1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



163 



EDW^IN FRANCE. 



THE MAN WHO HAS 500 COLONIES, AND HAS PRO- 

 DUCED AS HIGH AS 21 TONS OF EXTRACTED 

 HONEV. IN 38 DAYS. AND NOT IN 

 CALIFORNIA EITHER. 



'E take great pleasure in presenting to 

 our readers a picture and autobio- 

 gi-apliical sketch of our friend Ed- 

 win France, of Platteville, AYis. 

 We consider him well worthy of this 

 distinction. lie is one of our most exten- 

 sive and successful honey-producers. He is a 

 plain, practical wiitpr. and we believe he nev- 

 er puts any thing before the public except 



every two or four weeks for over 40 years. He 

 never had any pay for preaching, from those to 

 whom he preached, but always said that God 

 would^pay him for his work. Perhaps he did. He 

 had a good property, and money out on interest. I 

 lived with himl8!^ years. 



The spring after I was 16 years old my lather had 

 me'come home, and put me at the furnace to learn 

 the trade. I worked at the business four years, 

 pretty steady. Then my father bought forty acres 

 of timber land which was five miles from town. 

 We built a log house upon the land, and moved the 

 family into it. Father and I worked summers on 

 the iilacc, tlcaring up the land and raising farm, 



EDWIN FRANCE. 



such as he knows to be well established 

 from long experience. At our request he 

 prepared a sketch of his own life, as ap- 

 pears below: 



Frif ml Root :—lu reply to your letter of Jan. 23, 

 I will give you a brief sketch of my life. I was 

 born in Herkimer Co., N. Y., Feb. 4, 1834. My fath- 

 er was a furnaceman by trade, molding and melt- 

 ing iron. He had a large family to support, and 

 never got much property ahead. I was the second 

 child. An older brother died young, leaving me the 

 eldest of the children. When I was eight years old 

 my i)arcnrs sent mo to live with my mother's broth- 

 er, who was a farmer and a Methodist preacher. 

 He preached every Sunday— no regular appoint- 

 ment by the conference, but he went where he 

 chose. He preached in the county poorhouse 



crops. Wintei-s we worked at the furnace. My 

 father died when I was 34, and I then became the 

 main support of the family, consisting of mother 

 and six children. I did the best I could, and made 

 out to get plenty to eat. I gave up the furnace 

 business, and worked a part of the time in making 

 salt-bari'els summers, and cutting sawlogs in the 

 winter. 



About this time I obtained a few hives of bees, 

 and kept them on that little place in the woods. 1 

 lived there until 1 was 83, when I got the "western 

 fever " and cnme hereto find a home. I traveled 

 about in Illinois and Wisconsin, but finally settled 

 in Humboldt Co., Iowa, leaving my mother and the 

 other children on the place in New York, in care of 

 my mother's lirother (not the preacher, but another 

 brother). He was a single man, older than mother, 



