JULY 1, 1913 



19 



ity good potatoes at a low price every month in the 

 year all over the trorld is a humanitarian, and I 

 greatly enjoy doing my part of the work. 



My dasheens are now doing finelv, not only down 

 in Florida, but I have forty or fifty fine-looking 

 plants here in Medina, with leaves at the present 

 time, July 1, as large as dinner-plates. 



Kind Words from our Customers 



The supplies I got at your factory May 31 were 

 entirely satisfactory. 



Bath, Ohio, June 16. Harley Wilkinson. 



Please tell Mr. A. I. Root that his Home papers 

 are greatly appreciated by his Cheltenham readers 

 who hope he will continue them for many years to 

 come. A. H. Bowen. 



Coronation Road, Cheltenham, England, May 31. 



A KIND WORD AND A KIND OFFER FROM A JAMAICA 

 BUSINESS MAN. 



Mr. A. I. Root: — I am an American businessman 

 doing business in Jamaica, W. I., and I have come 

 across G-leanings for October, and am pleased to 

 read your articles. The opportunity to-day for the 

 laymen to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ is won- 

 derful. I enclose some leaflets which I am, by the 

 blessing of God, sending out free all over the world 



1 shall be glad to send a supply to any one who v. ill 

 send me his address on a postcard (postage on cards 



2 cts., and on letters 5 cts. to Jamaica). 

 Jamaica, B. W. I.. Nov. 4. E. B. Hopkins. 



A KIND WORD FROM FAR-OFF BRITISH COLUMBIA. 



[We let the writer of the following story tell it in 

 his own quaint phraseology. — A. I. R.] 



Mr. A. I. Root: — This is first my letter to you. 

 I am trying to -rn-ite Enghsh. I am a foreigner. 



I find we shall read what is good, and never shall 

 we say in this world we have not time to read, and 

 especially when we come to be of old age. 



In your writing in Gleanings you are very se- 

 vere on big able-bodied man abegging. 



I been thinking what will replace you in your 

 journal in your good Home talk when you be "here 

 no more, or when you come to die. In my own 

 hearth you been always to me as model man. When 

 young you first make a start by working for your 

 daily bread; and now in your old age it is right for 

 every man when he come to old age to be sure to 

 belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. 



I am now sure for Clirist. I feel glad I find the 

 Lord our God is with us; and he is too holy to be 

 with sinners. 



I am trying now every day to live righteous be- 

 fore him. 



I am a reader of your journal, and can not write 

 good Enghsh. I learn a little writing from reading, 

 and reading I learn by myself. I keep bees now to 

 make money, and I like bees much, I must sav, for 

 pleasure. 



Elwine, B. C, Canada, Nov. 13. H. Kaceb. 



A GROCER WHO didn't " BACK DOWN " WHEN HE 

 LOST SOME OF HIS CUSTOMERS. 



I saw in Gleanings a short time ago where a 

 beekeeper stopped his paper because Bro. Root 

 preached temperance. He liked his rum; but you 

 can continue mine for his good work and good ser- 

 mons. Inclosed find one dollar for another year, and 

 then don't stop it if I am alive at the end of the 

 year, for I want to see the rum business step down 

 and out. We are a manufacturing town of about 

 6000 population ; have 16 to 17 places where rum 

 is sold ; but we have a strong temperance sentiment, 

 and are in hopes to win out this spring. Two years 

 ago we came within 44 of going dry. 



I am in the grocery business. "Two years ago 

 some of the rumsellers stopped trading with me be- 

 cause I stood for temperance ; but last year my trade 

 increased over $2000. I believe right will prevail. 

 I don't believe in selling out for a httle pottage. 

 I am 65 years old, and I never voted to license men 

 to sell rum, and I think it is a poor time to com- 



mence now. There is not a man in town selling rum 

 to-day but commenced tlie business since I became a 

 voter; and the idea that / should conform to their 

 wishes! I am for temperance, to stay. God being 

 my helper, I mean to show my colors at the polls on 

 election day. 



Ticonderoga, N. Y., Feb. 10. Geo. H. Adkins. 



A TURNING-POINT IN A LIFE ; A KIND WORD FOE THE 

 ABC BOOK. 



Looking back over the last 25 years, if I were 

 asked what was the most important influence exerted 

 upon my life, I believe that, without any study what- 

 ever, I should say that the reading, 20 years ago, 

 of a copy of the A B C of Bee Culture, by A. I. 

 Root, of Medina, Ohio. At the time I read it I was 

 an apprentice stair-builder in the old Phoenix Lum- 

 ber Co.'s mill a; Houston, Texas, and my older broth- 

 er and myself were operating a ten-acre apiary and 

 poultry -ranch some four miles from the city, going 

 back and forth to our work day and night. 



This work was the first thing in the way of con- 

 structive literature I had read since finishing the 

 "Swiss Family Robinson" several years nrevious; 

 and, coming just at the time it did, I am confident 

 that it is to be accredited for being the means of 

 enlisting my interest in the subject of science as 

 applied to agriculture, and that practically any and 

 all of the reputation I enjoy as a scientist to-day is 

 to be traced to this book. 



As a practical work on entomology as related to 

 the tee it stands without a peer; and on account of 

 the many allied industries which depend for a part 

 or all of their success on the apiarist, I found it to 

 be a good text-book, not only on horticulture and 

 carpentry, but on the subject of mechanics as well. 



The way Novice had of inventing any thing he 

 needed stimulated my intellect to " go and do like 

 wise;" and the Patent Office will be able to attest 

 the fact that there have been " some things doing " 

 in my cranial cavity, as at this time there are 38 

 inventions to my credit, some patented, others not 

 more than barely completed. 



My main invention is the motor plow, which I be- 

 lieve I tan truthfully say has never been out of mj 

 mind for an entire week since I received the first 

 inception of the idea, some 18 years ago, and if 

 to-day it were in use here in this fertile " South 

 Plains or Ballinger Country " it would save the 

 farmers thousands of dollars annually in feed-bills, 

 taved l:y not having to feed any thing on Sundays, 

 rainy days, and during idle periods during the yeai. 



There is a maturity of intellectual development 

 possible to the few who search for the secrets of 

 science which enables a man to create new things 

 almO'St as easily as the average man can go along 

 his plodding routine work with his divinely poten- 

 tial mind in a condition of mental atrophy. 



To-day as I was driving along among the fragrant 

 catclaw (acacia) and niesquite (prosopis) and al- 

 falfa (medicago) I could not keep from thinking 

 about how the flying over his head of a swarm of 

 bees some 48 years ago changed the life history of A. 

 I. Root, and how, in turn, his writing and my reading 

 his book on the subject had changed my life history, 

 and, like the story of the house that -Jack built, how 

 it goes on and on, until no man may measure the 

 final result of a careless swarm of bees flying over 

 one young carpenter, and how it had its indirect in- 

 fluence on another young stair-building carpenter 20 

 years later. 



Some time I shall write an article telling the story 

 of success with the honeybee in Central Texas, near 

 this town of Ballinger; and I am writing now for 

 prices on the latest edition of the A B C of Bee 

 Culture, with the intention of giving them as prizes 

 to the young readers of my paper ; and I shall ex- 

 pect every one who reads a copy to add his mite to 

 the sum total of human understanding. 



Ballinger, Texas, May 1. A. S. Whitten. 



GREAT LAKES MAP ; SEND FOR INTERESTING VACA- 

 TION LITERATURE. 



The D. & C. Line, which operates daily steamer 

 service between Detroit and Buffalo, has published 

 a pamphlet containing the largest map of the Great 

 Lakes, showing routes to all summering places. You 

 should have one to plan your vacation. A request 

 with two-cent stamp enclosed will bring it. Write 

 now. 

 Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co., Detroit. 



