592 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1. 



is— who lies on the ground from sheer exhaus- 

 tion. His bones startle one by their fearful 

 resemblance to a skeleton without flesh or skin 

 either. In the countenance of every one you 

 see an expression of hopelessness. I suppose 

 they are thinking they might as well give' up 

 and die. as their friends and neighbors have 

 done right before their eyes day after day, 

 week after week, and, may be, month after 

 month. Well, what are we going to do about 

 it? Really, I do not know: but I have faith to 

 believe that something will soon be done — yes, 

 that something is being done; and I want to 

 give you this picture that I might urge you to 

 hurry up and give courage and help to those 

 who are already helping them. Giving money 

 outright is, perhaps, the first thing to be done; 

 and the very next thing is to devise ways and 

 means whereby these people may help them- 

 selves. Perhaps my ideas are crude; but in 

 some respects, at least, I know they are sensi- 

 ble, because I have been all ray life putting 

 them into practice. Ever since I became a 

 Christian, at least, I have been working and 

 planning that I might be helpful in the best 

 sense of the word to those who need help. I 

 have tried giving money outright; yes. I have 

 given money to the poor friends I meet in our 

 county jail, because I felt sorry for them. But 

 it did not work well. If one were starving, I 

 would give him money, or, better still, food; 

 but it is not the thing to keep doing, after all. 

 I once had a queen -bee that could not lay eggs 

 enough to keep her colony going. As her bees 

 were very pretty I boosted her season after sea- 

 son with frames of brood. I thought that, may 

 be, if she got a great big colony, she would get 

 a going and keep going: but she didn't. By 

 and by the colony went down to its normal size. 

 Giving brood did not hit the real trouble at all. 

 Well. I have found by experience that giving 

 somebody money, and then letting him go and 

 forgetting all about him does not, as a rule, 

 make any lasting or permanent improvement. 

 I hardly need tell you of the better way in 

 which I have been working to give the man 

 who does not get along well something to do. 

 Tell him plainly where he is at fault, and teach 

 him to be skillful, and by and by he will be 

 self-sustaining; yes, and if he gets the love of 

 Christ Jesus in his heart, as an inspiration to 

 better things, he will not only be self-sustain- 

 ing, but he will turn around and help others in 

 the same way he has boen helped. I have seen 

 this over and over again. That sort of spirit 

 will lift a whole town— yes, a whole nation; 

 and the great problem that lies before us is to 

 examine into the slate of affairs to find out how 

 these people came into this condition where 

 they must starve by the millions, and then we 

 can show them how to get on their feet and 

 stay there; nay, more; to help them feed other 

 nations, and, above all, to help teach other 

 nations. 



Perhaps you have wondered why I have of 

 late years taken such a craze to see things 

 grow. If you have not wondered at it, I have. 

 Sometimes I have asked, "Where is God calling 

 me, and why has he put it into my heart to love 

 with such an intense devotion the soil and its 

 products?" Just nineteen days ago I sowed 

 some radishes. They were Wood's Early 

 Frame, and I put them into one of our plant- 

 beds, and gave them the best chance that my 

 skill and experience could devise, because we 

 were short of radishes, and wanted some as soon 

 as possible. Well, to-day nice little bunches of 

 them were on the wagon; and they were so 

 handsome and fine that people actually came 

 down to the factory for more of them. So there 

 is one thing that will give us a crop fit to eat in 

 nineteen davs after the seed is sown. Of course. 



I know radishes could not go very far in keep- 

 ing people from starving; but other things 

 could be grown almost as quickly. Perhaps 

 you say. " Why, these people have not the 

 seeds, the water, nor the manure which you use 

 without stint." Don't be too sure. Not many 

 days ago I was talking with a young man 

 whose father owned a spring thai was never 

 know n to fail, either summer or winter. It ran 

 continually, and made only a nasty, swampy 

 place all through the best part of his farm. 

 Not a dozen rods away was a great quantity 

 of sheep manure that had been lying there for 

 years, unused. This young man wanted some- 

 thing to do. I told him to take that water and 

 sheep manure, and the two or three acres of 

 swampy land, and grow celery. But he did 

 not do it, and I shouldn't wonder if the manure 

 and water and land would be almost useless 

 for a dozen years to come. If I could go among 

 these people of India, I think I could find a 

 similar state of affairs. I think I could find 

 springs and rivers unused. "Oh, yesi" you 

 say again: "but where are you going to get the 

 money to bring the rivers on to tlie.se desert 

 lands, as we do?"' Now, my friends, some of you 

 will get cross if I suggest that our poor neigh- 

 bors in India need great capitalists. Why, very 

 likely the only thing that can feed their people 

 is to construct dams that cost a million of 

 dollars each. Then, again, they must have 

 railroads that cost other millioTis, to equalize 

 the produce. Why. if it were not for our rail- 

 roads we should be in danger of starving — at 

 least some of us; and yet some of you who read 

 Gi-EANiNGs feel hurt because I sometimes say 

 out loud. "Thank God for railroads." Never 

 mind. Let's not waste time in arguing; let's 

 go to work and help our neighbors in India — 

 the very neighbors that God told us to love as 

 ourselves: let's give up some of our pet plans 

 and projections; let's live in cheaper houses, 

 and ride in buggies that are, perhaps, a trifle 

 shabby — at least until there is no place in the 

 whole wide world where people are starving by 

 millions. 



1 will now close by giving the article from 

 Mr. Van Allen, accompanied with the cut from 

 the Sclentiflc American, where I first found it. 



The attention of the whole world is dh-ected to the 

 terrible famine in Russia, consequently it is not 

 g-eneraliy Isiiowu that a similar scourge is afflicting- 

 India. In tins country, all the horrors wliich follow 

 in the wake of starvation occur with fearful regu- 

 larity every fifteen years, or twice in every genera- 

 tion." The last great famine was in 1S76, and it was 

 estimated tiy the government that five million per- 

 sons died of starvaiion and the two diseases that go 

 with it— dysentery and famine fever. 



The cycle is completed again. Owitig to a partial 

 failure of rains, the feiirful calamity of anotlier 

 famine was threatened a year ago. This year the 

 rains have entirely 1 ailed; however, the famine is 

 not yet at its height, for tliere are districts here and 

 there where a slender harvest is possible, which for 

 a few weeks will ameliorate the condition of the 

 people who live in these favored parts. When this 

 small supply of grain is e.xliausted, the famine, 

 which is already very serious, will grip tlie whole 

 nation in its withering hand, and there is no hope 

 or help from within their borders until the next 

 rains, nearly a year hence. 



No one who has not seen and felt the awful deso- 

 lation can lealize into what a fearful condition a 

 country is plunged hy famine. No rain, crops 

 scorched by intense lieat; tanks, whose supply of 

 water has been depended on for irrigation, empty, 

 and their beds baking in the blazing sun; all vege- 

 tation withered, ind rivers and wells dry; the 

 scarcity of food increasing, the price of grains rap- 

 idly rising; the people, with their gaunt, emaciated 

 bodies, flocking by the liundreds and thousands to 

 the relief-camps established by the British govern- 

 ment. All this misery and sufifering because the 

 blessed rain has been withheld. In many places 

 fodder for cattle is unattainable, and the people are 



