352 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



part of last week. I had noticed a few days before that some of 

 your newly set trees were lookine rather sickly, and so 1 had 

 Wesley go over and cut off the limbs of two of them and water 

 all of them thoroughly. They now look much better. Nearly 

 all of the grass in the front yard is living. 1 have not had all of 

 the rye cut yet, but perhaps 1 had better do so soon. I never saw 

 your place look so well before. It ought to be a real beauty 

 this winter. I have but little doubt that you will have more 

 grass when you come down than you will care for — at least un- 

 til you get your lawn-mower at work. 



Dr. Brymer has had a 454-inch artesian well dug. It is only 

 480 feet deep, and has a reputed flow of 300 gallons a minute. 

 It is at least a very fine well. My well is watering my land 

 beautifully. IWy strawberries that otherwise must have died 

 daring the long drouth are doing finely. 



We are not having such a good honey year as last, but I have 

 been getting a good many barrels during the last few days. 



Bradentown, Fla., May 13. E. B. Rood. 



Permit me to explain that some very fine ba- 

 nanas are raised around Bradentown — yes, some 

 of the finest, to my notion, that I ever got hold 

 of. I think it has been stated that more whole- 

 some sustaining food can be grown on a square 

 rod with bananas than any other plant producing 

 food for the human family. Well, bananas 

 must have very rich ground. Liice the rhubarb 

 or pieplant they will stand any amount of strong 

 manure. The bananas Mr. Rood mentions 

 were on a plot of ground where I sowed sprouted 

 oats all last winter. The chickens spent a great 

 part of their time every day in digging this 

 ground over and over; and as a consequence it 

 received a very liberal coating indeed of poultry 

 manure, and this fertilizer was most thoroughly 

 worked in. A quarter of an acre of bananas 

 properly managed will bring in quite a lot of 

 money. I believe they usually sell in our Flor- 

 ida markets — that is, choice fruit — for almost as 

 much money as they bring here in the North. 

 Dr. Brymer, who is putting down the new arte- 

 sian well mentioned, was a York State bee-keep- 

 er; but he was so badly affl cted with asthma 

 that he located in Florida about a year ago. 

 He has not only regained his health, but he did 

 some quite successful gardening, even before he 

 put down his artesian well. Three hundred gal- 

 lons a minute from a 4)^-inch pipe, is, if I am 

 correct, something extra fine. 



Health Notes 



WHISKY FOR SICK PEOPLE. 



If you have been reading up what the great 

 doctors have to say, and have also been keeping 

 track of the report of the tuberculosis convention, 

 you are doubtless well satisfied that whisky and 

 other alcoholic stimulants are ne-ijer of any bene- 

 fit to consumptives. On the contrary, they are 

 a positive damage, and often tKe cause of the 

 "great white plague." Perhaps they are the 

 greatest indirect cause. Intemperate parents can 

 not give birth to good strong children able to re- 

 sist tuberculosis and a host of other diseases. 

 Notwithstanding all this recent evidence, our 

 daily papers (and I am afraid some of our home 

 papers) are full of advertisements of whisky for 

 sick people — not only Duffy's malt whisky, but 

 ever so many other kinds, accompanied with 

 testimonials, from old people, that are base forger- 

 ies. In McClure's Magazine for March we have 

 quite an article entitled " Evidence Against Al- 

 cohol," by two of the best-posted physicians we 



have in our land, or perhaps in any other land. 

 Here is what is said of these men, in a footnote. 



Professor M. A. Rosanoff is Director of Chemical Laboratories 

 in Clark University, Worcester, Mass., and Dr. A. J. Rosanoff, 

 Second Assistant Physician of Kings Park State Hospital, Long 

 Island, N. Y. 



These two doctors have made some exhaustive 

 experiments. Their conclusions are printed in 

 italics, and I am very glad to be able to give 

 most of them here in our journal. 



Moderate amounts of alcohol taken with a meal effect a very 

 considerable lowering of the capacity for doing muscular work. 

 The widespread notion that moderate drinking with meals helps 

 a laborer do his work is false. 



Moderate drinking retards to a. considerable extent the activi- 

 ties of life that are intermediate in complexity between purely 

 muscular and psychical work. The widespread notion that a 

 drink " braces one up," and makes one do such work faster, is 

 false. 



Moderate drinking reduces considerably an artisan's efficien- 

 cy. Its effect is cumulative, and the losses caused by it increase 

 as time goes on. The widespread notion that moderate drinking 

 helps an artisan in his work is false. 



Moderate daily drinking reduces considerably the rapidity with 

 which habitual associations of ideas are formed in the mind. 

 The effect of alcohol is cumulative, and increases as time goes 

 on. The notion that alcohol " stimulates" a person to his men- 

 tal work is surely not corroborated by facts. 



Free associations of ideas are affected by moderate daily 

 drinking even more than the simpler habitual associations. The 

 effects of alcohol on free associations of ideas are cumulative. 



Ordinary memorizing is greatly retarded under the influence of 

 moderate drinking. This conclusion is entirely corroborated by 

 a set of twenty-seven experiments carried out by A. Smith in 

 1895. 



Throughout the western world, one out of four men admitted to 

 an insane-asylum is brought there by alcohol. 



You will notice the above point to the fact 

 that they made careful experiments with people 

 in different walks in life, and the results are the 

 same right through. The use of alcohol and in- 

 toxicating liquor is every time, and al--vays, and 

 under all circumstances, with all sorts of people, 

 injurious and damaging. Let me now digress a 

 little 



Whatever I may have said in these Health 

 Notes I still practice myself, and recommend to 

 others — either to go, or send for your family phy- 

 sician when you are threatened with any thing 

 that is at all serious. The judgment of the fa- 

 ther and mother in any home ought to be sufficient 

 to decide Tv/ten it is best to call in a doctor. 

 But in choosing a doctor for a family physician 

 I would by all means urge finding one who is 

 fully posted and abreast with the times in regard 

 to this matter of " whisky for sick people. " Dur- 

 ing my recent illness I told out good doctor to 

 give me whatever his judgment and experience 

 approved, but not to give me whisky. He laugh- 

 ed, and said that he guessed we would not disa- 

 gree in that matter. During an early stage of 

 the disease he gave me some tablets that gave such 

 prompt relief I began to fear that they contained 

 morphine. Let me briefly give you a little ex- 

 perience I had some years ago with a morphine 

 remedy. I was away from home, and had a bad 

 attack of dysentery. When neither dieting nor 

 any thing else seemed to be of any avail I went 

 to a druggist for a cholera cure. This cure ar- 

 rested the trouble, as it always had before, but 

 this time it came right back, and kept coming 

 back. I presume I used the cholera cure several 

 times a day for something like a week; and then 

 I began to be surprised to think I felt so well, 

 and got along so nicely, while I was eating al- 

 most nothing, but the demand for my medicine 

 kept coming more frequently. I was on the road 

 to become a morphine fiend, and I stopped right 



