1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



LS33 



Special Notices by A. I. R.ot 



MY 69th birthday. 

 To-day, Dec. 9, I am 59 years old, and thanking God ihat our 

 five ihildieD and eight grandchildren are all alive and well. 

 The last arrival, a week ago to-day, is especially alive when the 

 time comes for her " ration." Mrs. Root and 1 expect to leave 

 for Florida just as soon as I can get in my vote, December 15, to 

 make Medina Co. dry. 



THE WRIGHT BROTHERS UP TO DATE. 



If I am correctly informed, Orville Wright has so far recover- 

 ed that he has left his home in Dayton, Ohio, and is now on his 

 way to join his brother in Fiance; and the papers tell us that his 

 brother, Wilbur Wright, now h.is'hopes that he can construct a 

 flying-machine that will fly without a motor. I can not under- 

 stand what he means by this unless he has reason to think it pos- 

 sible to find ascending currents that will take him up into the 

 air, and that, when once aloft, he can guide his ship so as to find 

 other ascending currents that will enable him to fly as birds do 

 for hours without flapping a wing. Perhaps this is only a news- 

 paper fiction; but there may be a kernel of truth in it after all. 



TWO SWARMS IN ONE DAY. 



"Well, what of it?" you may ask. Two swarms of bees in 

 one day is certainly nothing remarkable for a bee-keeper with 

 even a small apiary. But these two swarms I have in mind came 

 in December; but even this would be nothing remarkable if it 

 had happened down in Florida; but it was not in Florida, but in 

 Medina, O., on the 2d of December, 1908; and if you will let me 

 explain a little 1 will tell you why it was an event in the eyes 

 of all Rootville. Mrs. Root had just one sister, the wife of 

 Neighbor H. who used to be a bee-keeper, and write for Glean- 

 ings. Well, Neighbor H. has a daughter, and this daughter is 

 only about five weeks older than her cousin, Carrie Belle Root, 

 now the wife of Llewellyn W. Boyden. Well, these two 

 cousins each gave birth to a little stranger, and both came to 

 Rootville (strange to tell) on the same day, and only a few hours 

 apart, and, of course, there is great rejoicing. One is a boy, and 

 the other is a girl. The father of the boy is our head book- 

 keeper, Mr. Neal Kellogg. The father of the girl baby is Mr. 

 Boyden, a younger brother of A. L. Boyden Mr. L. W. Boyden, 

 as you may remember, has until recently had charge of our 

 house in New York city. Of course you will recall what 1 have 

 told you, on several other similar occasions, that no colony of 

 bees can be really prospe'ous unless brood-rearing is going on 

 pretty nearly every month in the year. There must be frequent 

 accessions of young blood to keep up and perpetuate a healthy 

 growth in the parent colony. May God be praised for all his 

 mercies; and may he help us all to remember the responsiblities 

 that rest upon us to train up these little ones in such a way that 

 when they get old enough they will, of their own accord, hold 

 fast to "the straight and narrow path." 



WHAT periodicals WILL YOU SUBSCRIBE FOR, FOR 1909.' 



Vou may be aware, friends, that we exchange with more than 

 a hundred periodicals of different kinds; and just now I am called 

 on to consider which ones I shall select, from this great array, for 

 reading in my Florida home during the coming winter. 



First I want the Sunday School Times, because its standard of 

 morals, not only in its reading columns but in its advertisements 

 as well, is higher, it seems to me, than perhaps that of most of 

 the religious periodicals. 



Next I want the Rural New-Yorker, because it not only also 

 upholds the highest and best morals, but it shows up swindlers, 

 fearlessly and unsparingly, and everybody else who preys on the 

 homes of our land. 



Then I want the Practical Farmer, because T. B. Terry tells 

 us in it every week how not only to live but to live and be happy 

 until we are a hundred years old, or less. 



Then I want the Ohio Farmer, because, while it posts us on 

 every thing belonging to the farm and to farm life, it also puts in 

 tremendous sledge-hammer blows against the American saloon. 



Next I want the Country Gentleman because it is a country 

 gentleman, and dignifies the farmer's calling. 



I want also the Farm Journal, which, while it holds up right- 

 eousness and temperance, as well as agriculture, cojts so little 

 that it is almost a shame to be without it. 



And there may be still other farm periodicals that may be just 

 as good as the ones I have mentioned, but I am not so well ac- 

 quainted with them, perhaps because 1 have not had them, as 1 

 have those I have mentioned, all my life. 



You may be surprised that I do not enumerate any of the mag- 

 azines. To tell the truth, dear friends, I have not yet seen a 

 magazine that seems to inculcate on every page such a high stand- 

 ard for the home as the periodicals I have mentioned. I have 

 also omitted a great list of religious periodicals, and the principal 

 reason is so many of them accept and continue a class oi adver- 

 tising that would not be accepted by our best farm papers, such 

 as I have mentioned. 1 do take a daily paper, but I do so under 



protest. I have written to several of our g'eat city dailies, say- 

 ing that, when one could be found that rejects whisky advertis- 

 ing, 1 would use all my influence to gel people to subscribe forit. 



Among the others, I shall have 25 or 30 poultry-papers. At the 

 present writing I have found only wo that are willing to lose 

 some of their advertiing by coming out boldly against swindles 

 and frauds. One of these is Poultry, publisned at Peotone, Ills., 

 and the other is the Petaluma Poultry Journal, published weekly 

 at Petaluma, Cal. • 



Of course, I take, and shall always take, the American Issue, 

 the exponent of the Anti-sjloon League, Columbus, O. 



Besides the above I shall take our home papers, the Medina 

 Ga'zette and the Manatee River Journal, Bradentown, Fla. 



Everybody should subscribe for and help along one or more of 

 the papers published in their own lown. If they are not what 

 they ought to be, turn in and help the editor make them better. 



KIND WORDS. 



We enjoy your Home talks in Gleanings. Advice and 

 pointers coming from one who has raised a Jamily, and knows 

 what that means, comes as encouragement to us younger inex- 

 perienced fathers and mothers. May your life be spared to con- 

 tinue your part of Gleanings. Mrs. C. E. Carlson. 



Koekuk, Iowa, Dec. 1. 



HELPED TO MAKE THEIR VILLAGE DRY. 



1 just finished the Home paper, which I have read with muth 

 enjoyment for several years, and I sincerely agree with Brother 

 Thatcher in saying you can not write too much. I think your 

 temperance pieces are simply priceless, and it may interest you 

 to know we just voted our little village dry. Your temperance 

 page helped to give us more strength and courage, and I feel in 

 duty bound to tell you this. 



Gypsum, Colo., Nov._6^ Birdie Hockett. 



"the old SCHOOL." 



Mr. Root: — Your circular letter came just as I was starting to 

 the Central Illinois Horticultural meeting. I had a paper before 

 the convention on natural aids of the fruit-grower, and it is need- 

 less to say the honey-bee took the first place. I have read 

 Gleanings for 18 years, though not a subscriber that long: and 

 of the hundreds of papers and magazines that come to my desk 

 each month, none of them are valued higher than Gleanings, 

 and only two others are considered worthy of saving and binding. 



Mr. A. I. Root's department is one of the best and most help- 

 ful of any similar depaitment 1 know of, and his articles can not 

 help being beneficial for the up-building of the home life, which, 

 by the way, is the one important thing. He belongs to " the old 

 school " that has not forgotten the golden rule; and I trust he may 

 be spared to continue many years in his excellent work. 

 . No:mal, 111., Nov. 2K ^A. M. Augustine. 



an inspiration to DO GOOD AND BE GOOD. 



I should be sorry to lose a single copy of your journal, as every- 

 thing you write is so good and healthy, especially your notes on 

 home and health. 1 also thank you from the bottom of my heart 

 for the way you have treated, and the stand you have taken on 

 temperance, on cutting out fake advertisements, patent medicine, 

 etc. May God give you power and strength to continue for many 

 years to come. You don't know the amount of good you are do- 

 ing. The world seems to be crying out for good honest men, for 

 they are so few, and we need them so much in our Sunday-schools, 

 our pulpits, our governments, in every walk of life; and your pa- 

 pers seem to give one an inspiration to be good and do good. 



Vancouver, B. C, Nov. 1. Geo. Schofield. 



FROM " cover to COVER," COVERS INCLUDED. 



I wiite to return our thanks for your very unexpected kindness 

 in the matter of Gleanings. It is always read in this home 

 from cover to cover — when we have it. By the way, the covers 

 are charming themselves. 



We have felt the touch of your personality ever since the far- 

 away days in Tabor, Iowa, where our little apiary was laid out 

 on the terraces of our hillside home, after the pattern shown in 

 the ABC and Gleanings, and where, into tlie midst of our 

 discussions of " comb foundation " and " bee-queens," came the 

 call that made us wanderers on the earth. The bees went with 

 us to our first pastorate, where several colonies were stolen one 

 Sunday night. We never moved the bees again; but in spite of 

 the loss by theft they did famously for us those years; and Mr. 

 Bosworth was helped to get into close touch with men by what 

 he could do for them among the bees, helping them " transfer," 

 selling to them and introducing for them Italian queens, and ex- 

 tracting honey for them. He paid $5.00 for his queen. 



The only time I ever saw you face to face was at Arthur T. 

 Reed's Fouth-of-July meeting at Thompson, O., when you rode 

 out on your wheel to be pretent, and afterward wrote it up for 

 Gleanings. 



I am not getting old — not at all — but I fear 1 am getting gar- 

 rulous — with my pen. Mrs. L. A. M. Bosworth. 



Neosho Falls, Kas., Nov. 2.1. 



