C50 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1^. 



untrammeled Indian, with his squaw and pa- 

 poose, in like manner, when he lirsl visits a city, 

 eschews the civilized sidewalk, and promenades 

 in the center of the street, the observed of all 

 observers; and from the number of glances 

 toward us we were too much observed. After 

 laying in astock of provisions and photographic 

 supplies we rattled the Los Angeles dust from 

 our wagon-wheels and made for the Cahuenga 

 Pass, and passed through it and camped over 

 Sunday on the banks of the Los Angeles River, 

 in the shade of the willows. From our points 

 of view there was but a small amount of bee- 

 forage in this portion of Los Angeles Co., ex- 

 cept, perhaps, upon the river bottom. In order 

 to see the best honey resources of the county, 

 and find the bee-keepers, it would have been 

 better to follow out on the Pasadena (or east) 

 side of the valley; but we got started this way 

 from the city, and followed it. Our continued 

 journey across the San Fernando Valley re- 

 vealed abundant cactus growth, and not a 

 great amount of sage or other honey-producing 

 flora; and such flora as we saw was withered 

 by dryness and obscured by dust. 



At San Fernando we found the mission pre- 

 viously spoken of. A little beyond it we came 

 to the San Fernando Pass; and, learning from 

 other travelers of the arduous climb before us, 

 we camped, preferring to make the ascent with 

 a fresh team in the morning. Mr. Wilder went 

 out for a little hunt, and returned with a large 

 white owl — a subject for taxidermy— and re- 

 ported the finding of an apiary just over the 

 hill. I visited it in the morning, and found a 

 very neatly arranged collection of bee- hives 

 and honey-houses; and, as a sort of remem- 

 brance of the place, I shot a rabbit in the 

 suburbs. 



In the morning we addressed ourselves to the 

 task of getting through the pass. In all of this 

 California country, in crossing from one valley 

 to another we have to enter the mouth of a 

 canyon, and toil up a winding grade, more or 

 less steep, until we emerge from the tail end of 

 the canyon. We then pass to the tail end of 

 another canyon, and have the same sinuous 

 grade down, and emerge into the valley from 

 the mouth of the canyon. This was a most 

 arduous pass, and was made passable only by 

 making a cut .some sixty feet deep, and barely 

 wide enough for the wagon to go through, 

 troing down the other side was quite an ardu- 

 ous undertaking. We have no brake on our 

 coach, so Mr. Wilder sawed on the reins, and 

 hallooed " Whoa!" while the Rambler tied a 

 rope to the rear axle, and held on; and thus we 

 safely descended. My strenuous labors in the 

 rear relieved the pressure on the horses im- 

 mensely, and saved us from a catastrophe, 

 perhaps. In thus going down the grade, how- 

 ever, I felt some like the Irishman who was 

 clinging to a pole, with another Irishman hang- 



ing to his feet. When the strain became great, 

 upper Irishman shouted to the one grasping 

 his feet. " Arrah there, Pat! hang to yer hoult 

 below till I spather me hands above." I did 

 not "spather '■ my hands, which accounts for 

 our safe descent. 



The mouth of this canyon opens into the 

 Newhall country. This is quite a center of the 

 bee-keeping industry, and there are many 

 apiaries located in the canyons that open into 

 the valley. We passed one on quite a steep 

 down grade, and learned afterward that it was 

 one of Mr. Wilkin's apiaries. Mr. Wilkin also 

 has another a few miles from this. We pushed 

 along through Newhall into the Saugus coun- 

 try. The readers of Gleanings have had more 

 or less to do with dry and wet towns. Some 

 rejoice when they hear that a town has gone 

 dry; others rejoice over the wet aspect. Those 

 who like the dry towns should move to Saugus. 

 It is as dry as a bone this year. The dust rolls 

 up beautifully; even the barbed-wire fences 

 had a dried, harsh appearance. Ordinarily 

 this is a great stock country; but there was not 

 a '■ cattle on a hill." and not a blade of grass to 

 keep a grasshopper alive. I fell to speculating, 

 that, if this was the country in which Mr. 

 Hewes cultivated the honey-bee, there was 

 good reason for his acrimonious remarks in a 

 late number of Gleanings. After passing the 

 Saugus water-tank, which is the chief building 

 (appropriate for a dry country), I began to feel 

 a touch of the blues — sort of imaginary sym- 

 pathy, I suppose, for the bee-keepers in that 

 vicinity who are feeding bees or losing them 

 by starvation; for some, I regret to say, are 

 following the latter alternative. The touch of 

 blues was, however, dispelled when we struck 

 the head waters of the Santa Clara River, and 

 the center of the Newhall ran-ch. Here was a 

 fertile valley, with hundreds of horses and cat- 

 tle grazing on the succulent herbage. We 

 camped on the banks of the winding river; and, 

 as the saying is, we had a "fly time" here. 

 Pharaoh might have had a worse time; but 

 this being a stock-ranch, the flies were numer- 

 ous enough to be an inconvenience, especially 

 in the cool of the evening, when they persisted 

 in taking possession of our tent. 



The main episode, as we continued our jour- 

 ney, was the mistake of getting upon the wrong 

 road, and another mistake in not continuing 

 upon the wrong road. The peculiaiity upon 

 roads in this country, where large stock ranches 

 are owned, is the frequency of gates upon the 

 main roads. The Newhall ranch contains 

 49,000 acres. By placing a gate across the road 

 it holds the stock on several thousand acres 

 without the expense of fencing the road. The 

 supervisors of a county are very obliging to the 

 big ranchers in this respect, and thus allow the 

 gates. One of these gates led us to keep on in 

 an open road, and we were headed direct into a 



