97: 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dkc. 15 



"varying- from three to five bands? If not, 

 and if there are no queens which produce 

 ■all five-banders, do you pronounce impure 

 all that produce part five-banders? Sup- 

 pose I take the yellowest five-banders I can 

 find, and have a queen of that stock mate 

 with a drone of stock having- black blood. 

 Taut so little of it that no worker of that 

 stock has less than two bands. The proge- 

 ny of such union would not, of course, be 

 pure Italian ; and, if kept without any 

 ming-ling-, would not the black blood re- 

 inain? By persistent selection froin that 

 stock, don't j^ou believe I could get uniform 

 three-banders? and would you call those 

 uniform three-bauders with the black blood 

 still left in them — would you call them pure 

 Italians? 



An Editor who will insist upon ungram- 

 matical expressions ought to be "took" 

 and "shook" until "well shaken." If 

 " shook" (aside from its grammatical form) 

 expresses to your mind an idea different 

 from the idea expressed by " shaken," Mr. 

 Editor, then there's something wrong with 

 your mind, and the sooner you send it to 

 some country school for repairs the better. 

 If you mean bumped, say "bumped," as I 

 think they do in England, but don't say 

 " shook " when you mean either " bumped" 

 or " shaken." I've hard enough work try- 

 ing to learn correct English without any 

 bad examples "in high places." [Look 

 here, doctor; if you are going to correct all 

 the accepted ungrammatical English, you 

 will have a job on your hands. P^or in- 

 stance, when you sit on your doorstep, and 

 call your wife out to admire the beautiful 

 sunset, do you speak of the setting ox sitting 

 sun? Come now; there are bigger giants 

 that are setting bad examples for you. Go 

 for tfieni. Now, honor bright, don't you 

 think it sounds better to say the sun sets 

 than sits! — Ed.] 



Com MISSION KR Jones, of the Illinois 

 Pure-food Commission, is severely blamed 

 on p. 942. I don't know, but I tliink he is 

 not guilty. Newspapers are not always re- 

 liable. Some one else may have said what 

 is credited to Mr. Jones, or what he did say 

 may have been distorted. But severe"blame 

 is due somewhere, and, according to the 

 Auicr. Bee Journal, the Chicago Tribune 

 is not willing to do its fair share to help 

 undo the mischief already wrought. [I 

 think you are probabl}' correct, for I have 

 already had intimations that a subordinate, 

 instead of Commissioner Jones himself, fur- 

 nished the reporter with that rank nonsense. 

 In my editorial, you will remember, I stat- 

 'ed that the Commissioner is reported to\\^se. 

 said so and so; but whether he did or did 

 not say it, if his sentiments are not ex- 

 pressed it is his bounden duty to correct 

 the mistake. In the absence of any state- 

 ment to the contrary, he stands as approv- 

 ing the nonsense. My own feeling is that, 

 if I were in his shoes, the "subordinate" 

 would be politely told to turn the reporters 

 over to his superior ; and, further, there 

 would be a corrected statement over mj^ own 



signature that would set me right before a 

 very large class of people — the hone}- -pro- 

 ducers. — Ed.] 



The mountains have a big credit to 

 their account, p. 941, for storing snow ;ind 

 ice to be used afterward to irrigate the 

 great deserts. But ought not the debit side 

 be given also? If the mountains were n'lt 

 there would there be any desert? Does n t 

 the mountain condense and stop the moi^,- 

 ture that would otherwise descend in bene- 

 ficent showers on the now desert plain? 

 [That is a hard question to answer. But 

 even if the mountains did not act as a bar- 

 rier to the moisture or rains, thej' still have 

 the advantage that they are great storage 

 reservoirs, if I may use so incongruous a 

 term, for millions of tons of snow. Sup- 

 pose, for instance, that Illinois, Iowa, Kan- 

 sas, and Nebraska had always had to de- 

 pend on irrigation. Think you they would 

 have had the drouth of last season, or ever 

 would have one? Never. Then, besides 

 this, the land in the vicinity of the moun- 

 tains can be watered whenever plant life 

 requires it. The mountains make it possi- 

 ble to have a dry and hot atmosphere; and 

 with storage reservoirs for water the con- 

 ditions are such that certain kinds of crops 

 can be grown that can not be grown with 

 any success in the rain-belts. Understand, 

 I am not claiming that irrigated lands are 

 better than lands in the East; but the fact 

 is, one supplements the other. 



Again, some people positively can not live 

 in a rain-belt, owing to pulmonary troubles. 

 There are thousands and thousands who 

 have to find life and health by moving to 

 these dry climates — climates made so, if 

 your theory is correct, bj' the mountains. 

 Somewhere I saw the statement that over 

 half of the inhabitants of Denver and Los 

 Angeles are "one-lungers." While this is 

 probably greatly overdrawn, j^et you would 

 be surprised to see how many among j^our 

 casual acquaintances have gone to these 

 places because they had to or die in the 

 East.— Ed.] 



'^^<»' ,&-:./ > ;> M'-\dy-M''M''M Ja-^i^ j^.fedlv^ 



^ICKlI^GS 



'dy/lOM^pUJi NEIGHBORS FIELDS. ^^ 



Who says the winter has no cheer 



For man or bird or beast ? 

 If summer reigns within the heart, 



Stern Zero brings a feast. 



We have just received from Mr. Wart- 

 mann, of Bienne, Switzerland, two maps of 

 that country by cantons, or counties. By 

 the various colors one can see by one map 

 just how many colonies of bees per 1000 in- 

 habitants there are in a given locality; and 

 by the other, how many colonies there are 

 at certain elevations, which latter viiry im- 

 mensely, of course, in that country — "the 



