820 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



cheaper to have three or four whips than to 

 waste the time of a man and team in looking 

 after one that may be mislaid. Manage so 

 that the team may never have to stand still 

 M'hile a wagon is being greased. Grease the 

 wagon nights and mornings, or on rainy 

 days. It has been urged, that the team 

 ought to rest occasionally, any way. Very 

 well; rest them by all means when they 

 need rest ; but if a team is in proper order, 

 and of the proper heft and strength for the 

 work to be done, they rarely need more rest 

 than they ordinarily get. Another thing : 

 The rest that usually comes when hunting 

 for a whip, or fixing a broken tool, may 

 come when the horses need it, and it may 

 not come when they need it. If a proper 

 system is observed in regard to the work, the 

 rest can be given just when they need it, 

 and at no other time. 



My friends, did you never feel like saying 

 that some days were lucky daysV Some- 

 times every thing goes right straight along, 

 and you accomplish a great deal more in a 

 day than you expected ; and how pleasantly 

 you feel at night, to think that the tasks and 

 biu-dens that lay before you have all been 

 properly finished ! At other limes, every 

 thing seems to go wrong— tools break, get 

 lost, things do not come out right, night 

 comes, and almost nothing is accomplished. 

 The latter are the " unlucky " days. Now, 

 the real secret of it is, good management 

 and bad management. Sometimes things 

 come out right by accident, as it were ; 

 again, by accident every thing comes out 

 wrong. The intelligent and successful man- 

 ager must take advantage of accidents or un- 

 foreseen circumstances ; he must also look 

 ahead and be prepared for unforeseen emer- 

 gences. I presume likely, that, if I excel in 

 any one thing, it is in being able to manage 

 a good many helpers, and have them all pay 

 expenses. I believe the first person I ever 

 employed was my brother ; afterward a 

 neighbor's boy, and I enjoyed my first teach- 

 ing, watching and planning the work for 

 them. I used to enjoy measuring their capa- 

 bilities. When I could make them profit- 

 able, more help was employed. Finally I 

 discovered that girls and women could do 

 many things as well, or better, than boys 

 and men, and so I commenced employing 

 and teaching them. One who lias hands at 

 work for him must be constantly using his 

 brains in devising plans for shortening the 

 work. In my daily or almost hourly visits 

 through our rooms and over the grounds, I 

 am continually inventing shorter and better 



methods. In reading agricultural books and 

 agricultural papers I catch hold of many im- 

 portant hints. Terry's potato-boxes, pic- 

 tured on page 408, have been a great help ; 

 and now I make it a point to insist that 

 every thing that is to be picked up, whether 

 sticks, stones, pieces of bee-hives, or roots 

 and stones in the field, shall be put into bas- 

 kets or these boxes. We keep a lot of them 

 in the tool-house, and a lot of them scattered 

 over the grounds in different places. If left 

 upside down, the A\eather does not affect the 

 boxes very much. A few days ago one of 

 the men suggested, while he was digging 

 out stumps, that the piles of roots and rotten 

 wood would make good firewood, and ^le vol- 

 unteered to pay the cost of drawing a load 

 of them up to his house, if I thought best. I 

 caught the idea at once, for it is some labor 

 to pile these up and burn them. Well, I dis- 

 covered that it was (luite a little task, even 

 "with our small boys to help, to pick up a 

 wagon-load of them, therefore the potato- 

 boxes were brought out ; and as the roots 

 were dug from the soil they were tossed into 

 these boxes. When the wagon came around, 

 before I knew it they emptied the boxes into 

 the wagon, thinking they were making a 

 great saving then. But I suggested, " Why, 

 look here, my friends, just set the boxes 

 right into the wagon, and don't pour the 

 roots out until you get to the woodliouse 

 where they are to be stored." 



" But we can't get as many into a load," 

 suggested some one. 



" But, my friends, you can get on even tnore 

 at a load," and I showed them how to put 

 the boxes on top of each other, so that they 

 rode safely. 



Many farmers dig their potatoes and throw 

 them in a heap in the fall, and the same 

 with corn ; and I have seen them dig bas- 

 ketsful, and pour them down in heaps in the 

 field; then they are picked up, put into the 

 baskets, and poured into the wagon. When 

 the wagon gets to the cellar they are picked 

 up again, and then poured into the bin in 

 the cellar. When they are sold they are 

 picked up another time, poured into the 

 wagon, possibly, picked iip */(7^ again, and 

 poured into the bin or on the cellar bottom 

 of the purchaser. Our potatoes are dug and 

 put into boxes, and we have boxes enough 

 so they stand there in those same boxes un- 

 til they are to be used, or until they are 

 planted the next April. The boxes are of 

 such a size that they can be set in a wagon 

 without much waste room ; in fact, we can 

 easily put on an ordin?iry wagon ^11 the 



