IS 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



Those who buy it for talile use want it ready for 

 use. It is not to be presumed that they understand 

 melting it so as not to injure it; and if they want 

 honey on the spur of the moment, they say, " Can't 

 have any now, it is all hard." So it goes on, and is 

 not used. Had it been liquid, it would have been 

 used up and the family would have bought some 

 more; but no more will be bought while they have 

 that. 



It is something like this: A honey customer sold 

 us a fifty-pound keg of maple sugar. He said he 

 knew it was pure, for a friend of his in Vermont 

 sent it to him direct from his camp (glucose had 

 found its waj- to the camp, though). We were sev- 

 eral years using that sugar, for it had to be dug out 

 with chisel and l;aramer, and be melted before 

 it was ready for the table. I said to a friend who 

 bought a similar keg, " Used your maple sugar 

 yet?" She said, " Oh, no! it's such a job to dig it 

 out, and nobody will do it but me, and I can't spare 

 the time." I suppose she has it yet, and it's of legal 

 age to go to school. 



We produce mostly comb honey, because we 

 think it is less work, situated as we are. Jf I need- 

 ed employment I would purchase extracted honey 

 by the barrel, melt it, and put it. into tin pails, and 

 in a short time have a regular honey-route. If I 

 found that honey, previously sold, had granulated, 

 I would exchange liquid for it, and expect that it 

 would be consumed when I came again, and the 

 customer want some more. When extracted honey 

 is produced in No. 1 order, that is, every kind kept 

 separate, and well ripened, and delivered to the 

 consumer in prime order, it should be worth the 

 price of comb honey. Dark, mixed honej', with no 

 distinct flavor, should not be offered to consumers 

 for food, as it injures the demand. 



Peoria, 111. Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Mrs. H., may be your maple sugar was 

 adulterated with glucose ; but the fact that 

 it was so hard that it had to be cut out with 

 a chisel and hammer is no evidence of this. 

 As you describe it, I should infer that the 

 sugar was poured into the keg while hot. 

 This would be a nice way to ship it ; but 

 any maple sugar, when it gets real dry, 

 would make just that kind of trouble. I 

 should by no means think of digging it out 

 with a chisel. Knock off the hoops, take off 

 the staves, and put the keg, or such a part 

 of it as you think proper, into a laige dishpan 

 or something else suitai)le. Add a very lit- 

 tle water, and let the sugar melt slowly ; 

 then when you sugar it off leave it rather 

 damp— that is, don't sugar if off so as to get 

 dry and hard. In this shape you can dip it 

 out with a spoon, without any trouble what- 

 ever; and at our house we think that soft 

 maple sugar is ever so much nicer than hard 

 cakes. Almost any maple sugar will get 

 hard if the liquid portion be allowed to drain 

 off. On one occasion we sent some little 

 cakes of maple sugar clear to Connecticut. 

 As it was in the summer time they got so 

 dry and hard you could scarcely pound them 

 up with a hammer. Well, now, these friends 

 thought they ought to have damages be- 

 cause we sent them sugar too hard to eat. 

 Had they given these little cakes one dip in 

 water, and let them lie a few hours, the 

 sugar would have become as soft as they 

 pleased, without any trouble whatever. 



Even dropping water on a cake of sugar oc- 

 casionally will make it just as soft as you 

 want it. Our children like it best sugared 

 off warm. Just put some of the hard lumps 

 into a basin, with a very little water, and 

 let it simmer slowly ; then, just as you finish 

 it, bring it to a boil, and you can have hot 

 maple sugar any day of the year, without 

 any trouble with hammer and chisel. 



THE QUAKERS. 



MRS. CHADDOCK ON DIFFERENT CHURCHES AND 

 DIFFERENT RELIGIONS. 



Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: 

 Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is 

 the whole duty of man.— Ecc. 12: 12. 



R. ROOT:— You say, on page 890, "Why do 

 you say that she says it is because she Is a 

 Christian? That is, why do you not say 

 instead that it is because she is a Chris- 

 tian?" Well. I do not say that, because I 

 do not hnow it. Anna aaya it, and she is a sweet and 

 lovely girl, and a tndhfitl one, and I would not 

 doubt her word on any subject. Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes (I think it was) said that the time to begin 

 a child's education is one hundred years before it 

 is born; and perhaps Anna began being a Christian 

 a hundred years before she was born; and if she 

 did, she may have such a store of Christianity in 

 her veins, in her bones, and in her brain fiber, that 

 it helps her to bear all the ills of life without a 

 murmur. You know, of course, that what Holmes 

 meant was, that children inherit tendencies, and 

 that a child of an educated stock would be more 

 apt to learn than the child of illiterate parents and 

 grandparents and great-grandparents. Anna Quil- 

 lin comes of a religious stock, and all her tenden- 

 cies are that way, and I believe that she feels what 

 she says she does. 



My religious education did not begin a hundred 

 years ago, and it is impossible to crowd enough 

 religion into me to make me bear calmly and trust- 

 fully all that Anna has to bear. If I had to lie in 

 bed for eight years, I think I should be lying alone. 

 No mortal could stay by me, I should be so " can- 

 tankerous." But I do not mean by this that I am 

 destitute of religion. I think I have some religion, 

 but I do not believie in the same creed that you do. 

 My mother's people were Friends (called Qua- 

 kers). She married "one of the world's people," 

 and was disowned for doing so. My parents moved 

 to a new State, where there wei-e no "Friends' 

 meeting," and there my mother united with a peo- 

 ple calling themselves "Disciples of Christ," I be- 

 lieve (I was a small child then), but they were call- 

 ed by the world " New Lights," and we went to 

 that church till mother died. I was ten years old 

 then, and we were put out to be brought up by 

 neighbors or strangers. My lot fell in pleasant 

 places, and among Christian people, the Friends. I 

 was a stranger and they took me in; I was hungry, 

 and they fed me; I was naked (almost), and they 

 clothed me; and to this Christian people I owe a 

 debt of gratitude that I can never pay. I went to 

 their schools, I went to their meetings. I was al- 

 ways at their Sabbath-school and at their Bible- 

 readings. I loved them. I think I was thirteen 

 when I was taken into the society by request. 

 This was the orthodo.x branch of Friends. My 



