590 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



young woman who had a baby in her arms. 

 When she led the meeting she deposited the 

 baby on the floor back of the pulpit, and 

 there he lay during the meeting as contented 

 and happy as could be. I congratulated 

 her on having succeeded so well in shoul- 

 dering her double resiJonsibility. Oh, if all 

 the married jjeople in our land would care 

 enough for the church and Sunday-school 

 to go and take the baby along, what a bless- 

 ed thing it would be! and what a grand 

 start it would give that baby to get familiar 

 with the Sunday-school before he is even a 

 scholar! We had an excellent sermon in 

 the evening with a crowded house. The text 

 was, "Bring up a child in the way he should 

 go, and when he is old he will not depart 

 from it." 



OBJECTIONABLE FEATURES IN REGARD TO COM- 

 ING TO FLORIDA IN THE WINTER, ETC. 



Mrs. Root has suggested to me several 

 times when I am writing up all the nice 

 things about southern Florida that, to be 

 fair and honest, I should also tell of the 

 objections. One morning we counted up 

 four things that were more or less objec- 

 tionable in regard to coming here. First 

 and foremost is the redbug that I have said 

 so much about. Last winter we were trou- 

 bled almost none at all — at least not until 

 warm weather came in March and April. 

 This winter they seemed to be unusually 

 bad from the time we came here, about the 

 first of November, until almost up to Jan. 

 1. Since that they seem to have let up con- 

 siderably for some reason or other. Now, 

 after trying a great variety of remedies, one 

 given me by my good friend neighbor Ab- 

 bot, I think, is simpler and perhaps more 

 effective than any thing else. It is simply 

 this: Take a daily bath in the morning, and 

 before you put on your clothing rub your- 

 self over pretty well with soapy water and 

 let it dry on instead of wiping it off. You 

 may object to this sort of treatment; but I 

 have used it now for several weeks, and can 

 not discover any ill effects. Of course, the 

 soap is nicely and thoroughly washed off 

 when you take your next bath; and after 

 the bug's seem to let up, or you are not 

 obliged to go out among the grass or bushes 

 or in the woods, you can oroit it. By the 

 way, people living in town, who do not go 

 out among the dry grass, and bnish against 

 the palmettos or run against rotten logs 

 in the woods, are seldom troubled at all. By 

 staying away from the country, and espe- 

 cially keeping out of the fields and lots 

 where there isn't a trodden path, you will 

 have very little trouble. 



The next trouble I am going to mention 

 will make you smile a little. It is mud- 

 wasps. During the past six or seven win- 

 tei-s that we have passed in Florida we have 

 not noticed them very much until during 

 this past winter. With the excessive rains 

 of the past summer it seems as if the wasps 

 must have been more plentifully supplied 

 with mud for building their nests than ever 

 before. You may wonder what harm they 

 do by building these mud nests. Let me 

 digress a little to explain. Mrs. Root has 

 all along wanted some kind of blinds or shut- 

 ters to our windows. The sun here in Flor- 

 ida gets to be pretty hot, even in December, 

 January, and February, and she thought it 

 would be a fine thing to have the windows 

 .shaded when we go home in the summer so 

 that the sun may not come thi'ough the glass 

 and injure the floors and every thing else 

 that it strikes. Of course, you can put up 

 curtains to the windows; but after having 

 tried curtains, even cheap cloth ones, such 

 as we should like to leave wMle gone, and 

 having what they call the " silver moths " 

 eat them all to shreds, we abandoned the 

 curtains. These mud-wasps seem to take it 

 for granted that the green blinds jDut on 

 our windows were just there on purpose 

 for them to build their mud houses all over 

 the inside. In fact, some of our window 

 shutters were so plastered that we could 

 not possibly open and shut them. It Avas 

 a real task to " chisel " out the mud so as 

 to get them down and clean out the debris. 

 They built their mud houses all over my 

 tool-house, stuck tilings together, and even 

 made quite a big mud nest on the under side 

 of the cover to my automobile; and at every 

 turn we find all sorts of utensils and every 

 thing else stuck together by wasps. There 

 is, however, a i-edeeming feature, as there 

 is with almost every nuisance that we meet 

 in this world of ours. The redeeming fea- 

 ture is that the mud-wasps are fierce ene- 

 mies to common house-flies, and they clean 

 out the flies so effectually that there has 

 been scarcely a fly visible, outdoors or in, 

 so far this winter. Very likely the wasps 

 are bad only during particular seasons or 

 at certain times ; and it is true that we have 

 never seen them any thing like as bad as 

 during the past winter, or, rather, the work, 

 perhaps, that was done during the past 

 summer. As I have suggested, perhaps the 

 dampness may have had something to do 

 with it. After hearing the above, Mrs. Root 

 says I have not put it strong enough. The 

 • blinds and windows-sashes to some windows 

 were so plastered with mud nests they could 

 not be stirred " a peg " until the nests were 

 " chiseled " out. Then we sandpapered the 



