1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



463 



ny. They swarmed some, and I divided 

 them up some, to give each queen a comb of 

 brood. I think that none of the queens in 

 this case meddle with each other at all ; but 

 perhaps the shock of the falling tree, and 

 the bumping and tumbling around which 

 they received might have put them out of 

 lighting trim. 



0a^ flejtfEg. 



Not to he ministered unto, but to minister.— Mark 

 li): 45. 



WHAT TO DO, AND HOW TO BE HAPPY 

 WHILE DOING IT. 



WpLTHOUGH the book is finished, the 

 9|m matter is not out of my mind, by any 



jPJk means, and very likely never will be. 

 -^*- During this present spring of 1889 

 we have had some new experiences : 

 and in many lines, at least this matter of 

 raising crops seems to be really overdone. 

 Friend Terry's potato-book has not had any 

 thing near the sale that it had a year ago, 

 and very likely the book has been the 

 means of contributing at least somewhat to 

 the great quantity of potatoes that can not 

 be sold. I believe that this state of affairs 

 prevails pretty much all over the United 

 States. In our locality, thousands of bush- 

 els are being fed to stock, and may be other 

 thousands will go the compost-heap. It has 

 been suggested that reclaiming our swamps, 

 planting potatoes by machinery, applying 

 Paris green by machinery, harvesting the 

 crop by machinery, etc., has made it im- 

 possible for planting, hoeing, and digging 

 by hand, to pay expenses any longer. While 

 I do not believe that this is true, there may 

 be a grain of truth in it. The question is, 

 Will potatoes ever again be worth a dollar a 

 bushel ? I think thev will, but it may be a 

 good while, and very likely prices are going 

 to run lower. Now the same is to a great 

 extent true, at least in many localities, with 

 the apple crop; and while I write, there 

 seems to ha a great prospect that the com- 

 ing strawberry crop will be beyond any 

 tiling heretofore known, and may be, beyond 

 what the people can consume." Should a 

 frost, however, occur just now, and I con- 

 fess that, on this 21st day of May, there is 

 quite a prospect of it, such an event would 

 change the aspect of things entirely. Then 

 those who were prepared to defend their 

 crops from the frost would probably make 

 their money, while their less fortunate 

 neighbors would lose heavily. 



Well, a good many are taking the ground 

 that it is impossible for our people to find 

 employment, even raising crops, and that 

 too many crops are raised already. While I 

 do not believe this, I am afraid, as I said 

 before, there is a grain of truth in it ; and if 

 your old friend had better stop urging eve- 

 rybody to raise crops and live under their 

 own vine and fig-tree, is there any other 

 opening? Has the great Father in heaven 

 made a blunder in putting so many people 

 in this world of ours, without providing any 

 thing for them to do ? Not so ; and I am 

 sure the fault is with ourselves and not 

 with God. In the first place, it is by no 



means certain that we should be any better 

 off by getting a dollar a bushel for our pota- 

 toes, instead of i"> cents, or 15 cents for our 

 strawberries, instead of 8 or 10 cents. You 

 may say that we must have enough for our 

 potatoes to pay the expense of cultivation 

 and harvesting, and the same with straw- 

 berries. We must have enough for them to 

 pay the cost of picking. In one sense this 

 is true. But the escape from this apparent 

 corner is in using more brains— in letting 

 necessity be the mother of invention. Bet- 

 ter plans must be invented for doing our 

 work. We must shake off the sleepy way 

 of doing things, and use the common sense 

 and reason which God has given us ; and 

 this brings me to my subject of what to do. 

 The waste and useless motions which are to 

 be found in most employments in life are 

 truly appalling. Two great strong men are 

 often employed to do the work that one 

 small boy could do easily. We have ma- 

 chinery and improved methods; but with- 

 out brains to guide and direct them, they 

 are, to a great extent, a failure. Men and 

 women are wanted to guide and direct ; to 

 look after the leaks ; to cure us of our stu- 

 pidity. Stupidity is the word exactly. We 

 are all stupid, even the best of us. Atone 

 time a great shopful of machinery was 

 standing still, because the feed-pump to the 

 boiler would not work. It was pulled to 

 pieces, and put together again repeatedly. 

 Every thing was all right. The matter was 

 getting to be serious. The great crowd of 

 hands could not go to work until the pump 

 could be made to throw water into the 

 boiler. What do you suppose the trouble 

 was ? The valve situated near the dome of 

 the boiler was not open wide enough to let 

 the steam into the pump. The small valve 

 close to the pump was opened and closed 

 repeatedly, of course ; but somebody, in a 

 shiftless sort of way, had opened the valve 

 near the dome only a little, and there it 

 stayed until some one of the crowd was keen 

 enough to declare that the pump had not 

 sufficient steam to do its work. The reply 

 was, " Why, the valve is wide open ; " but 

 the man who was using his brains declared, 

 "Then some other valve is not wide open, 

 or there is some obstruction. " Half a doz- 

 en ought to have guessed from the working 

 of the machine where the trouble was. 



A few days ago we were disappointed in 

 not getting a washer-woman. Mrs. R. said 

 that she and the children could do it if 

 somebody would turn the wringer; and 

 then she added that she thought the wring- 

 er would have to be thrown away and a 

 new one bought, because it had got into a 

 fashion of turning so hard lately. I decid- 

 ed to take a look at the wringer, and what 

 do you suppose I found V First, the set- 

 screw that pressed the rolls together was so 

 rusty that I could not turn it with my 

 thumb and finger. A five-cent oil-can and 

 five cents' worth of sewing-machine oil fix- 

 ed it nicely. Five cents paid for the oil in 

 the can, and almost a bottlef ul besides ; but 

 when the screw was oiled I found it would 

 not bring the rolls together so as to do good 

 work. 



"Oh!' 1 replied my wife, "they used to 



