836 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



golden-leafed arbor-vit-.f, and surrounding it is a 

 circle of hibiscus. The latter grows with won- 

 derful luxuriance all over Florida. Mr. Rood 

 had one little bush, set out, I think, in Septem- 

 ber, and it commenced putting out blossoms in 

 November and kept it up all winter long, and it 

 gave him from one to three great beautiful blos- 

 soms, opening continually."' The house well 

 painted and finished outside, with plastered walls 

 inside, etc., cost about $1000, including eave- 

 spouting. A cement cistern on top of the ground 

 reaches up to the eaves of the porch. This cis- 

 tern is under the roof of the porch at the back 

 side of the house. 



Now just a word in closing about the expense 

 of building in Florida. The cottage on the island 

 was built by brother Shumard and his son-in-law. 

 I paid them $2.00 a day. This last one was 

 built by men who worked only eight hours a day 

 and got $3.00. Now, in plain regular work they 

 accomplish a great deal, and perhaps earn their 

 money; but where we pay such prices as these 

 vou can not afford to keep your carpenter at lit- 

 tle tinkering jobs. As most kinds of furniture 

 are rather expensive in Florida, you will decide, 

 perhaps, after getting the prices, that you can 

 make stands, tables, etc., cheaper than to buy 

 them ready made. Well, this is all very true if 

 you do the work yourself; but when you set a 

 carpenter at work on something he is not used to, 

 at almost 40 cents an hour, you may find your 

 home-made table and stand will cost you more 

 money than you would have to pay for something 

 a great deal nicer at some furniture store. 



THE WRIGHT BROTHERS AND THEIR FLYING-MA- 

 CHINE; ALSO SOMETHING IN REGARD TO 

 OTHER FLYING-MACHINES. 



If you want the full particulars of all that has 

 been done by the Wright Brothers and others in 

 America, as well as every thing that has transpir- 

 ed up to date in the whole wide world, you should 

 swhscx'ih&ior Aeronautics, published at 1777 Broad- 

 way, New York. The price is $3.00 a year; but 

 if you do not wish to subscribe for a whole year 

 you should at least get the anniversary number 

 for June, 1908. It is quite a good-sized maga- 

 zine, and perhaps the most up-to-date document 

 that has appeared on the subject of aeronautics. 



The most valuable point to me in this number 

 is the first article, which is a communication from 

 the Wright Brothers themselves. After giving a 

 schedule of every flight during May, 1908, they 

 add as follows: 



Our recent experiments were conducted upon the grounds near 

 Kitty Hawk, N. C, where we experimented in 1900, 1901, 1902, 

 and 1903. The flyer used in these experiments was the one 

 used in making the flights in September and October, 1905, near 

 Dayton, Ohio. The means of control remained the same as in 

 those flights, but the position of the controlling levers and their 

 directions of motion had to be altered in order to permit the ope- 

 rator to take a sitting position. A seat for a passenger was add- 

 ed. The engine used in 1905 was replaced by a later model, one 

 of which was exhibited at the Aero Club Show at New York in 

 1906. Larger gasoline-reservoirs and radiators were also installed. 



We undertook these experiments in order to test the carrying 

 capacity of the machine, and to ascertain its speed with two men 

 on board, as well as to regain familiarity in the handling of the 



* Beautiful and luscious mulberries also grow with wonderful 

 rapidity and luxuriance. Cuttings stuck in the ground at the 

 proper time of the year will take root and send up great shoots in 

 a wonderfully short time; and sometimes you will get some pretty 

 fair fniit the very first vear. 



machine after a period of almost three years without practice. No 

 attempt was made to beat our record of distance made in 1905. 



The first flights were made over a straight course against winds 

 of 8 to 18 miles an hour. The equilibrium of the machine prov- 

 ing satisfactory in these flights, we began to describe circles, re- 

 turning and landing at the starting-point. These flights covered 

 distances of from 1 to 2/4 miles. 



On the I4lh of May a passenger was taken on board. In the 

 first flight the motor was shut off at the end of 29 seconds to pre- 

 vent running into a sand hill, toward which the machine was 

 started. But in a second the machine carried the passenger and 

 operator for a flight of 3 minutes and 40 seconds, making a circle, 

 landing near the starting-point. The wind, measured at a height 

 of 6 ft. from the ground while the machine was flying, had a veloc- 

 ity of 18 to 19 miles an hour. The distance traveled through the 

 ail as registered by an anemometer attached to the machine was 

 a little over 254 miles, which indicated a speed of about 41 miles 

 an hour. A speed as high as 44 miles an hour was reached in an 

 earlier flight, with only one man on board. 



In a later flight, .May 14, a false movement of a controlling 

 lever caused the machine to plunge into the ground when travel- 

 ing with the wind at a speed of about 55 miles an hour. The re- 

 pairs of the machine would have necessitated a delay of five or 

 six days; and as that would have consumed more time than we 

 had allowed for the experiments we discontinued them for a time. 



Besides this there is quite a long article by By- 

 ron R. Newton, correspondent of the New York 

 Herald. From his account I extract as follows: 



when the little band of correspondents arrived at Manteo they 

 decided to feel out the ground by sending one of their number to 

 ascertain if there was any change in the Wrights' policy of se- 

 crecy. It was a day's journey, and a fruitless one. When the 

 scout reached the aerodrome, nestled between Kitty Hawk and 

 Kill Devil Hills, the Wrights were about to make a flight; but at 

 the approach of a stranger they wheeled the aeroplane back into 

 the building, closed the doors, and advanced to meet their visit- 

 or. They were civil, but very firm. " We appreciate your good 

 intentions," they said, " but you can only do us harm. We do 

 not want publicity of any sort. We want to go on with our ex- 

 periments; but so long as there is a stranger in sight we shall not 

 make a move. Come back a month from now and we will show 

 you something worth telling to the world. At present we are 

 simply experimenting with new features of our machine." 



Then one of the brothers and their assistant mechanic walked 

 with the correspondent back to his boat and watched it far out on 

 the sound toward Manteo. 



The next morning at 4 o'clock, equipped with a guide, water, 

 and provisions we set out determined to ambush the wily invent- 

 ors and observe their performance from a hiding-place in the jun- 

 gle. After a tedious journey over sand hills, through long vistas of 

 pine forest, and through miles of swamp and marsh land in which 

 two of the men narrowly escaped the poisonous fangs of mocca- 

 sins, we found a spot opposite the aerodrome, commanding a 

 clear view of the beach and saiid hills for a distance of five miles 

 in either direction. There for four days we lay in hiding, de- 

 voured by ticks and mosquitoes, startled occasionally by the 

 beady eyes of a snake, and at times drenched by heavy rains. 

 But it paid. We saw what few human eyes had ever witnessed 

 before, and had the satisfaction of telling the world about it. 



Often we wondered if those men ever slept. They were at 

 woik before the sun came up; they frequently made flights in the 

 early twilight, and lamps were flickering about the aerodrome 

 until late in the night. 



The first flight we all witnessed was made early in the morn- 

 ing. As we crept into our hiding-place we could see that the 

 doors of the aerodrome were open and the machine standing on 

 its mono-rail track outside. Three men were working about it 

 and making frequent hurried trips to the aerodrome. Presently a 

 man climbed into the seat while the others continued to tinker 

 about the mechanism. Then we saw the two propellers begin to 

 revolve and flash in the sunlight. Their sound came to us across 

 the sand plain something like the noise of a dirigible balloon's 

 propellers, but the clacking was more staccato and louder. The 

 noise has been described as like that of a reaping-machine, and 

 the comparison is a very good one. We were told by a mechan- 

 ic who assisted the Wrights that the motor made 1700 revolutions 

 a minute, but was geared down so that the propellers made but 

 700 revolutions. 



For several seconds the propeller blades continued to flash in 

 the sun, and then the machine arose obliquely in the air. At 

 first it came directly toward us, so that we could not tell how fast 

 it was going except that it appeared to increase rapidly in size as 

 it approached. In the excitement of this first flight, men trained 

 to observe details under all sorts of distractions forgot their came- 

 ras, forgot their watches, forgot every thing but this aerial mon- 

 ster chattering over our heads. As it neared us we could plainly 

 see the operator in his seat working at the upright levers close by 

 his side. When it was almost squarely over us there was a move- 

 ment of the forward and rear guiding-planes, a slight curving of 

 the larger planes at one end, and the machine wheeled about at 

 an angle every bit as gracefully as an eagle flying close to the 

 ground could have done. 



It appeared lo be 25 or .30 feet from the ground; and, so far as 



