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and straHge and uncxpoctod blessings 

 have come. Thoy do not always como 

 right to our door ; but if wp have faith in 

 God, we ought to feel just as happy to 

 see them ooraing to our neighbors' doors. 

 Some of them have come to our neigh- 

 bors who live a great way off ; in fact, 

 some of the greatest blessings liave 

 dropped unexpectedly among bee-keepers 

 away off on the Great American Desert. 



Years ago I talked about a honey- 

 farm, where plants could be blos.soming 

 in succession, one after another, .so as to 

 keep the bees constantly at work — yes, 

 even through poor seasons. The honey- 

 farm project seemed for quite a time to 

 be a failure ; and at the present time, it 

 seems pretty certain that we cannot 

 afford to raise plants for honey alone. 



The trouble is, it needs hundreds of 

 acres to make bee-keeping a real paying 

 business. Our good friend. Prof. Cook, 

 has tried raising Rocky Mountain bee- 

 plant, and the Chapman honey-plant, 

 expressly for bees. The State of Michi- 

 gan has been kind enough to furnish 

 money for the experiment ; but it did not 

 pay. Our fond hopes in that direction 

 have been, in one sense, dashed to the 

 ground. 



In my trip to California, I had this in 

 mind ; but I passed over all those thou- 

 sands of miles and did not notice or hear 

 of anything particularly encouraging. 

 The white sage does not yield honey 

 every year, and our California friends 

 have, like us, had poor honey yields for 

 so many years that some of them are 

 disgusted, and are about to give up. 

 Meanwhile, however, we were moving 

 along, even though many of us — perhaps 

 the most of us — did not know it. 



The silly falsehoods about all the 

 honey, both comb and extracted, being 

 adulterated had to be fought down ; and 

 we found that lies, like everything else 

 that belongs to the evil one, died hard. 

 Some of us had become almost discour- 

 aged when even the religious papers 

 seemed very loth to let go or retract 

 these harmful mistakes they have pro- 

 mulgated. 



We kept fighting, however; and being 

 three-hundred thousand strong, our blows 

 began to tell. Honey was slowly making 

 its way into the homes of our land, but 

 we did not seem to know it. The grocers 

 were waking up, too ; and it only needed 

 the seasons of scarcity we have passed 

 through, to set the people clamoring for 

 honey, and even offering prices we had 

 no expectation of realizing again. Then 

 some of our California friends who had 

 let their bee-ranches grow up to weeds, 

 began to say : " If you will guarantee 7 

 cents per pound for nice extracted honey, 

 I will fix up my ranch and start bee- 

 keeping again." The advance in price 

 gave them faith. 



Let me tell you of a little incident that 

 shows how dull .some of us are. I think 

 it was nearly 10 years ago that I was 

 traveling in a sleeping-car. My neighbor 

 was evidently a farmer, and he, like my- 

 self, had decided to pay $2.00 for a 

 good, night's rest. I noticed by the looks 

 of his liands that he was a son of toil. 

 Finally he explained that he went West 

 a few years bc^fore. He bought some 

 desert land, and got up a scheme to irri- 



gati' it. Tlicn he commenced raising 

 alfalfa. His crop had brought him so 

 much money, that he had just ))een to 

 see th(! old f<ilks, and to tell the neigh- 

 bors of his good hick. He offered me 

 alfalfa seed at an insigniticant price, but 

 I was not then prepared to handle it. 



I asked him about bees. He said he 

 did not know anything about them ; but 

 he said that, by their m,anagem(>nt with 

 irrigation, alfalfa is in bloom almost con- 

 tinually, and that the blossoms smelled 

 like clover-blossoms. He told me how 

 many acres there were in his vicinity, 

 but I thought little of it. It is now not 

 quite ii year since friend Ball came to see 

 us, wanting to sell us a carload of alfalfa 

 honey. Dr. Miller, at the same time, 

 found some near Denver, Colo., and sent 

 me a sample, to show what it was like. 

 This was, perhaps, two years ago. 

 Alfalfa honey is now scattered all over 

 the land. 



In passing through the desert wastes 

 of Arizona, I noticed thousands upon 

 thousands of acres of a shrub or tree 

 that looked a little like a peach tree, or 

 perhaps a little more like wild cherry. 

 I wondered whether it bore honey, but 

 nobody could tell me anything about it. 

 A few months ago we were offered a car- 

 load of mesquite honey. We had heard 

 something in regard to it, but we had no 

 hope that it would be equal to alfalfa. 

 Wo ordered .some ; and after the honey 

 came, wo were astonished to find it so 

 nice ; and I thought Mr. Calvert was ex- 

 aggerating when he said he believed a 

 good many people would like mesquite 

 honey as well as the alfalfa. Well, at 

 present I am quite certain that mesquite 

 honey is destined to bring a higher price 

 than the alfalfa. More mesquite honey 

 is still offered by the carload, and it will 

 soon be scattered into all the country 

 towns of the United States. Possibly it 

 will go across the ocean and into Canada. 

 It surely will if those who put it up do 

 their work honestly and well. 



The great public is beginning to re- 

 cover from its disgust, created largely 

 by poor bee-keepers — bee-keepers who 

 were slipshod in their methods of work, 

 and slipshod in their consciences. Are 

 there any such here to-day ? The latter 

 is more to be feared than the former. If 

 your faith is waning, believe me when I 

 tell you that the saddest kind of infidelity 

 in the world is the kind that says that 

 honesty is not the best policy. When 

 your stock of faith gets so low and un- 

 charitable as that, you are in a bad pre- 

 dicament. You are pretty nearly as bad 

 off as were Christian and Hopeful, when 

 imprisoned in Doubting Castle, and 

 pounded and bruised every day by Giant 

 Dpsjjair. Now, let us i)ut up our honey 

 and send it off, with a bright and living 

 faith in the saying, that "honesty is the 

 best policy." 



Perhaps some of you say, " Why, Bro. 

 Root, this is a big thing for the Arizona 

 men, but how does it benefit us to see 

 honey coming by the car-load from 

 Arizona, to compete with our product?'' 

 Do not be troubled. Let us rejoice at 

 their good fortune, and eventually God 

 will, in His infinite love and wisdom, 

 show us that He has not forgotten His 

 children out here. I do not know just 



how it is coming, nor when ; but I 

 heartily agree witli the I'salmist when 

 he says, " I once was young, but now am 

 old, yet I have never seen the righteous 

 forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." 

 When I was in California I lieard about 

 their failures and low prices, and I really 

 felt sorry for a good many of the hard- 

 working friends, especially for some who 

 were a good deal in debt. 



After friend Mercer had taken so much 

 pains to take me around over the 

 country, and would not let me pay for 

 the livery that was hired specially for my 

 accommodation, my conscience troubled 

 me ; and when, the season after, passed, 

 with a still poorer crop than he had ever 

 had before, I felt greatly troubled, for 

 fear these good friends would have hard 

 work to pay their debts and keep abovi- 

 water ; but during the past season friend 

 Mercer has had a great outpouring. 

 It seemed almost as if " the windows of 

 heaven," which we have read about, 

 were opened, and honey came down by 

 the car-load; and, oh, snch beautiful 

 honey. You would think a glass-jar full 

 was almost empty unless you lifted it to 

 see ; and then the air-bubble moves st> 

 slowly when you tip it over that this 

 beautiful clear honey looked like white 

 transparent wax. When you put a 

 spoonful in your mouth, "Oh, my! is it 

 not beautiful ?" When we sent it out to 

 customers it was wonderful to see the 

 letters of surprise and astonishment. 



Well. California, Arizona, Colorado, 

 Idaho, and many other places that I do- 

 not know much about, are getting full of 

 enthusiasm — especially those districts 

 where irrigation is practiced : for there 

 they have sunshine every day in the 

 year. When we want more wet we can 

 irrigate, as our friends do. God's part 

 would be the sunshine — our part would 

 be the windmills and the big rivers 

 turned in their courses. 



But, we are not ready yet to sell out 

 and move on to the desert. We may 

 rejoice that , the prophecy is coming to 

 pass when the desert shall be made to 

 blossom. But our duty — or, at least that 

 of the greater part of us — is to have faith- 

 enough to stay where we are, and to re- 

 member the blessings we enjoy. We also 

 want to keep in mind that plenty of rain 

 is a very great blessing. Those great 

 crops of honey from the desert-wastes of 

 the West, will open up business in many 

 ways. 



Perhaps you say again, "All the above 

 is very well for the large bee-keepers, 

 and for the supply-dealers : but how 

 about the smaller ones who have to work 

 hard, and yet are not better off ? My 

 friends, we must still hold to our motto — 

 " Have faith in God ;" and if bee-keep- 

 ing does not seem to give us a living in 

 our present location, we should work at 

 something else, meanwhile. He that is 

 faithful in few things, shall surely be 

 made " ruler over many things." There 

 is plenty to do, with good pay, so far as 

 my exparience goes, in every locality. 

 But we must be bright and wide-awake, 

 and on tlie alert. The trouble is, we let 

 opportunities slip. 



The great w(U'ld soon decides that it is 

 better to put wide-awake men in places 

 of trust and importance ; and. my friends. 



