I'HE BEh}-KKJb:l^EKS KEVIEW. 



175 



lie— uutil the mau not uow a bee-keeper at all 

 puts ou sheep's clothing and goes along ! 

 The (lermans are past-masters of the art of 

 stimulating and fostering an industry. Ac- 

 cording to Gleanings, :W>, they have fos- 

 tered the sugar industry until British sugar 

 plantations with half a million dollars worth 

 of machinery cannot be sold at any price. 

 A man would have to cease being a Christian 

 citizen of the world, and drop to being an 

 unchristain citizen of a fragment of the 

 world, before he would feel entirely in har- 

 mony with that sort of thing. But their fos- 

 tering of apiculture can hardly be meant as 

 a warfare upon any other nation. Most 

 likely it is simply intended to make the Ger- 

 man laborer's cupboard a little less dismally 

 bare than it is apt to be— good object surely 

 — but hardly so urgently needed in this coun- 

 try as there. Our specialists don't seem to 

 want the people all raising a little honey for 

 themselves and their neighbors. 



Already the cry of "Get an appropriation, 

 get an appropriation, from the state and the 

 nation," is heard in the laud ; but let us halt 

 a bit and consider what our past appropria- 

 tions have amounted to. Was not our largest 

 one flung away in a single lump for some 

 seeds and the good will of a worthless honey 

 plant ? And did not many of us encourage 

 the waste, and the balance of us hold our 

 whist about it ? And has not the Illinois ap 

 propriation of ^.WO.OO a year been spent in 

 printing " Pub. Doc." ? Have we figured 

 out exactly how many millions spent in 

 " Pub. Doc." will be required to usher in the 

 honey millennium ? If so Cardinal Rich- 

 elieu's problem — How many snowballs re- 

 quired to heat an oven ? must be a soluble 

 problem after all. Let us get our heads level 

 the first thing we do. Do we on the whole 

 want German paternalism in this country ? 

 Do we want the largest possible number of 

 our people eating honey of their own rais- 

 ing ? Do we exactly want 20,000 of our bee 

 folks set to reading the particular journals 

 designated by authority / Are we ready to 

 insure that the money appropriated will be 

 used without waste to further some desired 

 and desirable end ? And are we agreed as to 

 that end and part toward which our bark is 

 to be steered ? It will be quite soon enough 

 to " go ahead " when we are clear on these 

 five questions. As matters stand now the 

 philanthropists who want to popularize bee- 

 keeping, the specialists who want to keep 

 the public out of bee-keeping, the hobbyists 



who want to further some particular ideal, 

 and the " practicals " who want to add the 

 appropriations to their own revenues, would 

 just have a quadrangular struggle of it — with 

 the chances all in favor of the practicals. 



The American Bee- Keeper, 



It will be remembered that the A. B. K. is 

 trying a new departure— a family magazine 

 and a bee-keeper's magazine both in one. 

 The general department has in it many 

 things well worth reading. Sorry that any 

 of it should be of the demoralizing sort ; 

 but the first story of the May number is 

 pretty rank. A prostitute and a " good 

 man " meet after the play at a low theatre, 

 run to dissolve into a " free and easy ;" and 

 drink and smoke and talk (good man drinks 

 coffee while she drinks the whiskey) and he 

 tries in vain to get her to go home with him 

 and live awhile in his bachelor rooms. Say, 

 Brother Merrill, mightn't we have things 

 fumigated a little ? 



The editorial notes are getting to be more 

 newsy than of yore, and actually a good 

 place to go to find out what's going on. 



A very interesting letter from Osburn, of 

 Cuba, fills a large space in the May number. 

 Pages 118-120. Short crop and low prices in 

 Cuba also. The total weight of the crop is 

 enormous (or would seem so to us ; ) but to 

 have it fall off one-third in quantity, and the 

 prices decline nearly one-half at the same 

 time, of course is very depressing to the Vjee- 

 keeper. Failure to exterminate foul brood 

 also seems to weigh heavily on Brother Os- 

 burn. He seems to expect that it will sweep 

 all over the island and exterminate the bee. 

 He has it that foul brood was imported into, 

 Cuba only about twelve years ago. In my 

 head the idea has lodgment somehow that 

 thirty years ago, more or less, foul brood 

 came to us frotn Cuba. In that case the na- 

 tive apiaries will be pretty likely to hold out 

 against the new importation — but the idea 

 in my noddle may be entirely incorrect. 



Commentator Hill (page 117) infers from 



Somnambulist's writings " a short crop in 



Dreamland, as well as in the United States 



and New Jersey." Hard times indeed if we 



can't dream of a good crop of honey. 



"All aro etarviuK for better bee literatiiro " 

 J. W. Tefft, page 115. 



We will hardly perish just yet from that 

 cause, me thinks. 



Bessie Putnam urges that the bees shall be 

 remembered when trees are being planted) 



