034 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



wagon full of garden stuff, and send three 

 men around the little town of Medina to 

 peddle it out.'' 



Jt was all plain enough to me then ; and 

 for the first time I remembered that the 

 neighbor before me had for many years been 

 a gardener. His work was principally in 

 vegetables and liowers, however. I remon- 

 strated; but he was somewhat excited, and 

 very positive in his view of the matter. 

 It Avas true, tliat we had, during this day, 

 sent out two men, and a boy to drive, for we 

 had quite a (iiiantity of stiilf on hand ; and 

 as the next day was .Sunday, we made a trip 

 both in tlie forenoon and afternoon. He de- 

 clared he would liave to stait a saloon to 

 sup])ort his family, unless I stopped that ob- 

 noxious wagon. I told him I would think 

 the nuitter over, and I thought we could ar- 

 I'ange it some way so we could get along in 

 a pleasant and neighborly way, as we always 

 had done. ]hit the more" I thought of it, the 

 more dithcult it seemed to me to avoid strik- 

 ing his old customers, unless I stopped the 

 wagon. J3ut if I did this, how should I dis- 

 pose of my crops that were just beginning 

 to be ready for marketV I hadn't consider- 

 ed the matter very long before I thought of 

 the text at the heacl of our talk to-day. Of 

 course, he threw it ui) to me that I professed 

 to be a Christian ; and lie asked me if it 

 was a Cliristian thing to do, to break down a 

 poor man's occupation, especially if he had 

 established a business, and earned a liveli- 

 hood in it for more than J'ourteen years. He 

 said that he understood that 1 kept four or 

 live men employed on only ten acres of 

 ground ; that I had planted about m)OU stalks 

 of celery, for a little home market like ouis. 

 I was obliged to smile in si)ite of myself 

 when I plead guilty. Yes. and 1 had to admit 

 it, that the celery-plants were growing splen- 

 didly. 



I want to digress here enough to say that 

 my friend AV. .7. (Jreen, from the Ohio Agri- 

 cultural College, Columbus, has just paid me 

 a visit to-day', and looked at my celery and 

 other plants. There was no celery at the 

 Ohio State Fair e(pial to ours, neither was 

 there any to be found on the market in the 

 entire city of Columbus, to compare with it; 

 and as my friend took leave he made the re- 

 mark, " Mr. Root, 1 think yon ought to send 

 a few stalks of that White- Plume celery to 

 Teter Henderson. It might astonisli him, 

 even if he is the originator of the variety." 



My plans were beginning to bud and blos- 

 som, and there had been a pleasant i)rospect 

 before me for some time of l)eing able to 

 teach our Medina people what could be done 

 in the way of scientilic market gardening. 

 IJut here were my fond hopes, daslied to the 

 ground. It is true, my old neighbor did not 

 do very much at the business, for he never 

 owned" even a horse, but did all liis work by 

 hand— hiiing, perhaps, a man to plow occa- 

 sionally; therefore the amount of stuff he 

 raised "during a season did not amount to 

 very much. Ihit notwithstanding, his little 

 home and his little business were, without 

 any question, in great jeopardy, if I kept on 

 in the way I had been doing. After he had 

 got to talking more coolly, he declared I 

 could not have more effectually broken him 



up, had I sat down and planned it out de- 

 liberately. Why not buy him out. together 

 with his good will of the business? Several 

 oljjections met me ; first, I might have to buy 

 out every man who owned a little garden. 

 Next he would want me to give him em- 

 ployment. J>ut he drank beer and cider, as 

 many of his countrymen do, and he was in 

 the hal»it of taking (^od's name in vain, as I 

 had abundant evidence from his talk then 

 and there. [ pondered the question over 

 Sunday. I read that chapter, the l.'itli of 

 (ienesis, and I remembered how Abraham 

 did. It was not an easy matter for me to go 

 away from Medina to start business some- 

 where else. I stated the question to one of 

 the deacons of our church. He said lie 

 thought the claim was a little uiu-easonable, 

 and that 1 liad a i»erf(H't right to go into any 

 such business if 1 slTould so choose. But he 

 agreed with me, notwithstanding, that one 

 ought to follow PauTs advice in living 

 "peaceably Avith all men, so far as in him 

 lieth." 



Monday morning, as soon as my work was 

 a little bit ahead, 1 called on my old neigh- 

 bor. His wife was sick, and near to death. 

 He was obliged to do his own housework. 

 His boys used to be in my Sunday-school 

 class, Init T now remembered that they had 

 not been for some time. As I looked about 

 his garden my heart was touched, and I re- 

 solved that, if it were a possible thing, my 

 business should not stand in the way of his 

 business. He seemed sad, but much pleas- 

 anter and kinder than he had been the Sat- 

 urday night before. By the way, dear 

 friends, did you never i-ealize. when you are 

 in ditliculty with a neighbor, that it is an ex- 

 cellent thing to see how far yon can narrow 

 down your diffei-ences initi'l you get at the 

 ea-act point of disagreement"? I proposed 

 that we should divide up the garden CTops, 

 and that he shoidd raise one thing and I an- 

 other. I had a great lot of tomatoes, and 

 he had none ; he had a large lot of beets, 

 but mine were all sold for the season. So 

 we took up one thing after another, and, to 

 my great joy and sinprise.it narrowed down 

 to" almost one single vegetable. He had 

 about a thousand celery-plants, and I had 

 eight thousand. Now, said I, — 



" Friend , what will you take for your 



thousand celery-plantsV" 



"• Why, JNIr. Root," said he, " you liave 

 eight thousand already, and I am afraid you 

 will not lie al)le to sellthem. You certainly 

 do not want to buy any more." 



But I assured him that I did want to buy 

 more, and that if he would set a price 1 

 thought we could soon make a bargain. 



'■ But, Mr. Root, you are doing this be- 

 cause you want to accommodate me, and not 

 because you want the plants. I feel differ- 

 ently ab(")ut the matter from what I did, and 

 I gu'ess it is all right. You just go on with 

 your wagon, and we won't say any thing 

 more about it.'" 



" r>ut, how about the saloon? You will 

 not start any .saloon, neighbor ?"' 



'' No, I will not start any saloon ;" and he 

 smiled in such a good-hearted way that I 

 knew there was no danger. Do 1 need tell 

 you, friends, what a feeling of joy and peace 



