.276 



GLEANINGS IN BEE^CULTURE 



Apr. 1. 



leaves or pine straw, which must be wet, and tlien covered 

 two feet deep with dirt. On this put raw cotton seed to the 

 depth of six incites, and put as much more stable manure on 

 the cotton seed. On this put six or eight inches of leaf mold, 

 sandy loam, top soil from the woods or fence corners, and, if 

 nothing: better can be obtained, dry sand wijl do. On this, bed 

 your potatoes. Do not let them touch each other, and covtr 

 with two or three inches of the same light soil. Never put 

 clay or any stiff soil over or under your potatoes, unless you 

 want them to rot. They must have a porous soil to give them 

 air. Make your bed two or three weeks before you bed out 

 your potatoes, to give it time to go through a sweat, and 

 .settle. 



Now, I can not say which of the two is the better. 

 We can furnish potatoes for bedding- of either of 

 the above at ihe prices Riven in our last issue; and 

 we expect to bo able to have plants to s'-nd out by 

 the first of May. This is as early as will do to put 

 them outdoors in our locality; and the middle of 

 May would probably be safer. Better try all these 

 new tiling's on a small scale first; and as you make 

 a success of tliem, tben enlarge j'our field of opera- 

 tions. 



Plants and potatoes can be ordered of us or friend 

 Dill. 



THE bicycle: its CARE AND REPAIR. 



The above is the title of a little book written dur- 

 ing this present year. lS9t!, by C. Von Culen, Dela- 

 ware City, Dfl. It gives the most sensible and 

 rational directions for riding, and tor the care of a 

 bicycle, of any thing I have ever yet got hold of. It 

 is illustrated by any number of pictures; and I 

 think that every man, woman, or child who is able 

 to own a bicycle should have the book and read it 

 thoroughly. The price is25cts.: but we will send 

 it postpaid by mail to any of our subscribers, whose 

 time has not yet run out on Gleanings, for an even 

 16 cts. ; to other people, postpaid by mail, 2,5 cts. 



PREPAYING FREIGHT AND EXPRESS CHARGES IN 



ORDER TO SAVE OUR CUSTOMERS DELAY 



AND LOSS. 



Every little while something comes up making it 

 necessary to prepay charges on goods in order to get 

 them through to destination. Sometimes connect- 

 ing lines refuse to receive them until they have 

 their pay in advance. I presume this is occasioned 

 because stuff of little value is every little while left 

 at the express or freight office. The consignee 

 refuses to pay this. A few days ago a good brother 

 somewhere down south wrote that he sent a dollar 

 to the Battle Creek folks for their healtli foods He 

 ordered the goods by express. When they got away 

 down to his place the express charges were more 

 than the value of the stuff. He wrote me he had 

 refused to receive them, and did not seem to be 

 aware thai- he was doing any thing out of the way. 

 A good many people seem thoughtless in regard to 

 such matters. Suppose you set a man to doing 

 some work for you, without saying any thing in 

 regard to what it will cost. Suppose that, after it 

 is done, because it costs more than you expected, 

 you refuse to pay the bill, and go off and leave work 

 on his hands that is of little or no value to anybody 

 but you. Why, aD.y one who has any degree of 

 respect for right and justice would say you must 

 pay the bill, and be more careful next time, and find 

 out the probable cost before setting somebody at 

 work. Now, ordering goods by express, without 

 asking your agent what the probable expense will 

 be, is exactly like the above. Your only way is to 

 pay the bill and take your goods. If you think the 

 price exorbitant, ask the express company to look 

 the matter over and make it riglit if it is not right. 

 Let us now go back to where I started. 



In order to get goods through to the friends who 

 are waiting for them we often hand over the cash 

 to the railroad or express companies. It may be .50 

 cents, or it may be $5.00. Of course, the owner of 

 the goods did not authorize us to do so; but perish- 

 able stuff would forbid waiting long enough to ask 

 him about it; therefore, for the sake of accommoda- 

 tion we advance the money. As a rule we get 

 thanks for so doing, and the money comes back 

 promptly. Once in a while, however, we find some- 

 body who will not even make any reply to us after 

 we have in this way advanced "good money "to 

 save him trouble. Such a person probably reasons 

 thus: "I have got my goods all right. The express 

 companies had all they ought to have, before he 

 made the advance, and he did it without my author- 

 izing him to." Now, where the book-keepers bring 

 me accounts of this kind I am sometimes tempted 

 to say, " I think that, hereafter, we will not pay any 



more bills for anybody until we are authorized to 

 do so. If their goods are held by the express com- 

 panies until they are spoiled, they must bear it as 

 best they can." After I cool down a little, how- 

 ever, a better spirit comes up and says, "No, no, 

 that won't do. You are following Him who said. 

 'Not to be ministered unto but to minister;' and 

 you know that, a great many times, he never got 

 even a word of thanks. And, again, he said, 'Do 

 good, and lend, hoping for nothing again.' " 



Dear friends, I have written this because I thought 

 maybe if 1 gave you this view of it some of you 

 would be a little more ready to help me bear my 

 share of these burdens and losses. 



ELECTRICAL QUACKS AND FRAUDS. 



We copy the following from an article in the 

 Evening Posf, of New York: 



No fraud on the puljlie can be more contemptible than the 

 obtaining of money for quack nostrums from the sick poor, for 

 it Is from that class that the professor of impossible cures gets 

 the largest number of victims. The application of electricity 



fives opportunity for a large amount of such quackery. Uii- 

 oubtedly electricity plays a part in the legitimate practice of 

 the healing art; but even there it is b,v no means yet fully de- 

 termined under what circumstances and conditions it is best 

 applied. People have been led by the marvelous advances in 

 the commercial use of electricity to believe any thing of its 

 agency, in medicine as in business. Electrical brushes, belts, 

 and the like are offered to a credulous public with a belief 

 that the new name will win purchasers regardless of real 

 merit. 



The same listlessness on the part of the public which per- 

 mitted such a dlsgr.aceful exhibition of quackery at Chicago 

 allows the sales of such worthless so called electrical appli- 

 ances to continue. It is not complimentary to our American 

 electrical press that, so far as it has come under our notice. 

 Electricity is the only .iournal which has denounced these 

 electrical swindles with any warmth or in any detail. 



To all of the above we breathe a most emphatic 

 amen. Pass it along, brethren of the press, until 

 this shameful work is put down. 



A LITTLE STORY WITH A BIG MORAL. 



We clip the following bit of wisdom from the 

 Rura I New - Yorker: 



In a popular restaurant of this city, hundreds of people eat 

 dinner or lunch during the noon hour. The food is always 

 clean and well cooked, and the waiters are polite and atten- 

 tive. Apparently the business would run itself without any 

 hitch ; yet all through the hour the proprietor stands where 

 he can see every table, and notice any mistake or evidence of 

 dissatisfaction. The people who work for him are the best of 

 their kind, yet they can not help doing better work when 

 they know that the master's eye is constantly on them. The 

 mere fact that the proprietor stands there without saying a 

 word, but eyeing every detail, gave confidence to patrons, and 

 made the waiters more careful than they would otherwise 

 have been. Many a farmer loses money by leaving important 

 details to others. No matter how painstaking or careful they 

 may be. they do not feel the responsibilities of owner.ship, and 

 they need the restraining influence of the master's eye, which 

 as the old saw ha s it, " makes the fat ox.''i ' — i 



There, friends, if that does not hit you it does me. 

 I have never found any business in my life that 

 would prosper unless I kept my eye on it; and this 

 applies most particularly to market-gardening. 

 The presence of the proprietor, and the fact that 

 his eye is constantly looking over every detail, 

 makes all the difference between profit and loss. 

 This applies not only to growing the crops but to 

 selling the product. Of course, I can not follow our 

 wagon in it.; daily rounds; but unless I know what 

 is put on the wagon in the morning, and wh;it is 

 brought back at night, day after day, the business 

 is sure to suffer. When I say this I do not mean to 

 blame our boys and men; but in the nature of 

 things the owner, the boss and proprietor, must 

 have all the different lines in his fingers. If a 

 wagon-load of something is to be delivered some- 

 where, he alone can fell better than anybody else 

 whether there is not a load of something or other to 

 be brought back, thus saving steps. This morning 

 some Freeman potatoes were to be carried over to 

 the house, for table use. K ght where the man un- 

 loaded his potatoes were two huge baskets of agri- 

 cultural papers to be carried away. He saw them; 

 but, without orders, of course he went back with his 

 empty wheelbarrow. Later in the day a man had to 

 be sent with the wheelbarrow on purpose for the 

 papers. 



Now, this thing, or something like it, is occurring 

 continually. If the owner is where he can have his 

 eye on all that needs to be done, sometimes he can 

 in a few minutes, by a combination of circum- 

 stances, save time, money, and heavy lifting. Two 

 men may be passing each other. By stopping both, 



