102 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Fel. 13, 



Seminary, ouly to be told by its principal — now Bishop Bow- 

 man, of the Methodist Episcopal church — that I had not 

 money enough to justify me in attempting to study there. 

 Something of bitterness comes into my heart even now when 

 I think of the intense longing I had in my youth for a college 

 education, and the desperate poverty that hindered me from 

 getting it. 



I earned my first money the winter after I was 18 years 

 old, teaching school in an old log school-house for the munifi- 

 cent sum of $11 per month, and board; and had to " board 

 around." 



After my grandfather's death I continued to live with my 

 grandmother till her death, when I was 22 years old. Then, 

 packing a sachel with some of my most cherished books, and 

 a few articles of clothing, and with just about money enough 

 in my pocket to pay my traveling expenses, I started for the 

 pine forests of Pennsylvania, then giving employment to 

 thousands of men. There I found employment on a big saw- 

 mill, measuring and marking the lumber as it came from 

 the saws. One winter I measured and marked the logs as 

 they were piled in the forest. One winter I taught a term of 

 school, and one winter I gave instruction to a big family of 

 boys belonging to a man of German origin named Wolf. Some 

 of the boys were a good deal bigger than I was, but they were 

 good-natured and well-behaved "Wolves," and I got along 

 without trouble. 



Once when the sawmill ran out of logs, I spent a few 

 weeks in the village of Jersey Shore, on the north bank of the 

 Susquehanna, studying surveying with a man by the name of 

 Parker, who had been instructor of mathematics at West 

 Point. I mastered that branch of mathematics in a short 

 time, but my health never permitted me to enter on the prac- 

 tice of surveying. 



Leaving Pennsylvania in the fall of 1856, I took Horace 

 Greeley's advice and went West. I had a sister living in 

 Illinois, whom I had not seen for several years, and thither I 

 directed my steps. Other relatives were living in Iowa, and 

 there I taught a term of school the following winter. Return- 

 ing to Illinois in the spring of 1857, I went to work with my 

 brother-in-law on a rented farm. Our crops were good, but the 

 financial panic of that year was on hand as soon as the crops 

 were, and all my earnings in Pennsylvania were swept away. 



The following winter I returned to the old home in New 

 York, where my father then lived, he having bought it, with 

 other lands, about the time my grandfather died. There I 

 staid and helped him on the farm till the fall of 1865, when 

 he sold out and moved to Carroll county. 111. 



In January, 1866, I was married to Julia Itf. Prentiss, of 

 Windham, Vt., and we wont immediately to keeping house on 

 a farm near the scene of my former failure. After the birth 

 of our first and only child — a daughter now married and living 

 here — her health rapidly declined, and, although she lin- 

 gered for several years, the demon of Consumption never re- 

 laxed his hold till his deadly work was done. She died in 

 July, 1881. Subsequently I was married to one of her sis- 

 ters, who had been with us for a long time. I continued my 

 farming operations in Illinois until the spring of 1S9U, when, 

 in the hope that my health would be benefited by the change, 

 I sold out and moved to this place. The farm here has been 

 cultivated and improved mainly by the aid of hired help. 

 Here, on the high divide midway between the Missouri and 

 Mississippi, in caring for hogs and horses and cattle by proxy, 

 and giving a large share of my own time and attention to the 

 care of bees, and in musing somewhat mournfully, perhaps, 

 on what might have been, I shall probably pass the short re- 

 mainder of my days. My pathway has not been along the 

 sunny side of fate. 



I had not been long settled here, when, one afternoon 

 near sundown, I found a swarm of bees clustered on the limb 

 of an apple-tree. It was hived iu a box-hive, and it went to 

 work and stored considerable honey. Then somebody stole it. 

 Some bees in log-hives were bought, but I did not know very 

 well what to do with them. I resolved that I would know 

 what to do with bees. I got what I thought were the best 

 books and papers on the subject, and read them with the same 

 avidity that I had read everything else, at the same time 

 working with the bees and making a good many mistakes. I 

 have bought some bees every season since I have been here, 

 but the seasons have been mostly poor ones, and I have not 

 had much natural swarming until the past season, so that my 

 apiary is not now very large. Last season, also, I had a fair 

 crop of honey, put up in such a way that I was able to cap- 

 ture my home market, it being now all, or nearly all, disposed 

 of at a fair price. 



In the future management of my bees I shall keep two 

 objects in view, viz.: 



1st. To get the maximum amount of honey at the mini- 

 mum expense of money, time and labor. 



2nd. To determine what departure, or departures, if any, 

 can be made from the 8-frame size of the Langstroth hive 

 with advantage to the bee-keepers of this locality who work 

 for the production of comb honey. In making these experi- 

 ments I shall not change the length of the frame, but the de- 

 partures will be in the depth of frames and the number of 

 frames used. Notwithstanding all that has been said in favor 

 of the 8-frame hive, I am not friendly to it, though I use it 

 more largely than any other. If I am permitted to make any 

 discoveries either to the advantage or disadvantage of bee- 

 keepers, they will, with the editor's permission, hear of them 

 in the American Bee Journal. 



In conclusion I will say that nobody steals bees from me 

 now, and that when another stray swarm of bees alights in 

 one of my apple-trees, I think I shall know how to care for it. 



Leon, Iowa. Edwin Bevins. 



Report of the Illiiio§ State Contention Held at 

 Chicago, Jan. 9 and lO, 1S96. 



REPOBTED BY ERNEST K. ROOT. 



(Continued trom page 70.) 

 CRIMSON CLOVER AND BUCKWHEAT. 



President — We do not know very much about crimson 

 clover; but what we do know we might as well air here. I 

 sowed some in the spring, and it came up fairly well, but I 

 did not see a great many bees on it ; but freezing weather 

 came on, and I had a nice patch of it. 



Mr. Schrier — I sowed 10 acres along with timothy, and it 

 seemed to do well. 



Mr. Baldridge — I sowed a small lot in 1894, and bees 

 worked on it very nicely. The seed dropped off, and it re- 

 seeded itself as nicely as at first. I have great faith in the 

 plant. I would mix it with Alsike or other clover. If it 

 should fail, then we would not lose the other crop. 



Mr. Thompson — Mr. Baldridge's experience is' the same 

 as mine. 



Mr. Draper — I should not think it would do very well with 

 red clover, because the latter is biennial, and crimson clover 

 is an annual. 



Mr. Baldridge — The seed is very cheap, and there is not 

 very much to lose, even if it should fail when it is sown with 

 other clover. 



Mr. Stewart — How tall does it grow ? 



Mr. Schrier — It is short. 



Mr. Baldridge — It grows about a foot high, and very well 

 with red clover, because it protects it. Crimson clover is not 

 hardy. 



President — What have we to say about buckweat ? 



Mr. Stewart — I should like to know how Japanese buck- 

 wheat compares with others. 



President — It yields a larger grain, more of it, and seems 

 to have all the advantages of the other buckwheat. 



Mr. Schrier — It ripens earlier. 



Mr. Draper — How long does it continue in blossom ? 



President — About the same as the other. 



THE BEE-PAPERS AND BEE-PASTURAGE. 



Question — " What can the bee-papers do in the line of in- 

 creasing artificial bee-pasturage?" 



President — lust what we have been doing here to-day — 

 gathering together in convention, and then spreading the 

 knowledge here gained in the agricultural papers. We should 

 emphasize to the farmers the value of the honey-plants only 

 as /oracyp plants. Perhaps it is better to say little or nothing 

 about their being valuable for honey. 



Mr. Stewart — What can be sown on waste land that 

 farmers will not object to ? Sweet clover won't do, because 

 farmers call it a "noxious weed." 



President — farmers will object to every plant that you 

 try to push, If they think your bees get hooey from it. 



