390 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



by reducing- the number of plants they could fer- 

 tilize, and diminish equally their value as honey- 

 gatherers. Mechanics, physiology, economics, and 

 botany alike, show any craving after mere size to be 

 an ill-considered and unscientific fancy, for which 

 it would be difficult to find even an excuse. 



It would seem from this, that, while we might 

 be able to secure larger bees, there would be no 

 practical advantage In them; and I have been 

 wondering whether It would be worth while to 

 the government to import the Apis cZorsata— a 

 very much larger bee than we have in this 

 country, simplv for the purpose of fertilization 

 of blossoms. Would not the size of these bees 

 be out of harmony with the general flora of this 

 country ? I believe that no one holds that they 

 would be of any advantage to us practically 

 from a honey point of view. And while I am 

 about it I must say I am not in favor of going 

 to the expense of importing these bees for this 

 reason, and in view of what various correspon- 

 dents have said. — Ed.] 



A CRITICISM ON GLEANINGS, 



ON THE HOME OF THE HONEY-BEES, ON THE 



A B C OF BEE CULTURE. AND ON THE 



ROOT OF ALL. 



By J. W. Porter. 



The photo-engravings that often illustrate 

 Gleanings are good. They will compare 

 favorably in respect to tjjat kind of illustra- 

 tions with the best periodicals, and are very 

 much in advance of many other features of 

 Gleanings. This difference becomes more 

 pronounced when such photo-engravings ap- 

 pear alongside of the rough sketches that at- 

 tempt to illustrate the notes of Rambler. For 

 further proof of this I will refer to pages 8.5, 9.5, 

 and 96 for Feb., 1894. But none of those are 

 quite as hideous as the one on page 7.53, for 

 Oct., 1894. That picture is more objectionable 

 on account of its being both poor in art and 

 coarse in sentiment. He who attempts to car- 

 icature must be a good artist, because it takes 

 a better artist to do that kind of work secun- 

 dem artem than it does to produce real living 

 pictures from nature. Every comic picture 

 must be true to nature, though distorted to 

 homeliness. And then, too, all comic literature, 

 though often dealing with the most ridiculous 

 subjects, id still to be governed by the common 

 rules of decency and propriety. The illustra- 

 tion last mentioned is the first instance, within 

 my observation, that so far violated the rules 

 of common decency as to picture either man or 

 beast in obeying a call of nature (I refer to a 

 case of seasickness). 



Gleanings is, in some respects, a very pecul- 

 iar journal. It more closely ingratiates itself 

 into the family circle than almost any other 

 semi-secular paper published. It somehow or 

 other has a fashion of making every subscriber 

 feel that he is a stockholder in the concern, all 

 of which makes it difficult to raise it to the 

 standard of first-class literature; for, how far 

 can an editor allow correspondents, under the 

 influence of friendship, to violate good taste in 



attempting to say funny things in regard to 

 matters not understood by a majority of the 

 readers, and which, after all, are not so very 

 funny when seen in cold print? Or how far 

 shall a correspondent be allowed to introduce 

 names of friends and relatives where the names 

 of such persons are not germain to the subject? 

 Improprieties of this kind, when practiced by 

 Mr. A. I. Root in his special department, may 

 be admissible, though it is true he says some 

 things that might better be said by his bio- 

 grapher. 



Rut I will return to correspondents. It is not 

 to be supposed that all of the ten or fifteen 

 thousand readers of Gleanings are acquaint- 

 ed with Hannah, May, Jose, or Flo; and when 

 the reader is called upon to digress from the 

 subject in hand to take notice of people to 

 whom he has had only a one-sided introduction, 

 he begins to feel that, after all. Gleanings is 

 being used as a vehicle in the exchange of bon- 

 bons and taflPy between a special few. A letter 

 is yet the most inexpensive and decent way of 

 apprising our friends of domestic joys or sor- 

 rows. It would not violate good breeding to 

 notify a personal friend by letter that there's a 

 new baby at home. 



Gleanings is in her twenty-fourth year, and 

 is now in the rich bloom of maturing maiden- 

 hood, still bearing clear resemblance to her 

 honest and rugged parent. She survived the 

 crucial period of infantile poverty, and lives 

 an honored goddess whose noble principles are 

 engraved upon every page that bears her sig- 

 nature, and is now entitled to the first place of 

 honor in every home that she visits. If her 

 exalted ambition in infancy made her an ex- 

 pensive burden, she has served to pay the debt, 

 and bless him that begat her, a thousand-fold. 

 Though always with many admirers, she never 

 played the coquette, nor has she ever bartered 

 her honor for selfish gain. If as a teacher of 

 ethics her rule of action is inaccurate she can 

 still say that such teaching is higher than the 

 fetish atmosphere which surrounds her. If the 

 scales in which she has weighed the love or 

 intent of Omnipotence be ever so false, she can 

 still say that they are adjusted by more than 

 an average standard. If to some she seems 

 narrow in her philosophy, she can plead with 

 truth that she is tainted with the corroding 

 poison of an ancestry of idolatrous worshipers 

 of heathen ideas. 



I have never read a paragraph in Gleanings, 

 coming from the editors, pertaining to matter 

 of a secular nature, that was in the least am- 

 biguous. I am careful of the wording of this, 

 because I shall attempt to show that the same 

 remarks could not in truth be said about the 

 special and ethical side of Gleanings. De- 

 scriptions of every thing relating to mechan- 

 ical art, and figures and drafts which are 

 used to illustrate the same, are given to the 



