9T4 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



AND WHAT I FOUND SOMK OF THK31 

 DOING IN CALIFORNIA. 



How amiable are tlij- tabernacles, OLord! My 

 soui longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of 

 the t.ord— PS. 84:1. :>. 



§.\TrRI)AY night it was raining hard 

 when I reached J^os .Vngeles ; and the 

 train mentioned in the letter at the 

 close of Our Homes, Dec. 1.5th issue, 

 had been gone some time. Trains run 

 here Sunday ; but, how about traveling on 

 the Sabbath? At one time I decided to stay 

 at a hotel, and go to church ; but the hotels, 

 at least all I could And there, had a great 

 li(luor-bar as the most prominent feature, 

 and charged $8. (JO per day besides. Should 

 I stay here among entire strangers who 

 cared nothing for me, while friends were 

 waiting whom I could find by a very few 

 miles of travel? 1 knelt down in my sleep- 

 ing-room, and asked the Savior to guide me ; 

 and at once I felt his peace in my heart as T 

 decided on my course. .Vtthe little narrow- 

 gauge depot the crowd seemed all ungodly; 

 but I soon found a young man who was a 

 Christian. He attended school in the city, 

 but always went out to see his pnrents Sun- 

 day morning. lie seemed as glad as I was, 

 to meet somebody who lo^■ed to keep the 

 Sabbath day holy. He told me of a little 

 Methodist chuich at the terminus of tlae 

 trip, and said Sunday-school would open 

 tliere a little after our arrival. How my 

 heart bounded at the thought of a Sunday- 

 school in the country I He said he thought 

 frieud Woodberry didn't go to church very 

 much, but I decided to take him with me to 

 that Sunday-school, if I found him ; if not, 

 to go myself, and hunt up my friend after- 

 ward. Well, we both went, and it was a 

 real good old-fashioned MetJiodist Sunday- 

 school. The little church was about full ; and 

 wlien the superintendent asked the '•'stran- 

 ger ''to speak, I thought of my prayer of 

 the morning. As I closed my talk, the 

 kindly looks and smiling faces made me feel 

 that the cause of Christ was dear to many a 

 heait away off here amid the mountains. 

 .\t the preaching service I was pleased to 

 see the little locomotive on this narrow- 

 gauge road bring a car full of people to 

 meeting, and carry them home again when 

 it was out. This road is a special conven- 

 ience here, for it winds around the moun- 

 tains, passing the homes located in the vil- 

 lages. The fare for 7 miles and back is only 

 .HO cents ; but even at the low price of 2 cents 

 per mile it has paid expenses, and more, 

 right along from the start. Now, friends, 

 we need charity, and to take good heed be- 

 fore we decide hastily that alt Sunday trav- 

 el is an evil. 



Friend AVood berry is, at present, keeping 

 bachelor's hall; and although he says he 

 isn't a professing Christian, I judge, from 

 the snatches of Gospel Hymns he is using 

 now while he washes the breakfast dishes, 

 that lie isn't far off from the kingdom. Like 

 friend Hilton, of Michigan, he probably ex- 

 pected, when he invited me to be his guest, 



that he would get talked to on the claims of 

 Christ as well as on bee culture and garden- 

 ing, and I have labored with him faithfully 

 and soundly. We two are brothers hence- 

 forth, and, I trust and pray, brothers in 

 Christ. Now, before I bid adieu to that 

 Methodist church I want to find a little 

 fault. During the Sunday-school, the doors 

 and windows were wide open ; but in the 

 evening, while the air outside was exquisitely 

 Tperfuined with the semi-tropical vegetation, 

 they had the doors shut and most of the 

 windows too, until everybody was sweating, 

 and the air so impure it made me dozy and 

 miserable. Such air extinguished pretty 

 nearly all my ( 'hristianity ; and just when I 

 was so anxious that brother AV., at my side, 

 should think favorably of going to meeting, 

 I fear he was deciding he would never go 

 again, just on account of the bad air. Per- 

 haps I am peculiar—at least, I hope so ; but 

 such air is poison to me. It makes me " sort 

 of crazy." I do believe the greatest cause 

 of consumption is crowded rooms and no 

 ventilation. I hated to go to church when 

 I was a boy, on account of the bad air, and I 

 should hate it as badly now if I had to en- 

 dure air like that last night. Should I have 

 called for more air'? Well, I thought of it, but . 

 it didn't seem just the thing for a stranger 

 to do. 



]5ee-keepers are, as a rule, men of genius, 

 and friend AVoodberry is not an exception. 

 Four years ago he came here with his moth- 

 er, from Maine. He gave $1000 for 20 acres 

 of land, and now he has been offered 1.5,000 

 for it. The secret of it is, however, his skill 

 and energy. He seldom hires any help, as 

 it is so expensive. His apiary, of about 7.5 

 hives, is on the railroad plan. The hives 

 are in one long row winding around a hill. 

 As the combs are lifted from the hives to 

 extract, they are set in a box placed on a car. 

 This box holds about 150 combs, and, when 

 loaded, is run into the honey-house to ex- 

 tract. The honey-house being on the hill- 

 side, a sort of "■ cellar kitchen," as it were, 

 is used for storing the filled cans of honey— 

 the honey from the extractor running into 

 the room below, to be canned for shipment. 



Friend W. strongly seconds the idea that 

 the average bee-keeper should have some 

 other business. He has turkeys and chick- 

 ens, Jersey cow, one horse, arid his garden. 

 Strawberries are his hobby, and just now 

 his vines are full of beautiful fruit, some of 

 it over-ripe. He has a peculiar knack of 

 making his berries bear all summer long- 

 that is, witli the aid of irrigation. He gets 

 15 cents per quart, wholesale, now. and has, 

 during the summer, sold toward iJ^lOOO 

 worth of berries from his patch of H acres. 



The plan of irrigation is to have a large 

 pipe of sheet iron, laid on a dead level, 

 along the highest side of the patch. Small 

 holes are made in this, opposite each row ; 

 and when the water is let on, the whole 

 patch is irrigated alike. When dry enough 

 he runs the cultivator through, and this is 

 kept up all summer, letting the water on, as 

 a rule, about once a week. He uses a culti- 

 vator that leaves a ridge in the middle, and 

 a shallow furrow close to the strawberry- 

 plants, the rows being 4+ feet apart. The 



