about the mustard seed 

 and the leaven put in the meal. I told the 

 friends assembled there that I had, during 

 ray busy life, dabbled in many enter]irises. 

 I had tried chickens, strawberries, potatoes, 

 honey-bees, and some other things. Some 

 of my ventures, in time and money, have 

 given good dividends, and some have not. 

 Then I closed by saying something like 

 this: 



"Dear friends, I am getting almost too 

 old for niany more kinds of business. I 

 may be very soon called by the good Father 

 to leave this earthly home; but when I feel 

 my time has come I shall look back over 

 my life, and I am sure I shall feel that the 

 time and money I have invested here in 

 this Bingham church and Sunday-school 

 is one of the m,oi^f satiafcictory investments 

 I have ever made. I shall think of it as 

 'treasures laid up in heaven, where moth 

 and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves 

 do not break through nor steal.' When I 

 first came into your midst, something like 

 ten years ago, when they told me there was 

 no Sunday-school here at all I started out 

 one Sunday morning, and, with the help of 

 some who, I think, are here to-day, we had 

 a bright well-attended Sunday-school before 

 half-past ten o'clock, the time for the meet- 

 ing. If I am correct there has ))een a Sun- 

 day-school here winter and sunimer ever 

 since. But some of you told me it could 

 not well be kei)t up during the winter be- 

 cause the snow drifted so deep down around 

 this little church between the hills. I 

 asked some of the boys the ipiestion 

 whether the snow ever got too deep to make 

 a i)ath to the saloon near by. Well, may 

 the Lord be praised for the fact that now 

 there is a good i)ath to the church ev3ry 

 winter. But there is no path to the saloon 

 at all, because for several years there has 

 been no saloon at all. The influence of this 

 Sunday-school, that I am proud to say I 

 helped to start on that spring morning, has 

 been like the leaven that the good woman 

 hid in three measures of meal in the lesson 

 we have been studying this morning. I 

 have been told by i)eople who live in the 

 neighborhood that the Sunday-school and 

 the church have leavened the whole com- 

 munity round about here. When dear 



