782 



ficial absurdity in an attempt to ridicule your belief 

 and that of the Christian world in the power of 

 prayer. 



The mother or father can think and speak from a 

 living soul-inspired experience on the intensity of 

 parental love. To all others, the measure is one of 

 imagination and speculation. So with the Christian 

 soul in the realization of the Father's presence as 

 the guiding influence of his life. He has an inward 

 knowledi:e of the power of prayer and the assurance 

 of an answer that mystifies the groping speculator 

 and puts the cynic to confusion. [Amen to the 

 above.] 



Just one more question : How long would it take 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



for The Flaming Sword species of reasoning to abol- 

 ish slavery, wipe out the white-slave traffic, or ac- 

 lomplish any other moral reform? 



Lewis P. Tanton. 

 Charlottefown, P. E. I., Can., Nov. 23, '12. 



Perhaps 1 ought to feel complimented to 

 think that any periodical should devote 

 lour columns to try to set me right. But 

 I think it would take a great deal more 

 space than that to persuade devoted Chris- 

 tians that God does not answer prayer. 



High-pressure Gardening 



" HIGH-PRESSURE " GARDENING IN OCTOBER. 

 Let us not be weary in well doing ; for in due 

 time we shall reap if we faint not. — Gal. 6:9. 



There are a good many disappointments 

 — yes, grievous disappointments — in gar- 

 dening. We might expect, however, that 

 in high-i^ressure gardening we get rid of 

 the disappointmenls. And it dues get rid 

 of a large part of them, but not all. In our 

 locality here in Medina, along the last of 

 September and during October, much trou- 

 ble comes from frost. I was particularly 

 anxious this year that the frost should hold 

 ol¥ because of the dasheens 1 have told you 

 about; so I was watching the thermometer 

 and barometer with great anxiety whenever 

 there came a cool night. Do you want to 

 know what the barometer has to do with 

 frost? Well, it is this: Along in the fall 

 of the year especially, the barometer usu- 

 ally drops for a warm spell, and rises for 

 a cool spell. When it runs away up, often- 

 times a day or two before, it indicates a 

 probable frost. On the 22d of September 

 there was a little frost on the boards and 

 other exposed places. Next morning I told 

 the children that I could tell before noon 

 pretty surely whether we would have a 

 frost. The barometer was rushing away 

 up, indicating a clear sky. The wind was 

 in the northwest, and by 3 o'clock the tem- 

 perature was down to 50. 



One of our rules in the care of tender 

 stuff is that, when the mercury stands at 50 

 or below at sundown, there is danger of a 

 frost. This is not always true, but it comes 

 so near it that it is pretty safe to rely on. 

 Well, after three o'clock I told them all to 

 hunt up their empty jute grain-sacks and 

 cover up the stuff. The dasheens were my 

 principal anxiety. I found two large sheets 

 which we use to cover stacks of grain, etc., 

 which I spread over the dasheens as well as 

 I could. But they were so tall that the 

 sheets were not large enough to tuck down 

 around the edges. The consequence was, 

 the dasheens were nipped almost as badly 



under the sheet as elsewhere. After the 

 frost was over, however, and the sun was 

 up so I could see how much they were dam- 

 aged, I went round witli a sharp sickle and 

 cut off the injured leaves. 1 think this was 

 a profitable thing; for where I missed a 

 leaf or portion of the stalk that had been 

 frosted, it rotted down (juite a piece beyond 

 it. Where 1 clipped off the injured part, 

 the s'.alk as well as the leaf, the effect was 

 nothing more than a severe pruning; and 

 when a longed-for shower, right after we 

 had been having a severe drouth, came on 

 the 28th, and lasted two or three days, the 

 dasheens picked up amazingly ; and to-day, 

 Oct. 11, most of tliem have put out new 

 leaves, and seem to be gi'owing almost as 

 well as before the frost, for we have had 

 almost two weeks of real summer weather 

 since the big rain of Sei)tember 30. 



Mow, just below the dasheens were the 

 six tomato-jilants tliat I liave mentioned — 

 Green's hybrid. These plants were loaded 

 with green fruit when the frost came, or, 

 rather, they were sprawling all over the 

 grouvd, full of fruit almost ripe. 



Now, here is a matter that comes in, in 

 regard to training tomatoes on a trellis. 

 When I saw the enormous amount of to- 

 matoes they were going to give us, I felt 

 sorry to think that these were not trained 

 on a trellis; but when the frost came, I saw 

 at once my clean hard clay ground was the 

 thing after all. All I had' to do was to get 

 a lot of empty burlap grain-sacks and blan- 

 ket the plants. Although the surface of the 

 sacks w^as white with frost, *the tomatoes 

 were not hurt a particle. You see, the 

 warm ground was a protection from below, 

 and we have been having basketful after 

 basketful of the finest tomatoes of the sea- 

 son, notwithstanding the big frost. The 

 warm sunny days, with a temperature a few 

 times up to 85, just suited the tomatoes. 

 Below the tomatoes were the cantaloup 

 'melons I have spoken of. I did not have 

 grain-sacks enough to cover these; but, al- 



