186 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



THE OYSTER INDUSTRY ALONG THE COAST. 



Oysters are very plentiful all along, and a 

 description here of the way they are handled 

 will perhaps answer for any, especially the way 

 they are handled in small places. 



A little building stands out in the river, on 

 piles. A woman and her children seem to have 

 charge. The boys go out in boats, and pull up 

 the oysters with a pair of long handled tongs, 

 something lil<e two steel garden-rakes riveted 

 together, after the manner of a blacksmith's 

 tongs. The rakes are spread open, dropped to 

 the bottom of the river, and the handles pulled 

 together as the oysters are lifted into the boat. 

 The boys run the boat up to the side of the lit- 

 tle building, and a smaller boy takes a hammer 

 and breaks the cluster of shells apart. The 

 mother then pries open the oyster, empties the 

 contents into a large tin can; and a pretty 

 little miss with her wheel (a regular two-wheel- 

 ed bicycle) then takes the oysters all over town 

 in a little tin Lail. Like the ice manufactured 

 here, they are gathered and carried around to 

 customers as fast as wanted. The day's work 

 consists in supplying the demand. Dr. Oren 

 tells me oysters grow only where fresh and salt 

 water mingle. Where streams of fresh water 

 run into the ocean, oysters are found along the 

 shores. They are good only in the winter time. 

 They spawn along in the spring, the spawn 

 floating on the water and catching fast to sand, 

 stones, etc.. as the tide comes in and goes out. 



Oysters are large enough to eat when about 

 one year old. If you want great big ones, how- 

 ever, you must wait until they are two years 

 old or more. 1 have heard people, say the 

 oysters are finer up farther north; but 1 cer- 

 tainly never found any more agreeable to my 

 taste than what we have here in Florida. I 

 could not help being impressed with the fact 

 that this wonderful— this tremendous supply of 

 luscious and nourishing food— is a special provi- 

 dence, or, as I have loved to term it, only fui- 

 other one of God's gifts. The great mounds of 

 empty shells seem to attest that oysters have 

 been a favorite food of mankind away back in 

 the earlier ages. 



In many places along the seashore there is a 

 hard sandy beach sloping gently toward the 

 water, but otherwise as Hat and level as a floor, 

 and almost as hard. It seems almost incredi- 

 ble that the receding waves should leave the 

 wet sand so compact that a carriage-wheel 

 scarcely leaves an imprint. Yet such is true. 

 Saturday, Jan. 3t;, I took my first extensive 

 wheel-ride. I made the distance from Daytona 

 to Ormond, 6 miles, in 25 minutes. Perhaps I 

 have mentioned that, for a month or more, I 

 have been suffering from a cough and frequent 

 chills, and I had begun to be almost afraid that 

 even Florida wasn't going to drive them away; 

 but when I got to riding my wheel at a good 

 speed, with my mouth wide open, taking in the 

 salt sea air, it seemed as if the chills and 

 bronchial trouble melted away like frost before 

 the sun. When one undertakes to leave the 

 wet sand and get up on main land he encoun- 

 ters dry sand that drifts and piles up exactly 

 like snow in the North. The sand is so exceed- 

 ingly white and snowlike that one almost un- 

 consciously pulls up his coat collar as he at- 

 tempts to wade through the drifts. Of course, 

 no wheeling can be done through this shifting 

 sand. 



As I passed the long bridge at Daytona I 

 noticed a party of men and women fishing from 

 the bridge. This is such a common thing that 

 I paid no attention to it until somebody pulled 

 out a two or three pound fish. I decided to 

 slack up my wheel and look at the catch. Just 

 then somebody spoke out, " Why, there's A. I. 

 Root on his wheel, as true as 1 live." 



I began wondering who in the world away 

 down here in Florida should speak of me in 

 that way. Just then the cashier of our bank 

 in Medina, O., put out his hand, with a genial 

 exclamation of surprise, for he was the 

 man who had pulled out the big fish. Then 

 another Medina man — in fact, a near neighbor 

 of ours — came forwai'd with his greeting, and I 

 was surrounded by some of our own people. 



I forgot to say that, on the seashore, there are 

 many wonderful things. Beautiful shells of 

 variety without end are brought up by almost 

 every receding wave, and occasionally a jelly- 

 fish as big as a tin milk-pan. Now, they call 

 this a .fjs/i; but imagine a piece of the most 

 transparent glass, the size of a common sauce- 

 dish, and you have exactly one of the smaller 

 jelly-fish. The only thing that makes it look 

 like a plant or animal is that, on one side, there 

 is a series of scallops as regular and perfect as 

 ever seen in any glassware decorations. The 

 animal can not have any organs of nutrition or 

 digestion — at least, so it seems to me, for it is 

 so transparent ; yet the keenest eye can see 

 nothing. Right here I am told that the above 

 is not quite true, and a lady says they have 

 sense enough and life enough to sting, and that 

 she has been stung herself. On further ques- 

 tioning she says they do not sting unless you 

 break them open. Then they exude an acrid 

 juice. Perhaps some scientific reader can tell 

 us more about this queer phenomenon. On 

 further questioning, those who are acquainted 

 with them say that, if you pick them up, they 

 will pull all to pieces because they are made 

 entirely of soft jelly. 



Our next move brought us to the home of J. 

 Y. Detwiler, who lives on the peninsula oppo- 

 site New Smyrna. Friend Detwiler has a 

 beautiful house, visible for a mile or more in 

 different directions along the coast. As he has 

 been for many years more or less of a bee-keep- 

 er, our bee-keeping friends will find his rooms 

 to let quite convenient, both to the seashore 

 and the pretty little town of New Smyrna. 

 Sunday morning we found our way to the 

 Congregational Sunday-school. I think friend 

 Detwiler introduced me to the superintendent 

 as something of a Sunday-school worker, and 

 very soon 1 was called upon to speak to the 

 school. At the intermission between Sunday- 

 school and preaching service the pastor of the 

 church, finding out who I was, insisted that I 

 should occupy the pulpit in his place. He gave 

 as a reason that quite a number of people were 

 present that day from Hawks Park, the home 

 of W. S. Hart, and that, by previous arrange- 

 ment, he had agreed to let me talk to the bee- 

 keepers and others who might be present. Here 

 I was in a predicament. 1 had not thought of 

 any thing of the kind; in fact, our Sunday- 

 school quarterly had been left at some of our 

 previous stopping-places so I had not even 

 given my usual thought and preparation to the 

 subject of the lesson. However, I hastily chose 

 a text and spoke as well as I could. At the 

 close of the meeting the good pastor announced 

 that A. I. Root would speak again briefly at 

 the Christian Endeavor meeting, Sunday even- 

 ing. As the Endeavor meeting was at seven 

 o'clock, and friend Detwiler lives more than a 

 mile away across the water, we were obliged to 

 go to the meeting in the evening after dark, in 

 a sail-boat, as we had in the morning; and it is 



