168 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



weight in gold. They were impressed sim- 

 ilarly to myself. It soon transpired that 

 this bean succeeded in only a few localities, 

 and even then only under extremely favor- 

 able seasons. After trying in vain to grow 

 it in sufficient quantities so as to make each 

 reader of Gleanings a present of a few of 

 these wonderfully luscious beans, I gave it 

 up ; but three or four years afterward, when 

 we had a season that just suited it, I grew 

 quite a considerable crop. Another thing, 

 it didn't always produce beans of such won- 

 derful excellent quality on all sorts of soils. 

 This is something that we have all had to 

 learn in testing new things. 



I was one of the first to demonstrate Ihat 

 celery could be grown on our Medina Coun- 

 ty soil. Now the crop grown in that region 

 amounts to many thousands of dollars. 



The Grand Rapids lettuce, that I discov- 

 ered and introduced to the world, and gave 

 it its name, has also been the means of fur- 

 nishing the material for a great industry, 

 for there are now acres and acres of Grand 

 Rapids* lettuce grown under glass in Ohio 

 alone. I do not know how many acres there 

 are in other States devoted to this at the 

 present time. 



In a letter that I have recently received 

 from the Department of Agi'iculture, they 

 promise to furnish me more tubers if I can 

 make use of them. Now, I tell you confi- 

 dentially what my plan is. As soon as I 

 can get enough of them I want to make 

 a present of a dasheen tuber to every read- 

 er of Gleanings — that is, to every one who 

 sends the subscription price for one year. 

 It seems to be ftiore exactly suitable for 

 Florida soil and Florida conditions than 

 for any other part of the United States. If 

 I can only make it grow as we are now 

 making sweet potatoes grow, I shall be in- 

 deed happy. Before we Avent home last 

 spring we got some sweet-potato vines over 

 at neighbor Rood's, and just cut them up 

 into short pieces and planted them through- 

 out our garden, where other crops had been 

 gathered off. Well, they had little care dur- 

 ing the summer ; but when we came back in 

 November we found such a great crop of 

 sweet potatoes that we had all we could use, 

 and enough to give the neighbors, right and 

 left. May God be praised for the sweet 

 potato, and more for the great dasheen 

 which is just now being disseminated 

 throughout our land. 



* In an article about " Truck Farming Under 

 Glass," The Country Gentleman says: "The Grand 

 Rapids lettuce has revolutionized the culture of this 

 most important greenhouse crop." 



The sorgluim or sugar cane that the De- 

 partment of Agriculture introduced some- 

 tliing like forty years ago, produced on 

 rather poor clay soil a quality of cane that 

 made a most delicious syrup. The same 

 sugar cane, when grown on rich bottom 

 land, produced a syrup or sugar that most 

 people would call hardly worth putting on 

 the table. Let us now go back to the dash- 

 een. 



At our weekly prayer-meeting I mention- 

 ed the dasheen as one of God's new and 

 most precious gifts to men. Our good pas- 

 tor told me that the excitement was so great 

 around Brooksville, Fla., where the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture has been carrying on 

 test gardens, that it has i-eally been the 

 means of building up the place from what 

 before was an obscure village; and as this 

 new vegetable seems to succeed better so far 

 in Florida than anywhere else, there seems 

 great promise that it shall mean the build- 

 ing up of the whole State of Florida. Just 

 think of it! The most delicious tuber that 

 has ever been given to mankind, yielding at 

 the rate of four or five hundred bushels to 

 the acre ! 



In speaking of God's gifts, let me repeat 

 a little instance that occurred when I was 

 in California. A real-estate dealer, after 

 asking me a multitude of questions, and 

 finding he could not sell me any real estate, 

 finally said, " Well, stranger, what is your 

 occupation? What do you do for a living, 

 may I be permitted to inquire?" I replied 

 to liim that my occupation just then was 

 hunting up God's gifts. He looked at me 

 a little while, thinking perhaps I was half 

 crazy or something of that sort. But he 

 finally asked, " Well, stranger, if you are 

 hunting God's gifts, I take it for granted 

 you don't find many of them up here in this 

 desert." 



I replied that I had been delighted from 

 morning to night in finding such an innu- 

 merable number of God's greatest and most 

 precious gits, and I hoped to be able to 

 spend the rest of my days in this wonder- 

 fully exciting and hapi^y occupation of 

 searching God's great wide universe for liis 

 wonderful gifts to men. 



By the way, can any of my readers tell 

 me whether any seed catalog they have got- 

 ten hold of mentions the dasheen? Have 

 the seedsmen of our land gotten hold of it? 

 If anybody has had any experience along 

 that line, or grown dasheen or something 

 resembling it, I should be very glad indeed 

 to have the full particulars. 



