198 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



LITTLE AH SID. 



A LITTLE CHINA BOY'S EXPKKIENCE WITH THE AMER- 

 ICAN HONEY-BEE. 



I-ittle Ah Sid 

 ' Was a Chinese kid, 



A cute little chap, you'd declare; 



With eyes full of fun. 



And a nose that begun 

 Eight up at the roots of his hair. 



Jolly and fat 



Was this frolicksome brat. 

 As he played through the long summer day. 



And braided his cue 



As his father used to 

 In Chinaland, far, far away. 



Once o'er a lawn 



That Ah Sid played on, 

 A honej'-bee flew in the spring. 

 "Meliean buttelHy!" 



Said he, with closed eye; 

 " Me catchee and pull off um wing." 



Then with his cap 



He struck it a rap,— 

 This Innocent honey-bee,— 



And put its remains 



In the seat of his jeans ; 

 For a pocket there had the Chinee. 



Down on the green 



Sat the little sardine. 

 In a st.yle that was strangely demure. 



And said with a grin 



That was brimful of sin, 

 " Me mashee um buttelfly sure." 



Little Ah Sid 



Was only a kid: 

 Nor could you expect him to guess 



What kind of a bug 



He was holding so snug 

 In the folds of his loose-fltting dress. 

 " Ki-ya! ki-yip-ye!" 



Ah Sid cried, as he 

 Rose hurriedly up from that spot. 

 " Ki-yi! yuk-a-kan! 



Shame on Meliean man— 

 Um buttelWes velly much hot." 



San Francisco Wasp. 



THE DISCOVERY OF SILK. 



COMPILED AND WRITTEN BY 

 HOSSITER. 



NELLIE LINCOLN 



Continued. 



M T a later period, Spain and Portug-al received 



J^f\ from their Arabian conquerors the art of fab- 



' ricating silk. It was in 711, under the 



Caliphs, that the Saracens conquered Spain; and 

 they soon taught the inhabitants of that country to 

 improve their agriculture, their manufactures, and 

 their arts. "With the same vigor," observes Pro- 

 fessor Dresch, in his Universal History, "with the 

 same earnest zeal with which they fought for more 

 than a century, they pursued the cultivation of 

 science, under the auspices of the great Caliph Har- 

 oun al Raschid," the contemporary of Charles, and 

 his son Al Mamun. These sovereigns regarded it as 

 a maxim of policy, that the welfare of a nation 

 consisted in its civilization. The Koran had classed 

 agriculture, industry, and commerce, among the 

 good deeds of the believer. Like the Roman sena- 

 tors, who took their surnamps from the plants 

 which they had principally cultivated, as, for in- 

 stance, the Fabii and Lentuli, the Arabian chieftains 

 were fain to adopt, in the quiet of their private lives, 

 names alluding to their skill in some manual indus- 

 try; though at that time. Central and Western 

 Europe knew of no other pleasure than that derived 

 from war, from wine, and from the chase. Charle- 

 magne was the only sovereign who made any pro- 

 Rision for the cultivation of the mind; but the bene- 



fits he conferred terminated with his life; and, from 

 that time, the Arabian empire was the only seat of 

 science, industry, and civilization. We owe them 

 much in regard to agriculture: we are Indebted to 

 them for the manufacture of paper; for the expres- 

 sion of quantities by figures, and for many Improve- 

 ments in the art of dyeing; nay, our language bears 

 numberless traces of the Inventions transmitted to 

 us by the Arabians. The historian and bishop, Otto 

 de Freysingen, speaking of the great progress 

 which silk manufactures had made In Spain, relates 

 that, after the siege of Milan, Frederick I. held a 

 diet of the empire, in ll.'iS, in the fields of Roncaglia, 

 at which were present, in magnificent attires, the 

 ambassadors of the Genoese, who recently had con- 

 quered from the Saracens two Important cities, 

 Lisbon and Almerla, both famous on account of 

 their manufactures of silk, and had made a rich 

 booty. The later wars, and the defeat of the Sar- 

 acens, might have been the cause that this species 

 of Industry did not pass the limits of the Spanish 

 Peninsula, and fell partly Into decay; for it can not 

 be doubted that the rest of Europe received it from 

 Greece." Greece remained for a long time In the 

 possession of the silk culture, and it seems that the 

 Saracens were never acquainted with the breeding 

 of the worms, and were skilled only in the art of 

 manufacturing beautiful stuffs from the raw silk, 

 which the.y received from the great emporium of 

 Bagdad. The war of 1116 introduced that culture 

 into Italy. According to historical authority, 

 Roger I., the Norman king of Sicily and Naples, 

 hearingthat the great Emperor Manuel Comnenus 

 was negotiating an alliance against him, with Con- 

 rad in. of Germany, resolved to send an ambassy to 

 Constantinople, in the hope of averting the danger 

 which threatened his power, and to propose a matri- 

 monial alliance with one of the daughters of the 

 Emperor; but Manuel threw the ambassadors into 

 prison, and Roger, having accordingly collected his 

 land and maritime forces, was so fortunate as to 

 conquer successively Corfu, Cephalonla, Negropont, 

 Corinth, Thebes, Athens, and several other cities 

 and Islands of Greece; from whence he cai-rled with 

 him into Sicily an immense booty, and several thou- 

 sand captives. Among the latter were a great 

 Dumbrr of persons acquainted with the culture and 

 fabrication of silk. Roger gave orders to treat them 

 with much kindness, and persuaded them to settle 

 in Palermo, offering them the most advantageous 

 conditions. They introduced there their useful 

 industry, and opened manufactures which soon 

 acquired great celebrity; and from thence it wa8 

 transmitted to the Calabrians, and at length propaga- 

 ted through the rest of the kingdom of Naples. 



MR. L.1NGSTROTH. 



MRS. HARRISON TELLS US ABOUT HIM AT THE CON- 

 VE"NTION. 



BEAR JUVENILES:— When I was at the bee- 

 ) meeting at Chicago, I looked around for you; 

 — ' and, sure enough, two of you were there. No 

 girls, but one boy in petticoats, and another in 

 knickerbockers. The little one will not remember 

 being there, but the one in knickerbockers will; and 

 when he is an old man, and a grandpa, he will tell 

 how, when he was a little boy, he went with his fath- 

 er and mother, in 1883, to CbicagQ, to a bee-meeting, 

 and saw Mr, Langstroth, 



