182 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Makch, 1919 



and evei'y one of you, have not a Bible oi' 

 your own — one you are so familiar with 

 that you can find any precious text you 

 want at a minute's notice, go and get such 

 a Bible, and get in touch with its precious 

 pages. 



DIRECTOR C. E. THORNE, OF THE OHIO EXPERI- 

 MENT station; ALSO SOMETHING IN 

 REGARD TO VEGETARIANISM VERSUS 

 A MIXED DIET. 



After Doolittle's death last June I went 

 back to the copies of the old American Bee 

 Journal to see when it was that he com- 

 menced writing for that publication in re- 

 gard to bee culture. I made mention of 

 this on page 498, August Gleanings. Well, 

 in looking over those old volumes away 

 back in the 60's I was several times surpris- 

 ed to find familiar names; and among them 

 was our good friend Professor Thorne. His 

 first communication was dated Nov. 8, 

 1868. His residence then was Selma, 0.; 

 and from that time on for some years he 

 was more or less a correspondent of the 

 bee jouiTials. And now I recall that in one 

 of his communications not very long ago 

 he made some reference to having been a 

 " bee man " in times gone by. Well, just 

 now I have a letter from him that has given 

 me much thought and study. In fact, the 

 suggestion is not only novel but to me, en- 

 tirely new. It has given me new light on 

 this matter of animal food as a part of our 

 diet instead of a strictly vegetable diet. 

 Here is the letter: 



IS NOT A BRIEF LIFE BETTER THAN NO LIFE AT ALL? 



Friend A. I. Root: — I have come to share your 

 reluctance to kill animals, but after all, is not the 

 sum of animal happiness vastly increased by the 

 meat eaters? If we ate no meat hardly one animal 

 would be brought into the world where a thousand 

 are now, and I know of nothing more full of un- 

 adulterated happiness than the calf or pig or lamb, 

 destined after a short life for the slaughter, but 

 meanwhile having every want supplied and ignorant 

 of its doom, which finally comes almost or quite 

 painlessly. 



By the way, when I get to be Governor of Ohio, 

 I am going to have a law made making it a peni- 

 tentiary offense to use anything smaller than brevier 

 type. Yours cordially, 



Chas. E. Thoexe- 



Wooster, O., .June 4, 1918. 



The above opens up a new question, and 

 I do not know but it may be applied to 

 humanity as well as domestic animals; in 

 fact, I added the title myself, to friend 

 Thome's article. Is it not more desirable 

 to have even a short life than to have no 

 life at all? I found a squib in the Cleve- 

 land Plain Dealer a short time ago, which 

 read something like this: 



A certain individual was always gTum- 

 bling about his aches and pains and vari- 



ous misfortunes. A friend of his said to 

 him one bright morning: 



" Well, brother Boggs, how do you feel 

 today?" 



" Why, I couldn't feel any worse if I 

 were dead." 



The above suggested to me the query, 

 "How does a man feel when he is dead?" 

 Of course, I am not raising the question 

 now from the standpoint of the Christian, 

 Let us consider it for a moment from the 

 standpoint of the worldly individual who 

 has no faith in God or anything else. Will 

 he fell better when he is deadf Does a man 

 who commits suicide really better his con- 

 dition? He may be relieved from bodily 

 pain and worldly trouble. I suppose the 

 suicide expects annihilation. He is bent 

 on destroying his body, and takes it for 

 granted that the body is all there is of it. 

 God forbid. Professor Thome's letter 

 above was probably called forth by what I 

 said on page 370 in regard to killing one of 

 my Eglantine pullets in order to have a 

 chicken dinner. If we did not have any 

 chicken dinners, thousands upon thousands 

 of chickens would never have any life at 

 all. Do they enjoy that life? My opinion 

 is, after raising chickens more or less for 

 over 70 years, that chickens when properly 

 cared for are about the happiest creatures 

 on the face of the earth. Before a chick 

 is many hours old it will be cutting up an- 

 tics, pretending to fight others like itself, 

 etc. ; not only chickens but lambs, calves, 

 and all the domestic animals. They enjoy 

 life, even if it is a short one. 



Of course all animal kind object to being 

 killed. They make the most frantic ef- 

 forts to preserve life as long as possible; 

 but who knows that they really suffer? I 

 think some one, who was once in the jaws 

 of a lion, has said that he felt no pain at 

 all when his bones were being crushed. It 

 was only afterward ; and I think that some 

 of tlie poor soldiers in our war have ex- 

 pressed themselves in a like manner. They 

 felt no pain at the time of being wounded. 

 If they had been killed outright is it not 

 possible there would have been no suffer- 

 ing? I think investigation will show that 

 the nations of the earth that make the most 

 progress, intellectually and every other' 

 way, are those that live on a mixed diet. 



As I write just now, Oct. 21, the physi- 

 cians of our land are recommending for 

 the Spanish influenza that the patient take 

 only liquid food and stay in bed, etc. Now, 

 as I take it, this nourishing liquid food or 

 soup is, as a rule, made mostly of meat of 

 some sort. There may be soups made en- 

 tirely of vegetables that have proved to be 



