1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



723 



the plants grow up good and strong; but 

 the bloom went out almost as soon as it 

 came in. 



The following note, received from E. T. 

 Flanagan, tells of the death of one of our 

 old contributors. Seven or eight j'ears ago 

 his name appeared in our columns very 

 irequeutly. 



Ill the sudden and unexpected death of :\Ir. Geo. F. 

 Robbins, formerly ot INIechanicsburg, 111., who has 

 been in charge of my bees in Uvalde County Texas, 

 for the last five years, the bee-keeping fraternity have 

 lost a valued member, and I have lost a true and val- 

 ued friend and a faithful employee whom it will be 

 hard to replace. He was a true Christian gentleman 

 and an honest man. His name will be remembered by 

 the older subscribers to Gleanings, especially in Illi- 

 nois. K. T. FL.A.N.A.GAN. 



Belleville, Ills., Aug. 24. 



MORE ABOUT DR. GANDY. 



I HOLD in rc\y hand several letters, doc- 

 imients, and legal papers, from prominent 

 men, editors, the mayor of Humboldt, and 

 others certifj'ing to the correctness of Dr. 

 Gandy's statement. I also hold in my hand 

 ;l copy of a lease from one of Dr. Gaudj^'s 

 tenants, who agrees, among other consid- 

 erations, to grow ten acres of catnip and 

 an equal area of sweet clover within the 

 range of Dr. Gandy's bees. I have seen 

 i:)ne or two other leases of a similar charac- 

 ter. 



I would still ask our readers not to go 

 wild over artificial pasturage. Catnip may 

 not grow in other localities; and even if it 

 did, it might fail to yield nectar. We know 

 that in the East generally, for example al- 

 falfa fails to yield any honey, although it 

 can be grown successfully. I hope to see 

 Dr. Gandy within the next few days, and 

 look over his bees, his catnip-fields, and 

 inquire more fully into his methods. From 

 what I hear, I am inclined to think the soil 

 and climate in and about Humboldt are pe- 

 culiarly adapted to the growing of catnip. 



THE HONEY MARKET. 



The facts are beginning to develop that 

 there is really less of Eastern honey this 

 year than last — at least we are not getting 

 the offerings of a year ago at this time. 

 Good lots of honey appear to be few and far 

 between. There are a few choice lots in 

 Western Colorado, but only a few. There 

 is a little honey in Arizona. 



I understand that some buyers are going 

 through the West, particularly Colorado, 

 circulating the report that there has been a 

 big crop of honey secured in Southern Cal- 

 ifornia, and that there is also a big crop in 

 the East. They report to you that so and 

 so, a neighbor, has sold all his honey at a 

 low figure (a very low price, of course), 

 and that if you want to sell you had better 

 sell right quick at what your neighbor clos- 

 ed out at, because there is going to be a 

 slump in the market. 



I hope our sensible readers will not be 

 deluded by such barefaced lies as these. 



Conditions may change slightly later. 



IMPRESSIONS — THE TRUTH ABOUT THE 

 WEST. 



I HAVE wondered if, in my travels, I have 

 been able to give a more correct view of 

 conditions as they actually exist in the far 

 West than some impressions that I have 

 been able to gather from railroad folders 

 and magazine articles. When, for exam- 

 ple, I started for California I imagined it 

 was a land of foliage, of luxuriant vegeta- 

 tion and tropical fruits — of mountain ranges 

 and towering peaks; of verdant valleys and 

 shady canyons. I did not dream, though, 

 that it was also a land of deserts, of sand, 

 of wastes, of uninviting solitudes where 

 nothing can live but the jack-rabbit. Yet I 

 suppose I am not far from the truth when I 

 say that a large portion of the State is not 

 subject to cultivation. Besides the moun- 

 tainous portions there are vast areas of 

 deserts, of unendurable heat, land so bar- 

 ren and dry that nothing but sage brush will 

 grow on it. And yet there are beautiful 

 localities there, and the stories told in or- 

 dinary magazine articles and in railroad 

 folders are all true. But they do not tell 

 all the truth. A friend of mine once said 

 that, when he was going to Florida, he im- 

 agined we would see beautiful and luxuri- 

 ant tropical vegetation — lakes and rivers, 

 fine fishing, a balmy atmosphere; "but," 

 said he, "when I got down there the im- 

 pression that was uppermost in my mind 

 was the g-reat sand heaps, for the greater 

 portion of the State is but little more than 

 a mass of sand." 



Now, dear reader, if I have given you the 

 impression that the localities I visited are 

 all lands of luxuriance and fertility, let me 

 disabuse that impression at once. When I 

 tell you that, in going from one locality to 

 another, the railway often runs through 

 hundreds of miles of desert, I am only tell- 

 ing you the literal truth. 



Then perhaps I should say, also, that the 

 hot winds off from these same hot deserts, 

 so necessary to the growth of the tropical 

 vegetation of which I have been speaking, 

 are very depressing to those who are not 

 used to them. I said to some of my friends, 

 " I do not see how you stand it where it is so 

 insufferably hot during a part of the year." 

 I was met by the response, " We get used 

 to it, and like it. We do not see how you 

 stand it to be frozen up six months in the 

 3'ear, to have chills and colds. We do not 

 see how yo\x can live in a locality where for 

 six months in the year j'ou must live main- 

 ly indoors." 



Referring to deserts, about the first in- 

 troduction one gets in California, if he goes 

 by the Southern Pacific, is an all-daj' ride 

 through the desert. He suflers keenly from 

 the heat. The hot blast through the car- 

 windows is £iny thing but refreshing. The 

 sand and grit are most distressing; and 

 yet that is one's first impression of beauti- 

 ful — beautiful California. As the day clos- 

 es he begins to see wheat-fields; and it 

 finally winds up with fast-fleeting orange- 



