GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



kingdom has come here on earth. Now^ 

 dear friends, let us get down home. Are 

 you and am I, as we approach old age, 

 seeking first the kingdom of Grod and his 

 righteousness? Are you and I both making 

 it our careful study every day to be laying 

 up a little more treasure " where moth and 

 rust doth not corrupt,^ and where thieves 

 do not break through nor steal 1 " 



WHEN LIFE LOOKS BLACK AND BLANK, WHAT 

 SHALL WE DO? 



Mr. Root: — I wrote you a few weeks ago inclos- 

 ing an advertisement clipped from Suburban Life, 

 telling of a new method of growing celerj', etc. You 

 also wrote me a personal letter upon receipt of mine, 

 and it is for that letter I wish to write you now, 

 thanking you for the way it was worded, for you 

 finished the letter like this: "From your old friend 

 A. I. Root." 



AVhen life looks as black to others as it does to me, 

 a friendly word like that is as a glass of cool water 

 to a thirsty man in the desert. I am glad I have an 

 old friend. I wish I had some young friends too. 

 and then they would not die so quick. 



SELLING secrets: RIPENING TOMATOES INDER GLASS, ETC. 



I was tempted to send a dollar to another party 

 who has a secret for the benefit of market-gardeners, 

 and he wants a dollar for it. A party advertises in 

 Gleanings that he has a method of ripening green 

 tomatoes in November. He says, address with 

 stamps. I sent him a stamp and asked for particu- 

 lars. He wrote me he would mail the particulars 

 for a dollar ; but as it looks so much like the celery 

 deal I will not send my hard-earned dollar. 



AV. G. Brainard. 



Gouverneur, N. Y., Sept. 14. 



Below is what I replied to the above: 



Friend Brainard, is it not at least partly your 

 fault that you don't have friends? Are you reading 

 my talks through Gleanings? and are you reading 

 your Bible and keeping in touch with Christian peo- 

 ple? Are you going to church and Sunday-school? 

 Are you trying to make the world better ? Of course, 

 I don't know your circumstances; but if you are 

 interested in exploring God's gifts and high-pressure 

 gardening, you ought to be thankful and happy. 



Don't send any money for secrets. No good thing 

 ever came in that way. I have taken the man to 

 task in regard to green tomatoes, but he don't seem 

 to want to let me have his secret, even if I offered 

 to send him the dollar. 



May the Holy Spirit help you to see what a pre- 

 cious gift is human life, and help us to see also that 

 even the obstacles that lie across our pathway are 

 often evidence of God's love if we take them in the 

 right spirit. " Whom he loveth, he chasteneth." 



I think I shall have to say a word more 

 about the advertisement of a plan to have 

 ripe tomatoes in November, etc. It was 

 given in two issues of Gleanings — Aug. 1.5 

 and Sept. 1, as follows : 



Have nice ripe tomatoes in November from your 

 late green crop. Ripen without sunshine. Let me 

 instruct you how. Address, with stamps, 520 At- 

 wood St., Longmont, Colo. 



The above reads as if the secret or the 

 discovery would be sent on receipt of a 

 couple of stamps or whatever the applicant 

 saw fit to pay him for his trouble. It 

 transpires, however, the advertiser (who 



does not give his name, you will notice) 

 wants the stamp to pay for sending his 

 circular. This advertising circular tells you 

 you can not have the secret without sending 

 a dollar. Had we not supposed (as every 

 one would suppose) that the instructions 

 were •given for the stamps, it would not 

 have ai^i^eared in Gleanings; and this is 

 to say that if any of our readers have been 

 misled, and have sent a dollar in resi^onse 

 to the advertisement, they can have their 

 money back by letting us know. Our ex- 

 periment stations have said repeatedly that 

 no good thing in gardening or agriculture 

 ever came by buying secrets. Perhaps I 

 might add what is generally well known, 

 that the great tomato industry in Florida is 

 built up by gathering the tomatoes just 

 before they begin to color. These are then 

 wrapped up almost air-tight and shipped 

 north. A plan was also given in Gleanings 

 some j^ears ago of pulling up the vines just 

 before frost comes and spreading them out 

 on straw in cold-frames under glass. The 

 cold-frames are usuallj' unoccupied at that 

 season of the year, and the tomatoes ripen 

 beautifully, and are sold at big prices in the 

 North about Thanksgiving time. 



A level-headed farmer. 

 One of our people sent me the following 

 clipping from some periodical : 



I do not know when I have been so impressed by 

 an item in a newspaper as I w£^s by one I came 

 across last night, while reading the exchanges that 

 reach my desk. It appeared in a small county-seat 

 paper published in a prominent grain-belt State, and 



was to this effect: " One farmer near lost forty 



pigs during two days and one night. When sympa- 

 thy was offered him over the financial disaster, the 

 farmer said he felt thankful that such plagues stayed 

 arcvund the barn and did not enter the house." 



While we honor and respect the good 

 farmer for remembering, even during such 

 a loss, that the loved ones in the home are 

 of incomparably more value than the pigs, 

 I want to say a word on another line. We 

 do not know what State he lives in, but I 

 believe that most of our States have experi- 

 ment stations; and what are experiment 

 stations for if not to help out farmers in 

 just such calamities? Boiled ham (suitable 

 for sandwiches) is now 40 cts. per lb. here 

 in Medina, and 40 or more in Florida. 

 Heading off the hog cholera by scientific 

 means is protecting the poor hardworking 

 people; and, if you will not accuse me of 

 going to extremes, I should like to suggest 

 it is also laying up treasures in heaven. If 

 I am correctly informed (although I am not 

 in the " pig business " but only a chicken 

 man) our Department of Agriculture is get- 

 ting the upper hand of just such troubles 

 as are spoken of above. 



