88 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



who must follow something else; but I can not 

 think of descending- from the honorable position of 

 bee-keeping to that of an Italian peddler, as recom- 

 mended by Mr. Doolittle, in the Review of Dec. 10, 

 page 201. He says: "Then let our bee-keepers 

 start out with a stock of diaries, file, a whetstone, 

 a small vise, and a small hammer, and call at every 

 house, selling diaries, and sharpening shears and 

 scissors, etc." Now, wouldn't a bear and a monkey 

 be better? Perhaps brother Doolittle, while selling 

 his queens by the hundred and his honey by the 

 ton, has never thought of putting himself in our 

 place. G. C. Hughes. 



Pipestem, W. Va., Jan. 14. 



No, no, friend H., don't advise getting a 

 bear and a monkey. They are not really 

 useful. But a man who is expert with file, 

 whetstone, vise, and hammer, can do good, 

 everywhere he goes. I think he will do 

 more good, however, and make more money, 

 to have a little shop, and have folks come to 

 him. Perhaps not many of our bee-keepers 

 are in the habit of shouting much out loud ; 

 but I am not sure but that it would be a 

 good thing if they were ; but if we do not 

 shout out loud, I "do hope we praise God, 

 not only in our hearts, but out loud, in some 

 shape or other. A man who finds nothing 

 in his daily life to thank God for is really to 

 be pitied. 



SOME HINTS TO THOSE WHO 'WRITE 

 FOR PUBLIC PRINT. 



SUGGESTIONS TO THOSE WHO WISH TO SEE THEIR 

 GOMMUNICATION8 IN PRINT. 



Friend Roof :— It is a pretty hard thing to write to 

 a person when you think that perhaps what you 

 have to say will pass through the hands of several 

 culling clerks or sub-editors, and may never reach 

 the person addressed. But let that be as it may, 

 you have the advantage, and have so much to say 

 that comes home to our own experience that we 

 feel like shaking you by the hand, and having a 

 good laugh, though I admit I was feeling a little 

 bad to think you would not publish my honey re- 

 port this season, when it began to come up among 

 the best, about 100 lbs. to the hive, and doubled my 

 stock. I also sent you a clipping taken from our 

 county paper, giving an account of a suit tried in 

 the State of New York, for bee-pasturage, in two 

 courts, both times going against the bee-keeper. I 

 was quite interested, as I had been threatened. 

 You passed it over in silence. Again, some time 

 ago you mentioned in Gleanings that you sent a 

 present d forget what) to every one that was on 

 your books for Gleanings, Jan. 1, 1889. I haven't 

 seen a wrapping. Pardon me, but I began to feel 

 like the poor shoemaker when he had run his cred- 

 it out with the merchant. He reported that the 

 merchant was going to break up, as he was going 

 to quit him. But, friend Root, you made it all right 

 when you gave us such a good laugh about that 

 hateful little dog. I assure you we had a good 

 laugh for several days when we thought of it; and 

 about that old woman bothering you when you 

 were in such a hurry to get home to take your nap. 

 I hope this may reach you in person, for your sym- 

 pathies are so large, and experience so great with 

 humanity, that I like to talk to you. You see, this 



is to you personally. If it conveys a thought to 

 appropriate to your store of knowledge, all right. 



S. D. 



Thanks for your kind words, friend 1). 

 But you are a little bit uncharitable toward 

 us here. It is true, your letter had to pass 

 through the hands of several clerks ; but 

 every letter that comes here reaches A. I. 

 Root within two or three hours after it 

 comes from the postoffice. When letters 

 are very long, and may contain matter 

 suitable for print, they are turned over to 

 Ernest, and he usually decides what shall 

 be used for the journal. The letter in ques- 

 tion was passed over to the printers by Er- 

 nest ; bat your old friend A. L Root after- 

 ward threw it out, and I will take space to 

 tell you why, because it may help some of 

 the others who send us matter for publica- 

 tion. 



In the first place, it was pretty long, and 

 a good deal of it was unimportant. It starts 

 out with : 



As the season for honey-gathering is about over, 

 I herewith transmit my report. 



Now. the above conveys no valuable in- 

 formation at all, and your report would l)e 

 just as good without it. A great part of the 

 rest is a good deal like the above, and 

 which, if used for copy, would have to be 

 marked out. This is laborious, and re- 

 quires one of our best and most valuable 

 men. The rei)ort in regard to your large 

 yield is not clear. To illustrate, we give it 

 just as you wrote it, as follows : 



So I started in to the honey season with 13 stocks, 

 which filled 1000 1 lb sec & considerable part filled, 

 and doubled these stocks. But as these sections the 

 first part of the season were all over filled I believe 

 100 lb in the aggregate, which would make 1100 lbs 

 from 1:3 hives spring count, which I think is not so 

 bad. 



Now. I can not understand, from the 

 above, just what you meant to tell us ; and 

 inasmuch as we can not afford space for 

 any thing that is not clear and plain, I 

 give instructions to have every thing reject- 

 ed that is not so written. If the intelli- 

 gence is evidently valuable, of course we 

 take more time, and oftentimes write back, 

 or submit a proof to the WTiter, to get it 

 just as he intended it should be. Well, in 

 view of the above it would help us greatly 

 if our friends would separate the different 

 points of their communications by para- 

 graphs, so that we can clip out with the 

 scissors the ones we prefer to use, or, bet- 

 ter still, put them on separate slips of pa- 

 per. But by all means, make your meaning 

 clear and plain, so a child can understand 

 it, and leave out all unimportant words and 

 phrases. Tell one fact first ; then if you 

 have another, make a paragraph, or, better 

 still, skip a line and give us another. In 

 fact, you may send us as many as you 

 please, if they are thus separated. You 

 may think this is asking a great deal of you ; 

 but, dear friends, stationery is very cheap 

 nowadays. We would gladly furnish it to 

 you free of charge, if that would help the 

 matter, and we are always ready to pay for 

 matter that is really valuable. When I say 

 this, however, please remember that we 



