568 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



scopes? For inj' jiait I can not believe that deal- 

 ers make such n wholesale practice of adultera- 

 tion, and I I'eel sure thut not one in a hundred of 

 our honest honey-producers would resort to so vile 

 a practice. The editor (I suppose) comments by 

 saying', " We trust the good work will go on," etc., 

 and at the same time he is publishing- an article 

 Avhich is detrimental to the honey-producer and 

 the honej'-trade in general, in the very columns 

 which he pretends to devote to the interest of bee- 

 keepers. Would it not be more becoming in the 

 editor and the Microscopi&ts' Society to investigate 

 and try to learn when and where this adulterating 

 is done, and talk less about it until they can expose 

 these adulterators, if such there be? 

 Bluffton, Mo. S. E. Mh-ler. 



I do not know exactly where the trouble 

 lies, friend. M., but I am sure the statement 

 is 7iot true, that several hundred saniplt-sof 

 honey were all adulterated with ghicose, 

 grape sugar, etc. I am very much obliged 

 to you for forwarding ns the paper. I have 

 had some correspondence with the editor of 

 the St. Louis Journal of Agriculture, and he 

 is surely a good man, and I hereby implore 

 him to lend us his aid to get at the truth of 

 this matter. Let these microscopists and 

 State chemists get some bees of their own, 

 and see whether the honey the bees gather 

 from the flowers is adulterated or not. 

 They surely ought to do this, before they 

 make wholesale statements so damaging to 

 our industry. There are plenty of good 

 honest men "in the vicinity of St. Louis who 

 are Itee-keepers. Let them test some sam- 

 ples' of honey directly from the hives, and 

 then we shall know whether it is possible 

 for a chemist or microscopist to detect the 

 difference between grape sugar secreted by 

 the flowers and that manufactured. We 

 should be very glad indeed to have the bee- 

 men in the vicinity of St. Louis help us in 

 this matter, for such a statement as the 

 above clipping must not go unchallenged the 

 rounds of the press, l^iof. Cook has iuHu- 

 euce among scientiflc men, and 1 wish he 

 would Itelp us to correct the error, for er- 

 ror or blunder it certainly is. 



^ I ^ 



KAMBLE WO. 3. 

 SARATOGA SPRINGS. 



OSIAH ALLKN.droppinginto Saratoga Springs 

 from a rustic locality, enthusiastically called 

 it paradise; therefore when we entered the 

 place we were also impressed with the in- 

 creasing size and beauties of the place, 

 though we were frecjuent visitors. Whatever there 

 might have been of an icsthetic nature in my mind, 

 it was shattered as soon as we entered the business 

 portion ; for the president could not pass a grocery 

 store without exclaiming, "There is where I have 

 honey for sale! This grocer is a live man." Then 

 grasping me convulsively by the arm, and pointing, 

 "That's my honey in that window; see my card at- 

 tached." 



Our stay in Saratoga was necessarily brief. Hav- 

 ing had our dinner and a rest of an hour for the 

 pony, we were on the road again, by Congress 

 Spring, the famous Geyser, and the Spouting Spring, 

 on toward Ballston Spa, another pleasant manu- 

 facturing village and summer resort. 



Asking a person the distance, he replied it used 

 to be six miles; but since the road has become such 

 a thoroughfare for travel it has been beat out and 

 stretched to seven miles. Six or seven as the case 

 may be, it is a beautiful drive, and much enjoyed, 

 if we may judge from the number of tine turnouts 

 seen upon the road. Seven miles and not a bee- 

 hive in sight. It is evidently a poor locality for the 

 raising of honey. 



At Ballston we commenced to inquire the direct 

 way to the home of J. I. Parent, or to the town of 

 Charlton. We were directed first to Hop City. We 

 therefore made that our objective point, and antic- 

 ipated the pleasure of passing through another 

 thriving village, and perhaps a pleasant summer 

 resort, with growing hops, and their aroma filling 

 the air. The president seemed to have a strong ob- 

 jection to the smell of hops, and we had hardly got 

 a mile away from Ballston when he began to smell 

 hops. 



The country here began to show signs of better 

 soil and belter crops. We occasionally passed small 

 apiaries, and we judged, from the fields of buck- 

 wheat, that a great amount of honey came from 

 this source. President P., however, could not get 

 over the smell of hops. The aroma grew stronger 

 and stronger to him, and I feared the smell would 

 be too much for him. The last person we passed 

 gave the distance— one mile— and we began to look 

 for the spires o*" a city and the poles of hops. We 

 at last drove up to a lone blacksmith shop, and in- 

 quired of a trampish-looking individual where we 

 could find Hop City, when he exclaimed, "This are 

 the place!" 



"TniS ARE HOP CITV." 



In answer to the question, " Where's the hops?" 

 he said, " ISloss je, there's ben no hops hyar, as I 

 knows on." We drove on in silence for some time, 

 when my companion remia-ked that it was an unu- 

 sually fine day, but said nothing more about hops. 



We now began to inquire for the residence of 

 J. I. Parent, the noted bee-man. The first man in 

 answer to our query said: "Keep right along un- 

 til you come to the end of the road, then turn to the 

 left, then to the right, and get further instructions 

 from th'j next man you meet." Pony Nig began to 

 speed out a little faster. She was evidently disap- 

 pointed and disgusted over Hop City as well as the 

 rest of us, and was doing her level best to shake 

 the dust from her feet, when, sure enough, we 

 came plump up against a wall at the veritable end 

 of the road. 



We, however, got ourselves out of this entangle- 

 ment, and turned short ott' to the left, and soon found 

 another long stretch of straight road. Our next 



