GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



J AX. 15 



As he did not scom inclined to say any thing, 

 we bantered him somewhat; and in response to 

 a question of mine he said lie would cheerfully 

 answer any questions I might wish to aslv. 

 Now, as there is mueh wisdom in his reply, es- 

 pecially as he is a lawyer of experience, and a 

 member of the State Legislature, I will try to 

 give his replies here. 



•'Friend Taylor, have we not ample proof 

 riglit here before us, so that it will be an easy 

 matter to bring tliese guilty parties to justice?'' 

 "Well, the proof is i)hiin enough, friend Root: 

 but I am sorry to say that it will not probalily 

 be an easy matter to deal with the otf(>nders. 

 They have plainly violated the laws of Mich- 

 igan, it is true, in putting honey on the market 

 without the name of the producer, yjroviding we 

 can prove that which we all hnoiv very well — 

 that this honey is not the product of the bees. 

 Unfortunately, our cheiuists are at fault. Our 

 good worthy president, Prof. Cook, took some 

 honey out of his own hives, at the college apia- 

 ry, and sent it to Prof. Wiley, at Washington, 

 who pronounced it, aft<'r a chemical analysis, 

 adultcnited." 



This raised quite a btizz. and I guess there 

 was some indignation in the buzz. I turned to 

 Prof. Cooli. and asked him if it was the same 

 Wiley who started the story about manufactur- 

 ed comb honey. He assented, and then J com- 

 menced to boil over. Now, here is a sample of 

 Prof. Cook's gentleness, and, I think I may say, 

 wisdom. He replied something as follows: 



■' Friend Root, Prof. Wiley h<is made some 

 mistakes. It is true, he did pronounce the 

 honey impure that I took frotu my own hives: 

 but before we condemn him too se\'er(>ly. let us 

 remember that the best cheiuists we have in 

 the country have made the same blunder. Per- 

 haps we had better acknowledge that cheiuistry 

 is not to be trusted with absolute certainty a+. 

 the present tiiue, between manufactured glu- 

 cose and the glucose, or grape sugar, that is 

 found in flowers. Before we condemn friend 

 Wiley too severely, let us bear in luind that he 

 is an excellent man. and one who has done ex- 

 cellent service in many departments of science 

 for our country." 



Friend Taylor added further, that he presum- 

 ed if we, as a body of bee-keepers, were to take 

 oath that, according to the best of our knowl- 

 edge and belief, the samples of honey before tis 

 were cotuposed largely of cane sugar and glu- 

 cose, something might be done. The otfenders, 

 however, were said to be a rich manufacturing 

 institution, who put up pickles, jellies, and 

 other things, in glass ttimblers. One man would 

 stand a rather poor chance in opposing them: 

 and I believe our best advi.sers incline to the 

 idea that tlie Bee-keepers' Union had best take 

 the luatter in hand. 



I tell you. friends, the great reform ^ of the 

 present day are conducted by those who work 

 slowly and carefully. Instead of boiling over, 

 and condemning those who have capital, as a 

 whole, shall we not bottle our indignation for 



the present, and send Bro. Newman a dollar 



to make us a member of the Bee-keepers' Union, 

 and let liiin manage these matters? 



Now I fear I lunst dir(>ct you to other bee- 

 journals for fuller reports of the proceedings of 

 this convention. For the present I want to tell 

 you about my visit to 



D. M. FERKY & CO.'s GKEAT SEEDIIOUSE, 

 DETKOIT, MICH. 



I started to get up as usual, somewhere about 

 six o'clock. Somebody in the next rooiu called 

 out to know whether myself and friend Hilton 

 (my room-mate) were starting out for green- 

 houses. I answered eagerly, " Why, to be sure, 

 we are. Get on your duds quick, and go with us.'' 



''But, may be when you find out who it is you 

 won't want him along." 



"Yes, I do want you to go along. There is 

 not anybody in the world, who wants to go, 

 whom i do not want to go along." 



After I had said this I began wondering 

 whether I told the truth. Oh how glad I felt, 

 as I searched my heart, that I had told the full 

 plain truth I If I ^Hrve an enemy in the world, 

 he is just the man I should like to take by the 

 hand and show him the greenho-us(!S in the 

 early morning. (Yes, I should rejoice to take, 

 on such a trip, even our poor mistaken friend 

 Hill, of the Bee-keepers'' Oiikle, who has labored 

 .so long and hard to hold up before the world 

 both my fancied and real weaknesses and im- 

 perfections.) I thought the voices in the next 

 room sounded somewhat familiar, but I could 

 not quite make them ottt, and they had a good 

 deal of meiTiment at luy expense. Well, they 

 were no other than two of my best friends, M. 

 H. Hunt and R. F. Holtermann. It was friend 

 Hunt who suggested going to Ferry's new seed- 

 house instead of to the greenhouses. I owe 

 him a big debt of gratitude for a lot of other 

 similar deeds of kindness. 



This wonderful structure has been built only 

 about two years, on the site of the one previous- 

 ly burned. It is 300 feet long and !:.'() feet wide^ 

 and has between seven and evjht acres of 

 floor space. Now, when I tell you tiiat it is sev- 

 en stories high, and every floor occupied, you 

 may wonder as I did, that so little has been 

 said about such a tremendous enterprise. Like 

 our own establishment, this one is. a great part 

 of it. in charge of women. A woman gave us a 

 pin'niit to go through the rooms. Crowds of 

 t)right, intelligent-looking women, passed up 

 the stairs with us, put their cloaks and hats 

 nicely away in cupboards made especially for 

 them (a separate cupboard for each cloak), and 

 then took their places in the handsome offices 

 that filled a part of one of the great rooius. 

 These offices are finished ofl' iii the handsomest 

 style of present office architecture, and it was 

 a great study for me. Decorated wire cloth 

 separates the clerks from each other, so each 

 one has really a little room of his own, as it 

 were, where they can not be annoyed by visit- 

 ors or by each other. The bins, drawers, pig- 

 eon-holes, and other arrangeiuents for the rap- 

 id classifying and mailing of seeds, showed 

 wonderful skill and ingenuity: and, further 

 on, the rapid movements of the girls as they 

 took up their woj'k put to shame any sleight- 

 of-hand performance I ever saw. One of the 

 girls worked so rapidly in pasting up packets of 

 the seeds that I asked her to please go slow 

 enough so I could see what she was doing. She 

 smiled as she did so. The paste they use is 

 about the con.sistency of butter, only not quite 

 the color. A little bit is taken on the end of the 

 finger. In their rapid movements this finger is 

 stuck straight out when not needed, so as to be 

 out of the way; and one is astonished to see 

 that the paste gels just where it is wanted, and 

 nowhere else. At another table dozens of girls 

 were dipping npseeds with teaspoons, and put- 

 ting them into the open tnouths of printed 

 paclvets. It looked for all the world like feed- 

 ing ducks with a spoon. Each duck, however, 

 got only one spoonful. A luan sat at a raised 

 desk in the center of the room. By the way, 

 where there are so many hundreds of young 

 people, it is not any wonder that an elderly one 

 is needed for a boss. A good many of the young 

 eyes sintrkled with fun and mischief, especially 

 if they could catch sight of any glimpse of a 

 smile lurking around the corners of the mouths 

 of the visitors. And I tell you, there does not 

 want to be very much fun or "cutting up" when 

 you are putting up seeds. Remember what 1 



