1()0 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1. 



an Indian two or three years to make such a 

 boat. This is because the\- won't use an ax or 

 an adze, but just cut out little bits at a time 

 with a little tool of their own. Lately, how- 

 ever, the younger Indians are learning to use 

 modern carpenter tools. The young Indian 

 girls also wear shoes and stockings: it is mostly 

 the middle-aged or older women who persist in 

 sticking to their old customs. 



Well, after I had examined the boat all over, 

 and praised it. the old chief wasn't satisfied. 

 He made motions, took hold of the boat, and 

 grunted, and then we understood that he didn't 

 mean us to see the boat, but to take hold and 

 help pull it up on shore where the waves 

 wouldn't wash it off into the water. Friend 

 March commenced to help pull it up: but as I 

 had been sick. I thought I wouldn't lift any: 

 but this didn't suit the old chief. He made mo- 

 tions to me to take hold, and then grunted 

 again, to indicate I was to pull and lift too, and 

 to lift hard. So I had to take hold, and at least 

 make helieve that I was pulling a big lot. 



The Indians are what they call " Flatheads." 

 They used to fasten a board over every baby's 

 head, so as to flatten down its forehead. You 

 can find pictui'es of them in some of your geog- 

 raphies. Mr. March can " talk 'Injun' "' a good 

 deal, and he sells them apples and all sorts of 

 garden stuff. The Indians live mostly on fish 

 and game. They cure their fish so it looks a 

 good deal like dried codfish. This they put on 

 sticks stuck in the ground close to the fire in 

 front of the door of their tents, and toast it as 

 we toast cheese. 1 rather wanted some myself: 

 but as I didn't pull on the boat very much. I 

 was rather bashful about asking for apiece. 

 Since I have got well I am hungry about all the 

 time, and I can eat any thing anybody else 

 eats. 



Among the other kinds of water-fowl we saw 

 in such abundance on the bay were " Mother 

 Carey's chickens." They are just as cute as 

 can be: but if you just shake your finger at 

 them they dive down out of siglit in a most 

 comical w'ay. There an^ all sorts of divers and 

 ducks that are not good to eat. They say it is 

 becausethey live altogether on fish. The ducks 

 and geese that are good to cook' live on seaweed 

 and other vegetable products. Besides the 

 ducks and geese, there are tliousands of sea- 

 gulls. These are about as large as a common 

 chicken, but have much longer wings. They 

 follow the steamboats in great droves, just to 

 get the leavings of the table after the meals. 

 You see. they just follow the boats until some- 

 body '"shakes the table-cloth." and then, '"oh 

 my I"" what a scampering! Th<'y dive right 

 down into the water, like a lot of bees after 

 some honey. They drop into the water, and 

 swim and dive in a wonderful way. They also 

 skim over the surface without moving a wing, 

 until you begin to think they fiy without any 

 motion at all. They will skim along by the 

 boat, moving just as fast as tlie boat does, but 

 scarcely moving otherwise, until it seems like 

 witchcraft. There is a law against shooting 

 them, as they clean up so much rubbish and 

 refus(> matter, and so have becom(> very tame. 

 They will sail so close to you that you can al- 

 most reach them. I think I have studied out 

 how they fly or sail so long without moving 

 tlieir wings. They collect in a flock, on a cer- 

 tain side of the boat, and keep right there for 

 miles. This place is where the wind strikes the 

 boat and is turned upward. We call it an " as- 

 cending cuirent of air," Well, as long as they 

 keep in this it keeps them up. If it blows up- 

 ward too hard, they tip their iu^ads down and 

 sail downward. If not hard enough, they will 

 have to flop their wings a little occasionally to 

 keep up. They must be loonderfuHy expert in 



flying, to keep right in this wind that blows 

 constantly upward, and still keep at just such a 

 height all the time. When the wind was blow- 

 ing very strong, once in a while a bird would get 

 out of the current I have syx)ken-of. and away 

 he would go like a shot. Why, he would have 

 to fly with all his miglit for quite a spell to get 

 back to his place witli his comrades. I took a 

 lot of them with the Kodak, and hope to show 

 them to you when I get home. They are of all 

 colois, from pure white to ever so many shades, 

 and some of them are beautifully mottled, 

 si)eckled. and striped, in the most fantastic way. 

 There, Huber. I think this letter is long enough 

 for on(! time. 



Before I take leave of our good friend March 

 and his poultry, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, 

 etc., I want to tell you of a plan of getting two 

 heads of cabbage from one plant. Put out 

 your Jersey Wakefield in the usual way, only 

 use the very best strong plants, and set them 

 on your very ricliest land; and when the heads 

 are ready to sell, cut out the head, leaving all 

 the outside leaves attached to the stump; that 

 i.s, cutout tlu^ head so as to have no leaves to 

 strip ott' and throw away, foi' the leaves are all 

 left on the stump. Now keep cultivating these 

 stumps along with the other cabbages that 

 have not yet headed, and very soon small heads 

 will start out on the stump. Pull off all these 

 little heads but the best one. and this will 

 soon make a head as good as. and may be better 

 than, the first one. I piesurae this is not new to 

 many of you. unless it is the picking-otf of all 

 the little heads except one. Vei'y well: now, 

 these second-crop heads will, many of them, 

 mature so late they may be wintered over in 

 the usual way, and these are the ones friend 

 March gets his choice cabbage seed from. Do 

 you see the point? To keep up the Jersey 

 Wakefield to its best for an early cabbage we 

 want to select seed from the first and best heads 

 made in the spring: but I never knew how this 

 could be done until now. Simply select the 

 first good nice head of early cabbage you get 

 next spring; cut out the head as above, and let 

 it make another, and this last one yon can win- 

 ter over. Set it out in the spring, and you can 

 raise your own seed, and have it from your 

 best and choicest specimen. Or, if you don't 

 want to raise seed, you can have a spring crop 

 and a fall crop from the one cabbage- patch. 



THE GREAT NORTHWEST, AND ITS FUTURE. 



When friend March sent me his kind invita- 

 tion, he mentioned the wonderful new town, 

 only three miles from his ranch, a town of 25.50 

 population, which, only twenty njoiiths ago, 

 was a wilderness. This town is Anacortes. 

 There may have been instances of like rapid 

 -growth on n^cord; but if so. I have never heard 

 of it. I expected to find it made up chiefly of 

 buildings of unplaned lumber, put up in *the 

 cheapest possible manner. Not so. I was 

 greatly astonished to see fine brick buildings and 

 handsome, stylish residences witlu)ul number. 

 Their waterworks cost them about ^SoO.OOt); 

 electric railway of eleven miles. $2.5(),0()() ; ten 

 miles of planked and graded streets, S10b,000. 

 An electric-light plant is all comi)let('d. and a 

 daily paper has been going for some linu'. as 

 well as two weekly ones. A school-building to 

 cost $40,000 is nearly finished. A Presbyterian 

 church is completed, and a Methodist church 

 will be ready by spring. I need not tell you of 

 the craze and boom in real estate here during 

 the last two years. Land worth two yeai'S ago 

 $;30.00 per acre is now valued at. and has been 

 sold for— well, let us say many thousands per 

 acre. Poor men sold half their small farms, 

 where they had lived for years from hand to 



