1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



803 



Our Homes 



By A. I. Root 



Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, 

 make known his deeds aniong the people. — I. 

 Chkon. 16 : 8. 



O give thanks unto the Lord: for he is good; for 

 his raercy endureth for ever.— I. Chron. 16 :34. 



Our Lord Jesus Christ was a son of David; 

 and in reading over this 16th chapter of I. 

 Chronicles I was wondering if I too were 

 not "a son of David." Of this I feel sure, 

 that David and I have many feelings in 

 common. Day after to-morrow is Thanks- 

 giving day, and it is, therefore, quite proper 

 ami natural that I should think of "giving 

 thanks unto the Lord;" but there is one par- 

 ticular reason whj"^ I feel thankful this bright 

 morning, for I have great faith that I have 

 made one more "great discovery," and a 

 discovery that may ultimately prove of 

 much benefit to the children of men. 



You may remember that I have several 

 times, as the seasons came around, spoken 

 of how much I enjoyed chestnuts, and how 

 beneficial they seemed to my health. This 

 season they were so scarce and high-priced 

 it seemed almost extravagant to enjoy my 

 favorite nuts. I think I paid 40 cts. a quart 

 for the first; but I afterward received four 

 quarts for a dollar — nice ones — and a dollar's 

 worth were brought down here to HorMa. 

 When they were almost gone I told Mrs. 

 Root I still considered them (roasted chest- 

 nuts) the most delicious food God had ever 

 given mankind, and that I should feel very 

 much lost when they were gone. Now right 

 here I want to make a considerable digres- 

 sion. Some time last winter I saw the fol- 

 lowing in Crenshaw Brothers' (Tampa, Fla.) 

 seed catalog: 



CHUFAS. 



In the light gray sandy soils of our State, unaided 

 l).v fertilizers, with fair cultivation on land that 

 will not produce from 5 to 10 bu. of corn per acre, 

 chii as will mature ro to 100 bushels, with but half 

 tht- cultivation that corn requires. They are an ex- 

 cellent hog food. Chickens and turkeys are also 

 especially fond i.f them, so that a crop, when grown, 

 can be fed both to poultry and hogs. The flesh of 

 the chufa is especially juicy and delicious. Chufas 

 can be planted from March to July, and a crop 

 made. Plant in 3-ft. rows, 1 to 2 seeds 18 in. apart. 

 It requires about one peck per acre. Qt., 20cts.: 

 peck, $1.25: bushel, S4.00. 



Before taking up the chufas as indicated 

 above, please pardon me for making still 

 finothev digression. I am writing this Home 

 Paper with (perhaps for the first time in 

 nearly thirty years) an up-to-date typewrit- 

 er. In my first letter home I said. "Please 

 excuse bad spelling and mistakes," not be- 

 cause I did noiknow how to spell and punc- 

 tuate, but because the new "contrivance" 

 wt)uld not say just what I meant to say. 

 Xdw, then, I read that statement in the cat- 

 alo;^: much as 1 wanted the people in Medina 

 to read my typewriter letter — to make due 

 alU>wance, because it was seedsman's cata- 

 log. Notwithstanding, I got considerably 



excited about chufas. After reading the 

 statement over several times I sent for half 

 a peck, and planted them at intervals, until 

 May. They came up rather poorly until 

 the very warm wet weather came on; and 

 when I got back here again in July I found 

 some of the hills a yard high and almost a 

 yard across. I suspect these large hills, 

 however, were where Wesley got a pretty 

 big dose of poultry manure all in one place. 

 With every hill like these few, the yield 

 might be something like the amount men- 

 tioned in the catalog; but in our soil, we so 

 far find it a lot of work to dig them. By 

 the way, I raised chufas when a boy, more 

 than fifty years ago, and I used to think 

 then they were almost equal to nuts when 

 dried, and I have used them here quite a 

 little in the place of nuts. There has al- 

 ways been one trouble however — the outside 

 coating is hard, and obviously hard to di- 

 gest, even if you do chew it "everlastingly." 

 In spite of all I can do, dear reader, 1 fear 

 there must be still another digression. You 

 probably all know how much has been said 

 about the importance of using whole-wheat 

 flour; and Terry, for the same reason, eats 

 raw wheat that he may get the whole or 

 nearly the whole of that outside shell put 

 there by the great Father, because he in- 

 tended it for food. Our good neighbor, Rev. 

 Ten Broeck, tells us that ihe rice of commerce 

 is spoiled in the same way by polishing off 

 the most valuable part; and Upton Sinclair 

 said somewhere that he was obliged to eat 

 the peelings of apples and potatoes in order 

 to get a proper amount of coarse material in 

 his food. For the same reason, cows and 

 horses must have hay as well as grain or 

 they can not thrive. Of course, potato skins 

 must be properly cooked to be used for food; 

 and away back when we children roasted 

 potatoes out of doors I discovered that the 

 paring, properly cooked, was the sweetest 

 and most delicious jiart of the whole potato 

 — that is, "when chewed a long while." 

 You see that, even when a boy, I was al- 

 most on to Fletcher's and Terry's " racket." 

 Well, now for my discovery: When chufas 

 are baked in the oven, something as we 

 roast peanuts, the outer covering is not only 

 easily masticated, but the nut is to me even 

 more delicious and nourishing than roasted 

 chestnuts. In all our northern cities, and 

 possibly in southern cities also, roasted 

 chestnuts are sold on the strt-et as a great 

 delicacy. Now, if the merits of roasted chu- 

 fas were well known I feel sure they would 

 prove at least a successful rival, and far — 

 yes, very far, ahead of the peanut, which is 

 such a great staple the world over. 



One thing more: I have all my life had 

 more or less trouble with constipation. Once 

 when castor oil, raw wheat, and even plenty 

 of my fa\orite apples failed, and I was un- 

 willing to resort to drugs. I applied to Er- 

 nest, as he usually has a remedy for almost 

 every thing. He directed me to eat a lot of 

 coar-se wheat bran; and if I warned a quick 

 result, to swallow a lot of it without much 

 chewing. It very speedily brought about 



