1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



321 



Our Homes 



By a. I. Root 



And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, 

 between me and thee, and between my herdman and thy herd- 

 man, for WB BE BRBTHRBN. — (Jen. 13:8. 



When I vras ten years old I was in the habit 

 of making frequent trips on foot fiom my boy- 

 hood home to the home of my grandfather, on 

 my mother's side. Grandfather's place was two 

 miles and a half from our home, and so it was 

 quite a walk for a ten-year-old boy. But there 

 were many attractions at grandfather's farm. For 

 one thing he was a great lover of fruit of all 

 kinds; and when he first made a settlement in 

 the wilderness he planted apples, pears, peaches, 

 plums, cherries, and almost every kind of fruit 

 that could be had at that early day, so that, by 

 the time I was ten years old, there was always 

 an abundance of fri'it. He had a whole peach- 

 orchard on the summit of a great hill on the 

 farm, and other fruit-trees scattered here and 

 there all over the premises. As there was a good 

 market in the neighboring town of Akron, Sum- 

 mit Co., O., which was then, as now, a growing 

 place, he did well with his fruit, besides furnish- 

 ing a great lot of his grandchildren all they 

 could consume, and carry home, for that matter. 

 Well, on one of these visits I remember distinctly 

 picking up a new agricultural paper just started. 

 It was Moore's Rural Neiv-Yorker. At that time 

 there were not many periodicals that would at- 

 tract the attention of a ten-year-old boy. But I 

 took a great fancy to that new agricultural pe- 

 riodical. There were bright pictures and viva- 

 cious stories in it about farming, and in a little 

 time it began to be understood that those papers 

 were to be saved for my regular visits, if not as 

 often as once a week, then once in two or three 

 weeks. That was almost sixty years ago; but I 

 have kept track of Moore's Rural N^^cv -Yorker, 

 and have read it more or less ever since. Very 

 likely there are other agricultural papers just as 

 good; but it was, perhaps, owing very largely 

 to the above circumstance that I have urged 

 everybody who loves gardening and agriculture 

 to take the Rural. 



My natural tendency toward agriculture, es- 

 pecially gardening on small areas, has induced 

 me to keep in touch more or less with all of our 

 agricultural periodicals. I have seen many of 

 them start, and have been delighted to watch 

 their growth, especially when it was a good 

 natural healthy growth; and I have rejoiced to 

 know that but very few of them that have been 

 started with a good man or men back of them 

 have died from lack of patronage. Just now I 

 have space to speak of only one other agricultural 

 paper, the Country Gentltman. I can not remem- 

 ber when I first got hold of it, but its title attract- 

 ed me at once. All along in years past there has 

 been a tendency on the part of a certain class of 

 town or city people to look down on the farming 

 community. I remember once hearing the fore- 

 man of a machine-shop, while scoring some men 

 for a blunder they had made, say something like 

 this: 



" You are only a lot of farmers, any 



way. " 



The blank was filled out with an oath. I felt 



the sting, and 1 feel if yet when I hear any thing 

 of that kind. It is true there are some pec pie 

 who follow farming who are stupid, dull, and 

 ignorant; but, thank God, there are thousands of 

 others who are not only bright and capable, but 

 manly and honest, and they will save the world 

 in spite of the iniquity in our great cities if they 

 will only arise in their might and use their privi- 

 leges. With this in mind, you may be sure I 

 fell in love with the title of this other, the Coun- 

 try Gentleman. I do not know how many years 

 I have been reading that periodical. I do know, 

 however, that I was so much taken up with it 

 that I sent for their "Complete Library of Rural 

 Affairs " It is a library of beautiful bound books 

 that can well grace tie home of any farmer or any- 

 body else It contains an accumulation of val- 

 uable facts and illustrations taken from the Coun- 

 try Gentleman for about fifty years. This 

 journal is rather high toned, and is sometimes 

 inclined to be a little aristocratic; but, taking it 

 all together, I love and prize it I have said it 

 before, and I say it again, may God be praised 

 that we have at least one Country Gentleman. 

 That paper and the Rural Ne^w -Yorker cznhz 

 found almost any time lying side by side on my 

 open secretary. But I have been pained for some 

 time back to note the jarring between these two 

 periodicals, and I thought of writing a protest to 

 the two editors; but before I got around to it I 

 was shocked and greatly pained by finding the 

 following in a recent Rural: 



December 18 I subscribed for tie Rural }^ew-Yorker \\xxisa%\i 

 the Country Gentleman, as has been my custom for some time. 

 I don't know whether I am entitled to the boolc, " Nell Beverly, 

 Farmer," or not. John D.'Vwes. 



The above was written last Christmas. We have been trying 

 ever since to get the remittance for Mr. Dawes, but so far have 

 failed. It is only a repetition of the experience we are having 

 tight along; and because of this petty and deliberate annoyance 

 to our subscribers, we must again announce that the Country 

 Gentleman and its agents have no authority te represent the Rural 

 Netr- Yorker, or to accept money for it, an4 hereby forbid them to 

 do so. No further subscriptions will be accepted from them un- 

 der any circumstances. 



One reason why I felt troubled when reading 

 the above was because I felt pretty sure the Coun- 

 try Gentleman would reply; and, judging from 

 past experience, I expected the reply would be 

 still more uncouiteous and ungentlemanly than 

 the one in the Rural. Here it is: 



More Lying. — The mendacious Rural New-Yorker \% again 

 snarling at the heels of the Country Gentleman and in a manner 

 more contemptible, if possible, than its persistent shrieking last 

 year of the falsehood that we had defended the Dawley cattle 

 transactions. It says that we took a subscription for that paper 

 and appropriated the money instead of remitting it, and that they 

 have been trying in vain since Christmas to collect it! It may 

 be worth while to add, in view of the same paper's recent attack 

 on the Buffalo Fertilizer Company, that, before making it, Mr. 

 Collingwood or bis associates strained every nerve to secure the 

 advertising of that company, by circulars, signed letters, and 

 personal visits — but unsuccessfully. 



I suppose the- greater part of our readers will 

 look at this without any bias toward either pe- 

 riodical. They will feel as I do, that it is a sad 

 thing for these two great home papers, especially 

 papers that go into the farm home, to permit 

 such an example to go out before the world. Let 

 us now go back to our text. 



Abram and Lot were prospering, and each had 

 quite a lot of followers, and there was some 

 trouble about the pasture for their cattle. We 

 do not know very much about Lot; but Abram, 

 the old patriarch (perhaps not so very old just 

 then, God bless his memory) was wise enough 



