388 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



over to myself again and again : God cares 

 for the sparrows ; and he cares lor the lilies, 

 and he cares for all this great wide universe. 

 But there is nothing in it all so dear to the 

 heart of the great Creator as mankind- 

 even sinful beings, such as we are. In fact, 

 we are not to be compared with any thing 

 else in the whole range of creation. " Ye 

 are of more value than many sparrows.'" 

 Now, if we hold fast to this one thought, 

 God's love, his regard and his kindness, and 

 his many promises, this thought itself shall 

 give us this well of water springing up into 

 everlasting life. 



In closing this number of Our Homes it 

 occurs to me that there are (luite a few 

 among our readers who feel like saying 

 that 1 had better look to home and attend to 

 my own affairs, instead of directing other 

 people what to do. especially in this matter 

 of unfinished orders. Never before, since 

 the Home of the Honey-bees was started, 

 have we been so much behind in filling 

 orders. John says that, on Saturday night, 

 we were over eight hundred behind. We 

 are running night and day. We have press- 

 ed new hands into the service until there 

 are people who are working for me whom I 

 do not know by sight nor by name. For 

 once in my life I have had the privilege of 

 saying " yes " to almost every one who ap- 

 plied for work. Our gardening operations 

 are sadly behind, and I had hoped to get a 

 man or boy whom I could keep on the 

 grounds. Just as soop as we get one taught 

 the ways of our work, a message is sent 

 from the factory for " More help!" That 

 you who are suffering for the want of goods 

 may have a little more charity, I will try to 

 explain a little the difficulty of refusing to 

 receive more ordei's or of returning the 

 money. These 800 letters containing orders 

 are scattered through our offices, packing- 

 rooms, machine-shop, tin-shop, saw-room, 

 wax-room, type-room, yes, and even into 

 the greenhouses ; and when somebody com- 

 plains that his order is not filled, it takes a 

 smart clerk sometimes an hour or two to 

 find the order at all. If the goods are al- 

 ready gone, the book-keepers can generally 

 answer ; but even their work is so much be- 

 hind that we have of late been sending a 

 postal-card notice of shipment, by the first 

 train after the goods were loaded on the 

 cars ; then the book-keepers can take a lit- 

 tle more time to make out the invoice, and 

 to adjust the balances, etc. It is a harder 

 matter to get new hands to take hold of the 

 book-keeping than almost any thing else. 

 Again, every mail brings us more or less ad- 

 ditions to orders, change in orders, counter- 

 mand in orders ; and a great many ask us to 

 put their goods in with those ordered by 

 some neighbor, This overhauling orders in 

 process of being filled is very laborious, and 

 seriously interrupts the workmen among 

 the machinery. We try to iill orders in ro- 

 tation, but even this can not be done. Ma- 

 chinery breaks down, hands get sick, and a 

 variety of things occur to stop a certain 

 order ; while one for something a little dif- 

 ferent, even though it came a little later, 

 can go as well as not. All these workmen 

 numbering somewhere between 150 and 200, 



must be kept busy. While some orders are 

 a month old, others, for a single lawn-mow- 

 er, or even a honey-extractor or iDee-hive, 

 that happens to be ahead in stock, can go 

 by next train ; therefore it sometimes hap- 

 pens that a man may say with justice some- 

 thing like this : " You filled my neighbor's 

 order within a week ; yet mine has been 

 with you for over a month." Others com- 

 plain because we give them no notice of the 

 delay, nor tell them what to depend on. 

 Just now we hardly know what you can 

 depend on ; and to hunt up all the orders 

 that are daily waiting for broken machine- 

 ry to be repaired, or other similar accidents, 

 would take more time than to fill the orders 

 themselves. We stand ready to do this, 

 however : To return your money promptly 

 whenever you get tired of waiting. But 

 with such a mass of business as we have 

 now, every little while there is complaint 

 that an order can not he found. One man 

 asked to have his money returned or his 

 goods sent ; but it took some three days of 

 hard work to find his order. When discov- 

 ered we found it pinned fast to another 

 man's order. He has asked to have his 

 goods go along with those belonging to a 

 neighbor ; and to make sure they would go to- 

 gether, it was pinned fast to said neighbor's 

 order. In the hunt, the two letters were sup- 

 posed to be from the same man. The fol- 

 lowing letter shows the way in which my 

 Christianity is frequently called in ques- 

 tion : 



Sir;— I sent you an order the -ith of April last, and 

 received an answer that you had received it all 

 riH'ht; since then I have not heard. Now, my Chris- 

 tian friend, is that the way you do business, or am I 

 only an exception? It causes me a great deal of in- 

 convenience, as Mr. Evans gave me an order which 

 was put in with mine. He has boug-ht 30 colonies, 

 and is waiting for his smokers and wire, and nearly 

 every day he comes and " dogs me " for his goods. 

 He has finally concluded to write you and And out 

 whether or not I have sent the order at all. Now, 

 if you are so rushed as to make such unnecessary 

 delay, I think you had better apply a little more 

 genuine common sense, and real Christianity mix- 

 ed, and employ a few honest and good men to at- 

 tend to your customers' orders, for you know there 

 is in every human being a desire to get what he 

 has bought and paid for, within a reasonable time, 

 say nothing about such delays as this. You un- 

 doubtedly remember a passage in the Bible that 

 says. " Do unto others as you want them to do unto 

 you." Now, when you order goods expecting them 

 to be sent within a reasonable time, and you wait 

 patiently over a month, and receive only a card, 

 saying that the order and money had been receiv- 

 ed, and nothing further, I do not believe you would 

 like to be treated in this way, would you? Now, If 

 you have not sent the goods, please return the 

 money, as we can not wait till next spring for the 

 goods. N. C. Evans. 



Mt. Horeb, Wis., May 9. 



Friend E, I agree with you exactly. I 

 should not like to be treated in that way. I 

 am happy to tell you, however, that your 

 goods were sent May 6, three days before you 

 wrote the above letter. Your suggestion in 

 regard to hiring good and honest men 

 strikes one of our great troubles. I believe 

 that honest men are as plentiful here as any- 

 where; but competent men — men who can, 

 without experience, go into such a whirl- 



