THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



247 



of bee-diarrhea without the use of 

 pollen. 



Some have argued that, as bees fol- 

 low their instinct in storing pollen, no 

 deleterious effects can follow its con- 

 sumption. Nature, they say, makes 

 no mistakes. It is evident that there 

 is a mistake somewhere. Perhaps it 

 is in attempting to keep bees out of 

 their native clime, without recogniz- 

 ing and complying with the changed 

 conditions. 



Rogersville,<5 Mich. 



For tbe Amerlcim Bee Journal, 



Odors and Sweets- 



C. n. COGSWELL. 



Mr. Kemp, on page l.SS, in referring 

 to my article on page 507 of the Bee 

 JouuNAL for 1SS4, seems to confound 

 odors and sweets, and hardly does 

 justice to what I said. He says : 

 "DidMr. C. ever visit a sugar-camp 

 where the sap of the sugar-tree was 

 being boiled, and not smell it V Did 

 he never smell the aroma from the 

 coffee-pot on the stove, or the cabbage 

 in the dinner-pot V Did he never in- 

 hale the fragrance of a full-blown 

 rose ? . . . That flowers 

 and evaporating sweets do emit an 

 odor, everybody knows." 



Correct. We agree on that ; but I 

 suggest as a fact that these " odors " 

 and fragrant smells have nothing to 

 do with the presence of grape-sugar 

 in honey, or cane-sugar in the " sap 

 of the sugar-tree." The only point 

 that I called in question in my first 

 article, was the vaporization or evap- 

 oration of these sugars, and their re- 

 turn in the form of so-called honey- 

 dew. The exhalation of " odors " — 

 from the sickening horror of the 

 " Jimsou," Datura Stramonium, to the 

 fragrance of the tube-rose and Lilium 

 Candidum, have been noted by my 

 "olfactories." 



The odors of flowers seem to de- 

 pend on the presence of volatile oils, 

 and may exist and be exhaled with 

 or without the presence of nectar or 

 grape-sugar. For this I refer to 

 Johnston's Chemistry of Common 

 Life, Vol. II, page 180. 



Volatile oils and resins are readily 

 and rapidly exhaled, having, in the 

 words of the Dictionary, " power to 

 pass off by spontaneous evaporation, 

 or of easily assuming the ieriform 

 state." The question is, " Does sugar 

 thus evaporate and as.sume the 'aeri- 

 form state.' " Upon proof of this 

 proposition depends Mr. K's theory 

 of honey-dew. The Dictionary de- 

 fines sugar as " a sweet substance ob- 

 tained from many vegetable juices, 

 by evaporating the water they con- 

 tain." 



The chemistry above quoted. Vol. 

 I, page 200, says : " The solid sugar 

 of honey is identical with the sugar 

 of the grape. The liquid sugar dif- 

 fers from the solid chiefly in refusing 

 to crystallize, and in containing an 

 admixture of coloring and odorifer- 

 ous substances produced by the 

 flowers. To these foreign substances 

 lioney owes the varied colors, flavors 

 and fragrances, for which it is often 



highly prized." I urge then that it is 

 these " foreign substances," these 

 volatile odors and fragrances that are 

 "emitted" from many flowers, and 

 not the honey. It is these odorous 

 substances which pass off from tlie 

 boiling sap with the surplus water in 

 the form of steam, which " evapor- 

 ate," leaving the sugar as a residuum 

 in the kettle. I should be glad to 

 accept jVIr. Kemp's theory of honey- 

 dew in place of the " louse " theory, 

 if it seemed as true. 



Mr. K. says that there are but three 

 sources from which saccharine juices 

 can be obtained ; viz : " earth, air and 

 water." He then adds that " not a 

 particle " can be digested or analyzed 

 from garden soil or rain-water, and 

 perforce, if his conclusions are true, 

 all these tons of honey must pass 

 from air to flowers, and biick from 

 flowers to air. I wish to ask if it has 

 been shown that sugar or nectar can 

 be " digested or analyzed " from at- 

 mospheric air more readily than from 

 earth or water. 



Virden.QIIls. 



Fit ibe American Bee JoumaL 



Rights and Patents. 



JAMES IIEDDON. 



As I have been over the same 

 grounds traversed by Mr. Beck with, 

 in the last number of Gleanings, I 

 wish to give what I have discovered 

 that he seems to have overlooked. 

 He speaks about the fact that an in- 

 ventor starts where some one leaves 

 off ; and that inventions are merely 

 mental evolutionary growths. I grant 

 it. The patent laws will grant to 

 each inventor just that part of that 

 growth which belongs to him — and no 

 more. Suppose Mr. B. discovers a 

 principle, but cannot discover enough 

 of it to get from it any practical 

 value ; Mr. A. does likewise. C. 

 looks at both, and discovers a third, 

 which makes the first two of value to 

 humanity. He gets the right. He 

 is the real benefactor of mankind. 



Mr. Beckwith says that " a large 

 part of the patent claims are, when 

 thoroughly sifted, only what some 

 one else used long ago, but never 

 thought of getting patented." (4ood ! 

 When every one is anxious to break 

 down and invalidate a patent, it is 

 because the use of the principles are 

 considered valuable, and the self- 

 interest of the public desires to avoid 

 the royalty. Now, if it is so valuable, 

 why is it so " old " and dead? Why 

 did not the " old " original inventor 

 get a patent V At least why did not 

 the new light even radiate" from its 

 original point, out over humanity V 

 But, perhaps, this may be answered 

 by saying. " the discovery is of no 

 value." That is about the only rea- 

 sonable answer. Well, then, what 

 care we how many patents A, B or C 

 may claim and hold on something 

 which we do not wanty Time and 

 truth will invalidate it, putting it in 

 the old grave where thousands of its 

 predecessors have gone. 



Certainly, " demand stimulates to in- 

 vention," and our brightest inventors 



cannot help wearing out their lives 

 with an automatic action that brings 

 on all sorts of nervous diseases. Be- 

 cause this (iver-stimulated, self-opera- 

 ting, destructive labor is of such a 

 nature that it would work without 

 pay, should we take advantage of 

 that ? Never. 



I once heard a man say, " I am op- 

 posed to pensioning soldiers; most of 

 them went to war, not as patriots, 

 but as adventurers, little dreaming of 

 the hardship they were to meet, or 

 they never would have gone," I re- 

 plied : " Xo matter, these inen did 

 bear the hardships of war, that I 

 (then a boy) could in manhood en- 

 joy the benefits of their hardships 

 and labor. Never mind the intent ; 

 the pain, suffering and death was 

 borne, and I owe a debt, not only of 

 gratitude, that can never be paid, 

 but of dollars and cents which shall 

 be liberally paid so far as my influ- 

 ence goes." 



Again, Mr. B. says, that if Mr. A. 

 did not discover and monopolize the 

 discovery, it would be left in the great 

 secret vault of Nature, where it would 

 soon be discovered by another. I 

 grant that. I used to tliink that this 

 was one valid argument against the 

 patent system (not patentees) ; but let 

 us look at it further : The objection 

 raised is, that when Father Langs- 

 troth took from this great " vault " 

 his movable frame, he robbed it of 

 one great truth, and thus left us one 

 less chance to discover ; and had he 

 not done so, we would, ere this', have 

 found it. I grant and believe the last 

 part of that sentence, but not the 

 flrst. Scientific facts are infinite. No 

 matter what A, B or C takes from 

 the vault, there is an infinity left, and 

 I found that a thought of this deple- 

 tion arose from a stronger desire to 

 take what some one else had groped 

 about after in the darkness, and finally 

 laid outside the vault door, than to go 

 in likewise and meritoriously bring 

 something else to light. When Father 

 L. held his patent ("monopoly"), 

 there was kicking and screaming. 

 One hive vender, who was infringing 

 his patent, after doing so with a set 

 determination, going into lawsuits 

 with him, trying to prove priority 

 with this same old story, " used by 

 Mr. M. years ago," and failing, pro- 

 posed a relief fund, which he headed 

 with SIOO. Father L. rose in his 

 dignity and genius, and said : " Sir, 

 I will not accept one cent from you. 

 I only ask what beh nqs to me." When 

 I read this reply. I felt an electric 

 shock pass over my whole being. 



All this is about the patent system, 

 and not patentees. An unanswerable 

 reason why Brown now has a moral 

 as well as" legal right to patent his 

 inventions is, because living under 

 the patent system, he always has 

 paid, and no doulit always will be 

 forced to pay tribute to' other in- 

 ventors. 



My main objections to the patent 

 system has been the money thrown 

 away by would-be inventors, aixd the 

 robbery by selling worthless patents. 

 I have been considerably connected 

 with patents and patent lawyers, and 

 I have found to my satisfaction, that 



