G-36 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



miicli. Is it a trouble V Why, I think not. 

 A drought or u flood, or sometliing of that 

 soit, niiglit liave enabled me to get better 

 prices for many of my products ; but surely 

 jii) sane man would wish for such calamities 

 to cams on himself aiul his neighbors. Well, 

 what did A. I. Root do in such a state of af- 

 fairs? I studied the matter over carefully, 

 and told my hands just how we were situat- 

 ed. To some of them who, I felt, sympa- 

 thized with me, and with whom I felt it 

 would be wise to state it so, 1 spoke some- 

 thing as follows: "Friends, we shall have 

 to make it a subject of prayer. Let us ask 

 God to give us wisdom, and tell us what to 

 do in this crisis." Before asking God's help 

 we want to be sure that the business we are 

 engaged in is one that is pleasing in his 

 sight. In my own case I prayed that God 

 might help us to dispose of our produce, not 

 solely because of the money we wish to 

 make, but because I felt my undertaking in 

 writing this book was a right and proper 

 one, and that the few dollars that I might 

 make in market gardening were a very, very 

 small item when compared with the matter 

 of setting oiu" American people at work at 

 their own homes in tilling the soil. Now, I 

 have had so many answers to prayer, espe- 

 cially where I have prayed over business 

 matters, that I presume I ought to have had 

 faith that God would help us in this emer- 

 gency as well as in all the others scattered 

 along through the years I have been trust- 

 ing hint and going to him for aid and guid- 

 ance. The only doidit that troubled me was 

 as to whether my undertaking was really 

 right or not. There are some features of 

 the business that seem a little questionable. 

 For instance, I had cut off the trade of the 

 grocers of our town not a little. Then, 

 again, I had, to a certain extent, harmed the 

 very class I wished to help; that is, the 

 farmers round about us wlTo have been in 

 the habit of selling produce in our town. 

 AVe have been raising so much of certain 

 vegetables that it left them no chance to sell 

 any at all. I prayed over this, and prayed 

 for them as Avell as for ourselves and our 

 plans. 



At the convention in Detroit, quite an ani- 

 mated discussion came up nt one time be- 

 cause our bee-journals showed too much of 

 the bright side of every thing ; and a good 

 honest friend of mine from Canada declared 

 that, whenever I touched on the subject of 

 " blasted hopes," I always wound it up with 

 something bright and cheerful ; that is, my 

 black cluuds all had a silver lining. I have 



thought of this a good many times, and I do 

 not know but that 1 shall have to plead 

 guilty, at least in this way: I do believe that 

 God intended from the beginning that all of 

 our bhick clouds should have a silver lining, 

 and that, through gieat tiial and tribula- 

 tion, should come great victories and happi- 

 ness. 



When 1 lall I >ihaU arise: when I sit in darkness, 

 the Lord shall be a iijjht unto nie.— Micah 7:8. 



Now, I do not mean to say that things 

 changed ri<iht o/|as soon as we commenced 

 praying. For a time it seemed as if they 

 went on just as before, or even worse. This 

 was no new experience with me. I knew 

 already, or at least I certainly ought to 

 know, that, if our undertaking were a right 

 and proper one, and that, if our prayers 

 were in a line with the text, " Thou shalt 

 love thy neighbor as thyself," an answer 

 would certainly come. One of the obvious 

 ways to dispose of produce is to advertise ; 

 but I could not advertise cabbages to the 

 friends who read Gleanings. The expense 

 of transportation would be, to at least most 

 of you, more than they are worth. The only 

 avenue open was our county papers, and so 

 in went an advertisement something like 

 this: 



.JERSEY-WAKEI'lELD CABBAGES. 



We have a fine lot of these excellent cabbages 

 now ready for delivery. The price will be 2 cts. per 

 lb.; |;L7.5"per 100 lbs., or $30.00 per ton. 



We then went to the grocers of our town, 

 and told them that we would furnish them 

 fresh cabbages, cut to their order in any 

 quantity they wished, at the ton rate. At 

 tirst they did not seem inclined to handle 

 our cabbages at all. They could get them 

 from Cleveland, even cheaper than we could 

 raise them ; but when the country folks be- 

 gan to call for " Root's crisp hard cabbages," 

 they began to give us some orders. At the 

 same time, farmers stopped their buggies as 

 they were going past, and asked for a cab- 

 bage or two. They soon discovered that it 

 was indeed a fact, that our cabbages, fresh 

 from the tield, were a good deal nicer than 

 any tjiing that had been shipped in from the 

 large cities, and a good healthy trade startr 

 ed. I Mas so anxious to have the crop 

 saved, that I gathered a great number of 

 them myself, going over the field, and se. 

 lecting tirst every one that looked as if it 

 would burst very soon. Where they had ac- 

 tually snapped open, we offered them at a 

 discount; where badly broken, at half the 

 advertised prices. Now, these broken ones 

 are as good as any for immediate use. In 

 fact, they are usually the finest and most 

 crisp cabbages in the tield ; and many peo- 



