1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



485 



Notes of Travel 



ON THE WHEEI,. 



The sleep of ii liibdrlng man is sweet.— Ecc. 5:l:i. 



I have bi'(Mi, for weeks back, proposing to 

 take a trip ott' on iny wheel as soon as the roads 

 got so th(^y could be trusted for two or three 

 days, and also as soon as I could get business 

 fixed up a little ahead. With the tremendous 

 plant-trade we have had, and the backward 

 spring, I have been having more on my 

 hands, perhaps, than I have any business hav- 

 ing. I was restless and nervous nights, and I 

 did not get my accustomed sleep. Mrs. Root 

 and the boys urged me to go off and recruit up, 

 no matter what happened to busii.ess. One 

 night I was so nervous that my wife asked me 

 what the trouble was. I told her that I dream- 

 ed of being at a bee-convention, and was called 

 upon to deliver an address upon beeswax. I 

 forgot, in my sleep, that time is usually giv- 

 en to speakers to make some preparation for 

 their talk; but it seemed that I was there be- 

 fore the audience, with no preparation what- 

 ever,* so I gave a string of facts about beeswax. 

 As I proceeded in my discourse I began to feel 

 that it was loo much dry details, and that my 

 friends would expect A. 1. Root to throw in a 

 little pleasantry : and so I remarked, "Bee- 

 keepers' wives sometimes call their husbands 

 by the endearing term of 'Old Beeswax,' when 

 they feel sorry for them;" but I was really loo 

 worn out and overworked to be funny, and so I 

 woke up. Mrs. Root said I uiust start off for a 

 vacation; so I fixed up affairs as well as I 

 could, and started. Of course, we went on our 

 wheels. I say we. for Ernest volunteered to go 

 the first eight or ten miles with me, to " set the 

 pace " and to see that my wheel was in trim for 

 a long run. It is well he did, for every thing 

 was tightened up so close before I started, that, 

 when we got on to a bit of sandy road, the chain 

 became rigid in passing the centers of the 

 elliptical sprocket. While Ernest was giving a 

 little more " slack," I took my first long draft 

 of delicious spring water. He advised me not 

 to drink much water or any thing else when on 

 a long ride; but I told him I did not agree. A 

 few miles more, and we reached one of my 

 favorite haunts of last summer — a great soft- 

 water spring that comes out of a cave in the 

 rocks at the rate of almost a hariel a minute. 

 As it sparkled over its gravelly bed, I drank 

 again and again, and felt refreshed and in- 

 vigorated. If there is a more delicious and re- 

 freshing drink on the face of the earth than the 

 water of that Waltz spring, about two mihiS 

 east of Sharon Center, in this county of Medina, 

 I have never found it. The proprietor says 

 that everbody can drink of these waters just 

 as long and as much as he chooses, and no bad 

 results ever follow. My experience agrees with 

 this entirely. But I have always been there 

 on a wheel, and have gone away on a wheel. 



About ten o'clock I reached a celery-farm 

 about four miles east of Copley, Summit Co. 

 The proprietor, a young man, a relative of mine, 

 seemed very glad to see me. I found him pull- 

 ing manure out of the back end of a wagon 

 with a potato-hook, said manure being drawn 

 into deep trenches made in the black muck. 

 After this libiM-al dose of rich old compost, the 

 muck is pulled back over the manure, and the 

 celery-plants are placed on to|). Oh how beau- 

 tiful his plant-garden did look! Thousands 

 upon thousands of dark-green plants rested 

 against the black mucky background, and 

 looked like so many bright-green stars on a jet- 



* Mrs. Root suggests T h&ve a, fa«hiuii of getting 

 myself into such predicaments. 



black setting. Like myself, friend A. keeps 

 lots of boys to pull out weeds, and do the trans- 

 planting. I should think he had a million beau- 

 tiful plants; but none of his plants are for sale— 

 they are simply for u^e on his own farm. After 

 several years of experience his conclusion is 

 about like my own— that nothing seems to suit 

 cehiry as well as well-composted and well-roited 

 stable manure. This he buys in the city of 

 Akron, and draws it on to his grounds all win- 

 ter long, where it is piled up about four feet 

 high, with the top of his heaps exactly level, 

 and allowed to become well rotted before it is 

 drawn out to the trenches. Like the rest of us, 

 he has suffered from excessive rains, especially 

 when it rained 60 hours without intermission 

 during the middle of May. 



" Why. friend A., isn't it possible for you to 

 get a sufficient outlet, so your ditches would not 

 fill clear up to the top, and drown out your 

 stuff?" * 



He stopped a minute, and then said, "Listen 1" 



I listened, and there was a sort of chanking, 

 or snorting, away over in the bushes in the 

 swamp. Finally, said I, " What is that noise 

 off' in the woods ? " 



" Why, can't you tell by the sound ? " 



I thought there was something strangely 

 familiar, and that I ought to "catch on;" but 

 while memory was groping to fix on the point 

 where I last heard such a sound as that, he re- 

 plied, laughingly: 



• Why. it is that very same steam-rooter that 

 you pictured in Gleanings, and had so much 

 to >ay about. It has finished its other job. and 

 got over here, and is now tramping at a good 

 pace over to my swamp, +0 let the water off." 



Then we talked about the different kinds of 

 celery. He raises only the White Plume and 

 the (Jiant Pascal. He said that, if it had not 

 been for thi^ Pascal last season, his business 

 would have been almost a failure. Then we 

 talked about celery running up to seed. He says 

 he invariably has trouble from plants started 

 under glass; but when he begins to sow his 

 seed in the open ground, there is but little if 

 any further trouble. Some strains of seed shoot 

 up more than others; but there an; m.any things 

 we do not quite understand, which seem to 

 have an influence in the matter. You may re- 

 member 1 mentioned having a strain of White 

 Plume that did not seem to run np to seed, even 

 if the plants were started as early as the first of 

 January. Well, a week ago I was proud to 

 show some plants that were wintered over un- 

 der glass. In fact, I was ready to swing my hat 

 and tell you that I had made a success in win- 

 tering celery where it grew, on th(^ plan of the 

 new celery culture. The celery itself was on 

 the wagon, and was beginning to sell pretty 

 well. But we had four or five hot days, nnd I 

 fear we did not give these plants quite enough 

 water; for, almost with one accord, they start- 

 ed to send out seed-stalks. May be the bed got 

 too dry ; and my impression is. that, where 

 strong roots are growing only seven inches 

 apart, as in the new celery culture, there must 

 be a tremendous amount of water or they will 

 fail. The ground may be api)arently wet all 

 around them; but so many strong plants in .<o 

 small a space literally lick the water up bv the 

 barrelfuls. 



After giving my energetic and industrious 

 young fri<md another exhortation to get him a 

 lumse and wife before he went any further in 

 building uj) a business I mounted my wheel 

 once more. The road was beautiful, and I 

 made the remaining three miles to the city of 

 Akron in a very short time. Please remember 

 I have not before failed to have a nap just be- 

 fore dinner, for many months. Here I was, 

 doing heavy muscular work, without feeling a 



