GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



is going on, there is sometimes a chance to 

 invest money, and perhaps get it back and 

 more too. As an illustration, a brother of 

 his invested $100 without seeing the prop- 

 erty, several years ago. A year later he was 

 offered $400 for the particular lot he had 

 purchased. As there seemed to be a pros- 

 pect that it would go still higher he did not 

 sell out. Now, however, he would be glad 

 to get back the original $100 he invested; 

 but as there are hundreds in the same pre- 

 dicament there is no possible chance of sell- 

 ing out at any price. St. Cloud is only an 

 illustration of many other speculations of 

 this kind. The "syndicate," or whatever 

 you call them, by buying large plots of land 

 bought some of it as low as 80 cts. an acre. 

 They divided it up and made their lots, did 

 a lot of advertising, and sold it for thirty or 

 forty dollars an acre. If they could sell all 

 these lots at the prices they had planned, 

 making a city something like New York, for 

 instance, it wovld be a big thing. Bubbles 

 like these are being started and exploded or 

 burst all over Florida and other States. 

 By shrewd advertising and investing con- 

 siderable money they can keep the thing 

 going for a little while; but the outcome of 

 the biggest part of such speculations is an 

 abandoned town. Another thing, buying 

 and selling real estate is a trade of itself; and 

 if you have not had any experience in it 

 you had better let it alone. Still another 

 thing, a good deal of it is really gambling. 

 Frauds and swindles have been so frequent 

 in connection with the " Everglades," which 

 you probably all read about, that the De- 

 partment of Agriculture at Washington has 



taken the matter in hand. Quite a few bee- 

 keepers who call to see us confess that they 

 have invested in Florida Everglades. A 

 good many find that their investment of 

 their hard-earned money is in land that is 

 under water. The syndicate promises to 

 have the water off in due time so the land 

 can be used for farming and agriculture. 

 May be they will get the water off, and may 

 be they won't. Many people also write me 

 and ask if they can get employment down 

 here to spend their winters. When you 

 look about you, you see certain people who 

 always have something to do, and also oth- 

 er people who seem to be depending on 

 somebody to get a job for them. If you 

 have trouble in getting something to do up 

 North or anywhere else, I think very likely 

 you will have trouble here. If you always 

 have more work ahead of you than you can 

 possibly take care of, you will find it will be 

 a good deal the same down here. Capable 

 men are wanted everywhere; but men who 

 are always having bad luck don't seem to 

 be wanted Aere or anywhere. Here in Bra- 

 dentown, where there has been so much 

 building going on during the past winter, 

 there has been an unfilled call for skilled 

 carpenters. A young carpenter from Indi- 

 ana happened to pass by my place one day 

 and stopped to talk a little. He said he had 

 been here only six weeks, and had earned 

 enough at carpentering to send home $100 

 already. In conclusion, if you want to 

 know about these things you must come 

 down here; and, once more, don't think of 

 investing money until you see what you are 

 buying. 



P(DDJ]a=T[S^ lE[p/a[^TrRffl[EKI]T 



A. I. Root 



TWO EGGS IN ONE DAY FEOM ONE DUCK, 

 ETC. 



This has happened three or more times 

 during the winter; and I would have said 

 more about it had it not been for the fact 

 that this same duck averaged only one egg 

 a day. As is well known, the Indian Run- 

 ner ducks usually lay their eggs about day- 

 light, sometimes a little before. Well, for 

 months past I have been getting three eggs 

 a day from three ducks. One of the three, 

 however, instead of laying with the others 

 as usual, very early in the morning, at three 

 different times, and perhaps more, instead 

 of laying in the morning she dropped a very 

 soft-shelled egg about dusk the night before. 

 This made four eggs from three ducks dur- 

 ing daylight of a single day; but on every 

 occasion she laid no egg the next morning. 

 Now, these eggs that were dropped prema- 

 turely the night before were all soft-shelled 

 — so soft that, if they did not break when 

 resting on the ground, they would break 

 unless very carefully handled. From this I 

 infer that it takes twelve hours or more for 

 a duck to complete the shell so that it will 

 be hard enough and firm enough to be har>- 



dled. As the ducks were spending their 

 time during the day in the canal, and there 

 was an abundance of shells in the same ca- 

 nal, I thought it could not be that they 

 lacked lime; but after I gave them a dish of 

 crushed oyster shell, and also another dish 

 of mica crystal grit, no more eggs were drop- 

 ped the night before. 



From the above I am inclined to think 

 that most if not all the records of hens that 

 have laid two eggs in a day were like the 

 above. One egg is laid very early in the 

 morning, and the other in the afternoon or 

 at night. Some time ago my brother wrote 

 about finding eggs under the roosts. The 

 roost was so low down that the eggs as they 

 dropped into the soft dry sand were seldom 

 broken. But my experience has been that 

 these eggs dropped in the night or very early 

 in the morning are mostly soft -shelled. 

 Many of them are broken when picked up. 

 During several past winters I have found 

 more or less eggs under the roosts in the 

 morning; but for some reason which I can 

 not explain, during this winter scarcely an 

 egg has been dropped in the night in this 

 locality. Perhaps it is because of late our 



