66 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15. 



Let mo ask you a question: Could a boy bea 

 Christian and get drunk on the Fourth of July — 

 or any other dityf I do not think I have ever 

 found anybody, unless he was intoxicated, who 

 had the hardihood to say a man can be a Chris- 

 tian, and at the same time deliberately get intox- 

 icated. ]iy the way, why is it that all intem- 

 perate men, and especially all drunken men, 

 are so vehemently bitter in their curses and de- 

 nunciations of every thing pertaining to the 

 Bible, or even God as the ruler of the universe ? 

 It is because God and the Bible suggest self- 

 control, and lighting against sin. 



Now, then, if you are going to have the " con- 

 ditions favorable" for pleasant surprises, you 

 must have a clear conscience. Perhaps there is 

 no happy surprise in one's whole life of experi- 

 ence, like the thrill that comes over us when we 

 see our children doing well. I met a man the 

 other day whose face was so beaming with hap- 

 piness and good nature that it surprised me. 

 When I ask him what it meant he said, " John 

 has finally come out a Christian, and is going 

 to unite with the church at the next com- 

 munion." 



I replied, " Well, that is good news. So you 

 finally succeeded in getting him past his stum- 

 bling-blocks, did you?" 



" No, I didn't have any thing to do with it- 

 er, at least, it seems as if I didn't. After 1 gave 

 up talking with him about it. he announced of 

 his own accord that he had come out for once 

 and for all on the side of Christianity." 



This was indeed a pleasant surprise. But the 

 father did have something to do with it, even if 

 he did net know it. Heis a good square Chris- 

 tian man; and by the way. my friend, if you 

 wish to have the conditions favorable for pleas- 

 ant surprises in regard to your children, be care- 

 ful. Not only must you be careful before them, 

 but be careful when they are not anywhere in 

 your sight. Be careful in the darkness of the 

 night, when no soul is near. You may say, '" I 

 would not have my boy know this for all the 

 world; but there is no possibility of his ever 

 finding it out." You are wrong. You are mak- 

 ing a/errr/ui blunder. Every dishonest or im- 

 pure act stamps itself all over the man. It 

 stamps itself on your looks, on your acts, and on 

 yourmind; and your looks and your actions and 

 your mind are molding and fashioning the lives 

 of your children— especially your boys. I have 

 been told that some temperance lecturers give 

 excellent temperance addresses, and do a great 

 amount of good, while tlu^y are. right along, 

 drinking on the sly. It is not true; it is a foul 

 slander on humanity and on (Jod. It is true, a 

 bad man may read the Bible to an audience; 

 and the words that he reads or the texts he 

 quotes may do some good; but when the man's 

 real life comes out it is a question whether the 

 damage he has done does not far overbalance 

 all the good ever accomplished. There can be 

 no real pleasant surprises in the life of a hypo- 

 crite. It is the hoii(^>^t man — the conscienlious 

 man— who is going to get the most happiness 

 here in this world of ours; and he will, after the 

 end of tilings earthly, inherit all things. One 

 more point: It is the people who have learned 

 to putui) with liltUf; who have learniid to live 

 within their incomes; who have hnirned to be 

 happy and contenled wIkm-c the great masses 

 would growl and complain, who meet with 

 pleasant surprises. If you ar(uu)nient(^d to-day, 

 and satislied with what God has se<>n lit to give 

 yon, you are in tlie very best possible condition, 

 or, in other words, the conditions are favorable 

 (as the VV(iather Bureau puts it) for many 

 pleasant surprises — yes, for showers of happy 

 surprises, providing said "showers" do lujt 

 mawe you proud and arrogant and overbearing, 

 and touehy and snappish, toward vour neigh- 

 bors. 



And. finally, after the surprises of this life 

 are all ended, the great King of all the earth 

 shall say unto the meek and humble and faith- 

 ful, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit 

 the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 

 tion of the world." We are told in that beauti- 

 ful figure in the 2r)th of Matthew, that, when 

 this invitation was made, they to whom it was 

 made wei'e surprised; and when the Lord told 

 them of the good acts they had been performing 

 all through life, they could not remember it. 

 Then he goes into detail, and tells them this 

 wonderful truth— that, when they fed the hun- 

 gry, gavedrink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, 

 etc., they were really doing it unto liirn, and 

 that it was all put down in a book of remem- 

 brance; and he closes with these wonderful 

 words: 



Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye have done 

 it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 

 have done it unto me. 





WATER FOR IRRIGATION, FROM UNDERDRAINS, 

 ETC. 



If you are so fortunate as to own land located 

 on a higher level than ground you are using for 

 market-garden crops, fruit, etc., you may count 

 yourself as very lucky; and, in fact, almost 

 every land-owner has some land that is higher 

 that others. I will now tell you what you can 

 do. I have frequently spoken to you of our 

 swamp garden; but it never was my own by 

 clear title until last spring. Then, by the death 

 of the owner, I found I would have to vacate it 

 or else pay $500 for a single acre in a piece of 

 land that would hardly sell for $'>0 an acre. 

 Besides that, the acre I wanted was mostly a 

 sort of frog- pond that the average farmer 

 would hardly take as a gift. Rather than give 

 it up, however, I paid the $500. It was during 

 the hard times too. and mother and the boys 

 felt as if I were almost throwing the money 

 away when I did it. I had a plan in view, how- 

 ever. Just as soon as the ground was all my 

 own I cut underdrains every 20 feet apart, and 

 led them all into a sort of cistern constructed at 

 the lowest point in the center By the way. 

 Prof. Wright, the celebrated Oberlin geologist, 

 told me, some years ago, that this swamp of 

 mine, almost on the summit of quite an eleva- 

 tion, was. in all probability, made by being the 

 resting-place of a huge glacier, ages ago. This 

 glacier was so heavy that it sank into the 

 groimd as the waters subsided; and through 

 ages and ages, leaves, sticks, etc.. have collected 

 in the cavity, blown in by the wind, until peat 

 was formed, and then rank vegetation assisted 

 in filling the cavity with vegetable matter. In 

 digging outour cistern we found great trunks of 

 trees, several feet below the surface of the 

 swamp. 



Well, after my underdraining was completed 

 we started a line of 3-inch tile straight in the 

 direction of our steam-boilers, about a thousand 

 feet distant. As the cistern always contains 

 water, I directed the boys, during our drouth 

 last summer, to lay this last line of tile just 

 under the surface of the water that flowed from 

 the cistern and followed along in the ditch as 

 fast as they dug it. This water following them 

 lubricated their ditching-spades, and rendered 

 the hard clay comparatively soft when other- 

 wise it would have been tremendously hard 

 digging. You see, this line of tile, therefore, 



