766 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



time. When I call a physician I always tell him 

 plainly at the outset that I very much prefer to 

 have advice rather than medicine — that is, if no 

 medicine is really needed; and when he tells me 

 it is something I need not be at all worried about 

 I sometimes have to urge him to take pay sim- 

 ply for giving me the benefit of his advice and 

 experience. 



Now, in every thing I have to say, dear friends, 

 please remember that I may be mistaken and in 

 the wrong. Please keep in mind that I am sim- 

 ply making suggestions to you and giving you 

 my point of view and observation. Now, when I 

 give you a little of my experience of years past, 

 please do not think I am boasting. It is the 

 Lord Jesus Christ I want to hold up and not poor 

 faulty A. I. Root. When I began reading my 

 Bible, something over thirty years ago, I turned 

 right square about in a good many things; and 

 that beautiful text, "Give, and it shall be given 

 unto you," helped me greatly in turning right 

 square about. I had at that time no patent on 

 my all-metal honey-extractor; and my impression 

 is now that if nine-tenths of all the patents had 

 never been taken out or granted, the world would 

 be just as well off. I have no doubt our old- 

 er readers will remember that when Gleanings 

 was started I commenced ransacking the face of 

 the whole earth, if you will excuse the expression, 

 in order to get hold of every thing that was val- 

 uable to bee-keepers; and then I sat up nights 

 (and set type myself at times) to get these valu- 

 able facts before our readers just as soon as pos- 

 sible. When I had worked out a better plan for 

 sending queens by mail I sent a special circular 

 free of charge to all the friends who were mailing 

 queens. If anybody advertised any secrets in bee- 

 keeping, making artificial honey, etc., I sent the 

 money and gave you the secret free of charge. 



There is another text along the same line from 

 the same chapter from which my first one comes. 

 It says, "Do good and lend, hoping for nothing 

 again; and your reward shall be great, and ye 

 shall be called the children of the Highest." 

 Why, is not that promise just glorious.? I never 

 fully realized it until jwj/ this minute as my eye 

 alighted on it in the open Bible that lies before 

 me as I dictate. Jesus not only says our reward 

 shall be great but that we shall be the children of 

 the Highest — God's children. 



Well, if I am correct I made the first all-metal 

 honey-extractor, toward forty years ago. I told 

 you all about it in the old American Bee Journal. 

 Although I might have patented several features 

 of it, I took out no patents. Just about this 

 time some visitors from Toledo, O., came to see 

 us. One of them asked a good many questions 

 about my new extractor; and he even took out 

 his rule and made measurements of different parts 

 of it and put it down in a notebook. I supposed 

 he was thinking of making one for his own use, 

 and said nothing about it, and thought but little 

 about it until a few weeks later, when an adver- 

 tisement appeared in the American Bee Journal 

 that read something as follows: 



"Honey-extractors made just like A. I. Root's, 

 but $1.00 cheaper than the Root extractors." 



Of course, I felt a little hurt at this, but con- 

 cluded to say nothing. A little later my good 

 friend Prof. Cook got out his first edition of the 

 B ee-keepers' Manual," and I felt still more hurt 



to see that he had pictured this extractor (copied 

 from mine) with the manufacturer's name on the 

 printed picture. I did not lower my price on 

 account of the advertisement; but I tried hard to 

 make a better machine than I had been making 

 for the same money. Some of the veterans will 

 remember this first frail machine, and the amount 

 of work it did was really remarkable at that stage 

 of proceedings. 



Now, friends, we are about ready for the sec- 

 ond text. I first got hold of it at a union revival 

 meeting here in Medina. Somebody got up in 

 meeting and said in a voice that startled us all, 

 "Great peace have they that love thy law, and 

 nothing shall offend them. " Whenever I feel 

 hurt I try to remember about the " great peace" 

 — that it is your privilege and mine to have it; 

 and then I try again not to be offended, no matter 

 what may happen or come up. Oh what a bright 

 and happy world this would be if people would 

 not take offense too easily! When we get to the 

 stage (or age) where we shall not take offense, no 

 matter what shall happen, we are getting pretty 

 close to heaven. 



Some time ago I criticised somewhat the Wo- 

 man's National Daily, but now it is getting to be 

 not only right on the side of the tetnperance war, 

 but it gives me some happy surprises in regard to 

 other things. In a recent issue there is an edi- 

 torial headed " Revolverless Robbery. " A trol- 

 ley car in Philadelphia was held up and robbed, 

 and the robbers went right through without hin- 

 drance because there was not a revolver in the 

 whole crowd — not even in the hands of the con- 

 ductor. The editor rejoices over this fact; and I 

 want to add, " May God be praised that Phila- 

 delphia had at least one carload of people without 

 a revolver. " It is intimated that the robbers 

 themselves did not even show a revolver; and 

 Editor Lewis thinks it was a great deal better 

 than to have a fusillade of bullets that would be 

 more likely to injure innocent people than to kill 

 the robbers, as happened in the following case, 

 which I quote from the very same paper. 



FIVE SHOT IN MAN-HUNT. 



Sergeant, Kv., May 27. — Officers of the county have been 

 on a man-hunt in the Blackberry Creek region near here. Their 

 special object was to capture Sam and Thomas Followay, want- 

 ed for lawlessness, and believed to be trying to escape across 

 the Virginia line. In a Hungarian settlement where it was 

 thought the two men were concealed, there was a general shoot- 

 ing-scrape, and five of the Hungarians were shot. Two of them 

 were women, and their wounds are mortal. 



It is the old story of Nimble Dick, who not 

 only failed to hit the obnoxious crow but destroy- 

 ed a valuable cat sitting in the window.* 



Well, while I give a hearty amen to that part 

 of it, I do think the police of that great city should 

 leave no stone unturned in order to get hold of 

 those highwaymen. And let me suggest that the 

 first and foremost " stone " to be rolled over would 

 be to get rid of the saloons that curse not only 

 Philadelphia but every other great city in our 

 land. 



* As some of the children may never have heard about " Nimble 

 Dick " I have asked our stenographer to gfve you a verse that sent 

 my memory back fifty years or more as soon as he suggested the 

 application of the moral to the shooting of five persons. 



Nimble Dick, he was so quick 

 He tumbled over a stick of timber; 



He bent his bow to shoot a crow. 

 And killed a cat in the window. 



