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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



ny to carry pxpivss in this way. he was. as it 

 were, trained foi' the job. Vi-ry likely a bee- 

 keepers enthiisias^ni helped him to carry out his 

 scheme. His bees lived, and he sold enough of 

 the increase, the first season, to amount to 

 .S600. He tried to buy bees of Mr. Harbison, to 

 get a start, hut Mr. II. wanted .?1.5fl per colony. 

 Before we find fault with these prices, we must 

 remember what it cost to gel bees, before there 

 were any I'ailroads. Of course, bee-keepers had 

 a bonanza for a while, raising queens, and in- 

 creasing, for they could do it almost every 

 month in the year, if they wanted to. 



Santa Paula is the oil city of Ventura County. 

 The oil comes from the mountains in pipes, and 

 Is here refined. As a consequence they have im- 

 mense tanks and quite extensive buildings, with 

 the necessary refining machinery. They have 

 just commenced the manufacture of printing- 

 ink, from lampblack and oil, both made from 

 the products of the refineries. Here I for the 

 first time saw a gas-engine, run by gasoline. A 

 certain amount of gas, generated from gasoline, 

 is exploded inside the cylinder, and this gives 

 the power. A small engine was running a ma- 

 chine-shop and other machinery. No governor 

 was used, more than a very heavy fly-wheel, to 

 equalize the force given out by each explosion. ^ 



From Fillmore station we reach the bee-ranch 

 of friend Mclntyre. that has been recently il- 

 lustrated and described on these pages. It re- 

 minded me again and again of T. B. Terry, 

 while I looked over the ranch and talked with 

 our enterprising friend. Like Terry, and like 

 H. A. March, he pays for everything as he goes 

 along: and if he can't pay for it. he doesn't 

 have it. He owes nobody, and has something 

 ahead to enable him to grasp good chances 

 when they come his way. Many of the bee- 

 men of California can not have their bees and 

 their families in the same place, and this is in- 

 deed a serious drawback. The best places for 

 bees are away back in the mountains, where 

 there are no schools foi' the children, and where 

 their wives are so far from neighbors and from 

 society It is not pleasant for them. Friend M., 

 however, got his ground before the fruit-men: 

 and if they do come into his neighborhood, they 

 can not very well presume to drive him out. 

 Besides, he is a fruit-man himself, and he has 

 orange-trees that he estimates will give him 

 $10 per tree in fruit this year. He also raises 

 young orange-trees. These, when budded, bring 

 from .50 cents to $l.,iO each. Three years ago I 

 was absolutely astonished at the prices paid for 

 these trees: and although thousands upon thou- 

 sands have been raised, the price for good trees 

 remains much the same. It is the old story 

 over again. Friend M. gets wonderful results 

 from only a small part of an acre of seedling 

 orange-trees. His neighbors, seeing how he is 

 making money at it, try to do the same thing 

 themselves, but they have bad luck — the trees 

 die, etc. You see, he prepares the ground so 

 thoroughly, and watches the trees so closely, 

 they can't die. The great mass of humanity 

 vnll not pay the price (in diligence and atten- 

 tion) of success. Reader, are jyoK letting prop- 

 erty go to waste in just this way? ISIay be your 

 wife or your mother can point out just where it 

 is. I saw th<> little water-motor that does their 

 washing, and which is to carry the honey- 

 extractor the coming season. Then friend M. 

 took us up into the canyon, where the oil-wells 

 are located that furnish a part of the oil for the 

 pi])e-line that leads to Santa Paula. The wells 

 in California are mostly located up in the moun- 

 tains, and the oil comes from a peculiar oil- 

 bearing rock. While the quantity is not equal 

 to the wells of the East, it is found nearer the 

 surface, few of the wells being more than ,500 to 

 600 feet deep. We found a single engine pump- 



ing four wells, and one engineer looking after 

 all. This engiue gives a vibration to something 

 like an old-fashioned horsepower. Each arm 

 works a wire leading to one of the distant wells. 

 Each well has two wires: and these two wires, 

 one and then the other, pulling alternately, 

 work a walking-beam that does the pumping. 

 The tools for drilling are exactly like those 

 used in the East; and. in fact, I found both 

 men and tools had been brought from Pennsyl- 

 vania. They seemed (|uite glad to meet visit- 

 ors, and quite willing to talk: and I do not 

 wonder that they sometimes get lonely away 

 up among these rocky fastnes.ses. We next went 

 away up into another canyon to a wild, fearful- 

 looking place called the Devil's Gate. Rocks, 

 all the way from the size of an egg up to a fair- 

 sized meeting-house, were so thick in the bed of 

 tlu^ mountain stream that it was really fright- 

 ful climbing up among them. Lest we might 

 indulge in reckless leaping from one to the oth- 

 er, friend M. showed where a man slipped and 

 fell, a few years ago. and lost his life. As no 

 one could find his friends or relatives, nor even 

 his luime. for that matter, he was buried on a 

 little bank beneath a bi'anching live-oak. The 

 stones, big and little, liave been tumbled and 

 rolled by the water for so many ages that most 

 of them are beautifully rounded and polished; 

 hence it is all the more risky clambering among 

 them. In places the water comes down so steep 

 that it is really a succession of rapids. The 

 water of these mountain streams is usually 

 beautifully clear, pure, and cool: and although 

 I indulge again and again in copious draughts, 

 it never harms me so long as 1 am exercising in 

 the mountains. Mrs. Root followed as long as 

 her strength held out. and then she rested " un- 

 der the shadow of a rock '" until we came back; 

 but, (lidn't we do justice to Mrs. Mclntyre's 

 good bread, and table /«?( of good things when 

 we got back 1 



After dinner our host took us over to see his 

 neighbor, "Tommy Irondale.'' His name is 

 Arundel; but the bee-men think the former is 

 easier to remember and pronounce, and, possi- 

 bly, a little more stylish. Friend A., as some of 

 you may remember, has solved tlie problem of 

 being with his wife and children by locating his 

 apiary away up in the mountains where no 

 fruit-men will be likely to want to locate. He 

 has nuide a road up through the canyon, at his 

 own expense, that is so winding (both up and 

 down as well as sidewise) that Mrs. Root said, 

 just before Mr. Mclntyre crossed the stream 

 with his horse and buggy the eleventh time: 



" If Mr. Irondale had asked me to become his 

 wife, with a view of living away up here, I 

 think I should have said ' no" very decidedly." 



Now, shedid not expect me tell this, of course; 

 but when we all got around the breakfast-table 

 it occurred to me that it was too good to keep, 

 and so I told it, even if Mr. A. and Mrs. Root 

 did look a good deal confused. Well, it helped 

 us all to become acquainted, any way; and 

 when I announced at dinner, that, after Mrs. 

 Jloot had seen the wondei'ful view of the valley 

 from the fields above the house, she had chang- 

 ed her mind, and concluded she would not have 

 said "'no" after all, she accused me of willful 

 and deliberate false statements. Now. she cer- 

 tainly did say she "wouldn't mind living up 

 tliere verxj much, after all;" and I am going to 

 leave it to the I'eaders of Gleanings to say 

 whether it doesn't amount to the same thing. 



Friend A. has certainly a very pretty farm up 

 there in the mountain-tops, and his horses seem 

 to have learned the knack of moving great 

 loads either up or down very steep places. Tlie 

 children (five in number) certainly do have a 

 long way to go to school; but, my dear friend, 

 look about you and see if the greatest men have 



