AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 343 



three-eighths of an inch thick ; this makes a cellar as clean as a house, and a floor 

 as solid as a rock. 



The whole cost, including labor at the time, was a little over $30. Pine lum- 

 ber, $20 per thousand feet, oak, $50, and cement $3 per barrel. I have waited 

 five years to find out what failures there might be in it, if any. Well, two years 

 ago last February the ground was thawed out here, and we had a very heavy rain 

 which turned into a freeze, and it went below zero for several days, which cracked 

 the cement on the roof in a place or two, and the following spring it leaked some, 

 so that there were several moldy spots on the roof. I cleaned them off, and it is as 

 clean to-day as the inside of any building that has been built that long. There is a 

 crack in the cement on the straight side, and one on the rear end, but they do not 

 appear to get any larger, and no signs of the boards rotting so far. My wife has 

 sometimes piled boxes of canned fruit, two or three high, on the benches. The 

 cement was put directly on the dirt (being common prairie soil), but it must be 

 damp for it to stick. 



Now, what changes would I make if I were going to build again ? Prof. Budd 

 says that four years ago they built two caves at the Agricultural College — one was 

 covered with two thicknesses of white pine one inch thick, which has rotted down ; 

 the other just the same, only the boards were soaked in a strong solution of salt 

 and lime, which is good yet. So I would treat all soft lumber to a similar solution. 

 I would also use 12-inch plates to put the rafters on, and board and cement solid to 

 and over it. I would also make it one foot wider, as it gives more clear room in the 

 bottom, but the rafters must be made stronger in proportion, as one of mine where 

 there was a knot cracked this spring. 1 simply spiked another on its side. I have 

 an upright door close to the side at the south end, and two small slanting doors at 

 the top, with 2x6 inch sides for stairs, and loose 2x10 in the steps, so we can take 

 them up to clean them. Corning, Iowa, Aug. 6. 



BEI^O AI^QRY ^WITH DR. MII^I^HR. 



BY REV. W. F. CLARKE. 



I did not intend to refer again to my little controversy with Dr. Miller, being 

 quite willing that a man so full of words should have the last word after fully con- 

 ceding my right to hold my own opinion, which was all I was contending for. But 

 I cannot let the homily read me by John F. Gates, on page 216, go unnoticed. Mr. 

 Gates accuses me of being angry with Dr. Miller; not only so, but he takes it for 

 granted that I was angry, andexclaims with deep regret and much self-complacency: 

 " What a pity he should get angry so much ?" 



I deny the "soft impeachment." I was not angry with Dr. Miller, but I felt 

 hurt at the pertinacity with which he hounded me about the sting-trowel theory, 

 and the apparent vindictiveness and intolerance of spirit he manifested. In his last 

 letter he professes to be greatly relieved that I only held my view of the sting-trowel 

 process as a matter of opinion. That this was a new discovery on his part is quite 

 sufficiently disproved by his own constant references to it as the " sting-trowel 

 theory," and also by my having invariably put it forth as an opinion merely, except 

 in my " Bird's-Eye View of Bee-Keeping," in which I naturally embodied my own 

 opinions, and in regard to which he once himself admitted " license of poetry" as 

 an excuse. But, no ; he put before me no alternative but to prove my theory or 

 own " that there never was any basis except a vivid imagination " for it. I had long 

 before stated the reasons which led me to think the bees used their stings in cell- 

 finishing, so that Dr. Miller's demand was, purely and simply, that I should own 



