W08 



G&EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



765 



Our Homes 



By a. I. Root 



Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed 

 down and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into 

 your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it 

 shall be measured to you again. — Luke 6:38. 



Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall 

 offend them.— Psalm 119: 165. 



Dear friends, I have used the above texts sev- 

 eral times, especially the first one, and it pains 

 me to find out that a good many do not take it 

 as I meant it. This is especially the case when 

 I recently spoke of the labor troubles, and de- 

 clared that the gospel of Jesus Christ would be a 

 perfect and unerring remedy. Of course, I meant 

 that this gospel should apply to the wealthy em- 

 ployer as well as to the day laborer — in fact, to 

 all humanity, high and low, rich and poor, white 

 and black. May the Holy Spirit guide me, and 

 so direct me that I shall be able this June morn- 

 ing to make my meaning plain. 



Many good people seem to be afraid to be lib- 

 eral and generous, and I fear that some of us are, 

 at least at times, afraid to be honest. A good 

 friend of mine (and a money-lender) used to say, 

 many years ago, that when a man does all he 

 agrees to do he is a pretty good man, and that is 

 true. Oh what a blessing it would be if all the 

 people we meet were always ready and willing to 

 do all they agree — our transportation companies, 

 for instance, and particularly our express com- 

 panies. I once expressed a part of a bicycle from 

 Cleveland to Chicago. I paid the charges in ad- 

 vance, and got a receipt saying, "Paid through to 

 destination." But when I called at the express 

 office in Chicago there was something more to 

 pay. I produced my receipt, and told the clerk 

 that I had it in black and white, paid through to 

 destination. "I do not care any thing about 

 your receipt," he said, "nor what you paid in 

 Cleveland. You can not have this property un- 

 less you pay these charges." As the amount 

 was small I did not quarrel about it; but, even 

 though I am a man of peace I have since felt 

 sorry I did not take the matter up with the com- 

 pany and make them fix it — not because of the 

 amount of money involved, but because of the 

 principle and the precedent it helped to estab- 

 lish. But I am not going to talk about express 

 companies just now. 



Some years ago in the poultry department in 

 this journal there was an advertisement that did 

 not look just right. 1 investigated, and found 

 it came from the editor of a poultry journal pub- 

 lished in , Ohio. Now, notwithstand- 

 ing he was the editor and proprietor of a poultry 

 journal, he was trying to sell a recipe for preserv- 

 ing eggs for several dollars, and that, too, to his 

 subscribers. Let us look at it a minute. We 

 have periodicals and journals representing almost 

 every industry nowadays. The proprietors are 

 leaving no stones unturned to get people to sub- 

 scribe; and, whether they say so or not in plain 

 black and white, they are supposed to be giving 

 their readers promptly, each month, every new 

 discovery or invention that will be of value to 

 the poultry-keeper. In fact, that is the mission 

 of every class journal. 



Well, now, this man in his circular for pre- 



serving eggs admits that he has some valuable se- 

 crets that he is holding back from his readers. If 

 you will just send him the "dollars" he is beg- 

 ging for he will let you "into" something njuonder- 

 Jul. I am sorry I did not save the circular; but 

 if it did not say it would preserve the eggs so per- 

 fectly for a whole year that they would then hatch 

 out good chickens, it came pretty near it. We 

 refused to give his advertisement another inser- 

 tion, and dropped the matter there. 



For years this business of selling recipes for 

 preserving eggs has been goingon. We get a cir- 

 cular every few days, even yet, although our ex- 

 periment stations have again and again explained 

 the whole matter,and the Department at Washing- 

 ton has sent out a bulletin giving all the infor- 

 mation obtainable in regard to it from an unbiased 

 source. I might say briefly that the soluble glass 

 seems to be equal if not superior to any thing 

 known. 



Just now all or nearly all of our poultry jour- 

 nals give place to advertising secrets. The Ho- 

 gan system and the Potter system are still offered 

 for from one to ten dollars, and the editor of one 

 poultry journal defends the business of advertis- 

 ing secrets, and ends up by saying it is every- 

 body's privilege to let them alone if they do not 

 want them. Some of our foreign journals edi- 

 torially ad-uise their readers to pay ten dollars for 

 the Hogan secret. Now, the editor of any indus- 

 trial journal can, if he has energy and enterprise, 

 get hold of all information of this kind, and do 

 it, too, in an honest and gentlemanly way. If 

 he chooses he can buy the secret and give it to 

 his readers free, or he can get the experiment sta- 

 tions throughout our land to assist him in giving 

 people every thing that is of value to them. Our 

 different experiment stations have as a unit de- 

 clared over and over again that nothing of value 

 is enjer peddled out in the way of secrets. Let 

 me give you an illustration. Suppose your neigh- 

 bor's potatoes are being eaten up by potato-bugs, 

 and that his patch will be ruined before night. 

 We will suppose he is new in the business, and 

 does not know what to do nor how to do it; and 

 suppose you have just bought the secret, for 

 which you paid one or even five dollars, as the 

 case may be; but when he comes to you in his 

 distress you tell him, "I would let you have my 

 recipe, friend A., in a minute; but I have signed 

 a contract not to divulge nor to let anybody 

 ' look into the book ' containing the directions, 

 if it were not for that contract, with my name to 

 it in black and white, I would help you out of 

 your trouble straightway; but as it is, I do not 

 see but you will have to let your potatoes all go. 

 You see I am tied up and helpless." 



May be I have put the above a little too 

 strongly, but I think not. I once remonstrated 

 with a young physician because he refused to tell 

 his patients what the medicine was he was giving 

 them. He turned on me with scorn, saying 

 something as follows: 



" Do you think I am going to give away my 

 secrets that I have learned by long study and 

 much experience.'' Not much! Shall I tell the 

 people what I use to cure them so they can go to 

 the drugstore and buy their own medicine with- 

 out consulting me.? Not if I know it." 



I have never heard of that young doctor since. 

 In fact, I doubt if he is a doctot at all by this 



