1272 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15 



the chickens digging up the sprouted oats. What 

 do you suppose happened.'' Well, the nuts this 

 year are larger, finer, and earlier than ever be- 

 fore. In fact, they are the finest thin-shelled 

 hickorynuts I ever got hold of. And, by the 

 way, I saw in one of the agricultural papers that 

 you can make any fruit-tree bear larger and finer 

 fruit (and do it every year, without any off years) 

 if you will just feed the tree and keep the ground 

 loose and mellow all around it as far as the roots 

 extend. The droppings from the little poultry- 

 house are taken out every few days, and pulver- 

 ized and mixed in with this spread-out compost- 

 heap so as to grow, still more thrifty and luxuri- 

 ant sprouted oats. 



Now, after each meal of grains and milk I go 

 out by the doorstep and sit down in the shade 

 with a nice light hammer, and get my nuts right 

 from nature, without the intervention of any 

 "middleman" for that part of my menu. Speak- 

 ing about nature reminds me that a gray squirrel 

 makes several trips to that hickory-tree every day, 

 and he shells and rattles down about a dozen nuts 

 for every one he carries off. The weather is so 

 dry that the nuts ripen and shell out a week or 

 two earlier than they usually do. In fact, this 

 year they all bid fair to drop off before 

 we get a bit of frost. It is just rare fun for the 

 grandchildren and myself to go out every morn- 

 ing and gather the beautiful white-shelled nuts 

 as they drop into the rich black compost at the 

 foot of the tree. 



Just now I believe I prefer hickorynuts to any 

 other kind I ever got hold of — at least the nuts 

 from this particular tree. And while so much is 

 said about cultivating and growing pecans, why 

 in the world does not somebody make a selection 

 of the finest thin-shelled "shellbark" hickory- 

 nuts, and encourage and develop them, just as I 

 am doing with this particular hickory-tree.? I 

 presume you might get a pretty good-sized hick- 

 ory-tree from the forest and plant it in your 

 dooryard. My chestnut-tree is not bearing this 

 year, and I fear it is because I have not given it 

 the care and cultivation I have given this partic- 

 ular hickory, and that, too, almost by accident. 

 By all means have a good generous compost-heap 

 somewhere in the back yard, and have it large 

 enough, and stirred over often enough, so you 

 can push any plant or tree about your home. 



CAN NOT EAT HONEY OR APPLES. 



Dear old A. I. R.: — As a health note, may I ask you why it is 

 that every time I eat honey I am afflicted with a headache -=- al- 

 most identical with the " feel " of an ache I get from eating ap- 

 ples? I am fond of both, and yet can not eat either of them. 



Yonkers, N. Y., Sept. 10. E. C. Bischoff. 



My good friend Bischoff, I am under the im- 

 pression that you are only one of thousands of 

 other people who have the troubles you mention 

 from eating either honey or apples; and by eat- 

 ing these together you probably have found they 

 make a " bad combination." Now, I am not a 

 doctor, and I shall, perhaps, be working in the 

 dark; but the probability is that you do not have 

 enough outdoor exercise, or that you are eating 

 more than you need, and have likely been doing 

 so for a long while, and now you have a sort of 

 chronic fermentation of the bowels. I have been 

 fighting the same thing for years; and when I 



get in pretty good trim by avoiding such things 

 as distress me, I find I can eat a little honey and 

 not produce any bad results. For instance, make 

 an entire meal of bread and butter and honey, 

 and, say, half a cup of milk, but do not eat more 

 than half of what you feel inclined to eat. Break 

 away from the table when your meal is just half 

 over. For a while you will feel half starved, and 

 be tempted to say you do not believe in any such 

 doctrine; but after a while you will get over it 

 and you may be surprised to find, when next 

 meal time comes, you are not as hungry as usual. 

 Now, I would not take honey again the next 

 meal. Do not tempt your old trouble. Eat 

 something else that agrees with you. In my case 

 it would probably be a Hamburg steak, with just 

 bread and butter, or, better still, rolled wheat. 

 When you find that one small meal with honey 

 has not brought on the headache you can try it 

 again; but be careful. I am very fond of new 

 maple sugar; but it almost always gives me a 

 headache. One day when I was up in the cabin 

 in Michigan I had nothing on hand for dinner 

 but warm sugar and some dried bread. Now, I 

 ate a pretty good dose of this hot maple syrup 

 'with my dry bread, just at the regular dinner 

 hour, and I did not have any headache at all. If 

 I take warm sugar right after a good meal, as 

 people usually do, I have the headache sure. 



Now, after you have mastered the honey busi- 

 ness, and found you can eat it in small doses, try 

 making a meal, say your supper, mostly of ap- 

 ples and bread and butter, or apples and wheat. 

 The Battle Creek folks recommended, some 

 years ago, that people who can not eat fruit would 

 find that, if they made a whole meal of it, eating 

 the fruit without sugar or any thing else, they 

 would have no trouble; and as soon as I read the 

 above I made a supper of baked apples — not 

 another thing. It is true I did not feel quite sat- 

 isfied; but an hour or two after my meal I felt 

 all right, and slept unusually well. The great 

 trouble is, we eat the honey and the apples after 

 Nature has been pretty well satisfied; and the 

 worst part of it is, we keep on doing it until our 

 digestion is all out of joint, and it takes a long 

 while to get back again. Take only a few dif- 

 ferent things at any one meal, and not too much 

 of these few. It will not hurt you to go hungry 

 a little while. After you find that Nature will 

 get accustomed to the scant menu, you will feel 

 better than you ever did before. Try it, and see 

 if I am not right. 



Now, brother B., be very careful not to put 

 any thing into your mouth between meals except 

 water; and particularly do not taste of an apple 

 or of any honey. Just a very little sweet will 

 keep this fermentation going when it once gets to 

 be a chronic trouble. Now, as an illustration of 

 what real health means I wish to quote once more 

 from T. B. Terry in the Practical Farmer: 



WORK A PASTIME AND LIFE A JOY 



Study to toughen the body. Make it warm itself more. Ev- 

 ery detail in this article has been followed by the writer system- 

 atically for several years. The reward is great. Many others 

 are doing about the same. I am glad to give one delightful re- 

 port from a woman who does not wear a corset at all. She lives 

 on a farm, and tells of sleeping full time with all windows and 

 doors open, etc., then adds: " I believe I never before got quite 

 so near nature as 1 have this summer. I revel in air baths, sun 

 baths, and cool-water baths at all possible opportunities. My 

 clothing is loose and light. And how good all this makes me 

 feel! What a fine thing it is to see stacks and stacks of work and 



