426 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



being blown over or falling down. The boy who 

 wins in 1915 will have to do his best. — J. F. Hud 



SON. 



Yon cannot claim that this boy had un- 

 usual, opportunities, for he was ten and a 

 half miles from the nearest railway. In- 

 stead of lamenting his unfortunate circum- 

 stances as some boys might have done, he 

 just roused up and made the dirt fly. I 

 hardly need tell you that thousands of other 

 boys from Florida to Maine, and, so far as 

 I know, clear on to California, are doing 

 things along the same line; and may God 

 be praised it is not the boys alone. Our 

 young girls (God bless them) are helping 

 the world in the same line. 



Here is another clipping, from our 

 Bradentown daily : 



MISSISSIPPI GIRL AND BOY MAKE CROP RECORD. 



Washington, March 23. — The best records in the 

 southern corn and tomato clubs for the last year 

 were made by a Mississippi boy, Carl Graves, of 

 Soso, and an Alabama girl, Hester Sartain, of 

 Walker. 



Carl raised 202 bushels of corn to the acre at a 

 net cost per bushel of 14% cents. Hester raised 

 7037 pounds of tomatoes on one-tenth of an acre, 

 put up 1620 pounds, and made a net profit of 

 $146.20. 



In regard to socialism, it will get along 

 just as fast (or perhaps faster) if we all 

 keep bu.sy and " let up " just a little on 

 finding fault because this gi-eat wide world 

 is not in its present stage altogether perfect. 



Let me touch on the question of wages in 

 closing. There is much complaint, especial- 

 ly from the socialist, that laborers are not 

 paid enough; in fact, there are quite a few 

 extremists who insist that all employees 

 should be paid all they earn — that is, the 

 men who employ workmen should not have 

 any profit at all. Suppose you tell a farm- 

 er, for instance, that it is not fair nor hon- 

 est for him to make a profit by employing 

 labor. If I understand it rightly they claim 

 the hired man should have all the profit. 

 The owner of the farm should have just 

 enough to feed and clothe himself and no 

 more. When it comes to buying new ma- 

 chinery needed on the farm, I presume the 

 farmer would be allowed enough to pur- 

 chase the necessary tools. I do not know 

 what they woukl say in regard to the auto- 

 mobile. Well, a good friend out in Cali- 

 fornia (I do not mean to use any sai'casm 

 bj' calling him a good friend) recently 

 wrote me that I ought to be sent over to 

 Europe and placed before the biggest can- 

 non, because I owned up that, j^ears ago, I 

 hired juveniles 1o do easy work, in connec- 

 tion with the bee business, at three cents an 

 hour. Let me say here what I did not say 

 before, that those juveniles came around 

 after school and were greatly delighted to 



think they could earn a little money by 

 sometliing that was just fun for them; and 

 I happen to know that some of their poor 

 mothers were also greatly delighted to know 

 that their children were employed in some- 

 thing useful, even though they got only 

 three cents an hour. Of course they stop- 

 ped at any time when they got tired; but 

 they were so delighted with their work that 

 they felt hurt when I told them they had 

 worked long enough. Just now three cents 

 an hour does seem small pay ; but, my good 

 friend, when I was a schoolboy I rode horse 

 to cultivate corn all day Saturday for 25 

 cents, which was only 2^2 cents an hour, 

 and I was as much delighted with my " two- 

 shilling piece " when night came as you can 

 well imagine. I did not find riding a horse 

 to be drudgery, for the man who employed 

 me was a good kind friend, and I might, 

 perhaps, confess to you that at that time 

 vay good father and mother were finding it 

 uphill work to feed and clothe a family of 

 seven children, and the 2^/2 cents an hour I 

 earned .seemed like a Godsend. Now, I 

 leave it to the readers of Gleanings to de- 

 cide whether it in any way hindered my 

 progress because I did thus early in life 

 help to support the family by working all 

 day for 25 cents. As for myself, I can now 

 fervently thank God that conditions were 

 such in my childhood that I had to work 

 thus, even at small pay. Had not my par- 

 ents been comparatively poor people, I 

 fear I never should have learned to love 

 gardening and chickens all through my 

 life, and clear up into old age. God bless 

 the boys and girls who are at present find- 

 ing pleasant and profitable occupations in 

 the " corn clubs " and " tomato clubs " re- 

 ferred to in the clippings above. 



Even though this ai'ticle has spun out 

 much longer than I intended, I find I have 

 given little or no advice to the boy who is 

 " crazy " to learn a trade. I presume that 

 during my busy life I have learned to be at 

 least tolerably expert in a dozen different 

 trades or occupations. My first trade, per- 

 haps, was gardening, and my good mother 

 taught me that trade. As soon as I was old 

 enough I commenced \asiting expert gar- 

 deners or truckers; and later I kept in 

 touch with our Ohio Experiment Station. 

 My father was a carpenter, and he taught 

 me how to care for and use carpenter tools. 

 I never had any other training, except, per- 

 haps, from a brother-in-law who was and is 

 an expert house-builder, although he is now 

 85 years of age. Of course he does not do 

 very much now at carpentry. For many 

 years I was considered an expert in the line 

 of watch-repairing. I firet paid a jeweler 



