778 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



stance, after you have got your crops all raised, 

 if you do not keep a careful oversight you will 

 be discouraged and disheartened every little 

 while by finding something that is costing you 

 more than you get for it, just in gatlieriiKj and 

 selling the crop. In the course of the year we 

 sell a great mauy bunch onions. Perhaps there 

 is no other one thing that sells so readily every 

 day in the yiar. at a nickel a bunch, as green 

 onions: but if you do not look sharp some boy 

 will stop to i)iay. or be so indolent about his 

 work that it will cost you a nickel to pull a 

 bunch of onions, peel. trim, and slip a rubber 

 band over them. Hoys who do this work usu- 

 ally get from three to five cents an hour: but I 

 have known some of them (that seemed to 

 mean well generally, too) who would manage in 

 some way to [)ut in an hour on one bunch of 

 onions. You may say that this is the foreman's 

 business, who looks after the boys. Well, the 

 foreman was perhaps busy at something else 

 or did not understand that he was to look after 

 such things. The boy. too. needed teaching. 

 His emjjloyer or some other kind friend should 

 take him by the shoulder, and say. " Look here, 

 my son. we get only a nickel for these bunches. 

 You have been so long in getting so nuiny ri ady 

 for the market.'" If you do it in th<M'ight way 

 he will straighten lip and do four bunches 

 where he formerly did one: and this sort of ex- 

 hortation is needed all around. You may 

 think it easy to go from one to another and do 

 this sort of teaching. Perhaps one does not 

 sweat very much in a literal sense in doing such 

 teaching, but it wears on the nerves and vitali- 

 ty. It is like the work of teaching school. 

 Somebody may say. "' Why, Mr. Root, boys are 

 not fit for such work as that. Set some good 

 smart women at it — women who have had the 

 care of a family, and know how to prepare stuff 

 for the table, and to do ir. quick." Well, I have 

 had a largo experience with women of chis very 

 kind, and 1 know very well that this very boy's 

 mother will sometimes bunch as many onions 

 in an hour as the boy himself would in half a 

 day. Perhaps she wouldn t cost more than 

 twice what yon pay the boy: but when she 

 gets to be skillful and valuable help to yon. she 

 will want about 10 or 123v,' cts. an hour. Other 

 people, too. will find out that she is skillful and 

 efficient, and the mo)iey value of every wage- 

 worker, sooner or later, finds its level. 



You may ^ay that the illustrations I have 

 given are only trifling matters, and that it is 

 all a kind of five-cent trade, any way. True: 

 but it is a cash-down trade; and it is sometimes 

 better to have nickels, spot cash, than to sell 

 crops foi- dollars that are not spot cash. And. 

 by the way, let us find somn of the difficulties 

 where more capital and good men are employed. 

 If you garden many acres you want a manure- 

 spreader, a grain-drill, and other like exi)ensive 

 and to some extent complicated machinery. 

 Can the average man be intrusted with such 

 tools? I have owned two manure-spreaders. 

 The first one was worn out and used up in a 

 few years. This wa^ because somebody or 

 several "somebodies'* were not careful. After 

 the burning of our warehouse I purchased a 

 new spreader — the best to be had. and picked 

 one of my most careful men, and taught him 

 how to use it. Very likely the first mistake 

 came because the careful man was sick or otf 

 visiting, and somebody else had to be hastily 

 instructed in the us<^ of it. Every little while 

 it would be I'un without propei- oiling, unless I 

 personally got out my pocket-knife and cleaned 

 out the oil-holes, and made the oil go down to 

 the bearings though the hole. Then I must go 

 back to the >tore or ofh'ce with my hands cover- 

 ed with hlack grease, and perhaps my clothes 

 soiled. The new machine was. in three or four 



years, about as badly dilapidated as the old one, 

 and I havi' groaned in anguish of spirit because 

 mishaps and breakdowns occur with that 

 manure-spreader so continually. Whenever we 

 have a rainy day. the standing orders are for 

 all hands to go into our large tool- house, clean 

 up, oil, tighten up. and i)ut the tools in order. 

 If I am on hand when it rains, and can spare 

 the time, we get a good deal done: but if I send 

 somebody to give oi'ders, even though it rains 

 half a day or more, the next time we want to 

 use a tool we are almost sure to have a big team 

 and possibly a couple of men standing still until 

 somebody brings a bolt or nut to replace one 

 that is lost or broken. The history of our 

 grain-drill, which we use for sowing the greater 

 part of our seeds in market-gardening, is much 

 the same. A good deal of the damage to our 

 tools has been done by lending them. vSonie of 

 the neighbors who hired them thought I was 

 getting rich by charging them 2.t or 50 cts. a 

 day for the ush of an expensive machine; but I 

 am sure that what I received in that way has 

 not paid for repairs. This is a dismal story, is 

 it not? But the fault is largely my own. I 

 have attempted so much that it has been im- 

 possible to look afti-r it all. May (xod help me 

 to reform. My neighbor Terry has a manure- 

 spreader that has been used for a dozen years, 

 with less than a dollar expended in repairs, 

 before he starts to use it he goes with his hired 

 men and sees ihem oil it. Then he raises the 

 wheels and turns them by hand, and the ma- 

 chine is never allowed to go out of the tool-shed 

 until every wheil moves as free as air. Yester- 

 day our manure- spreader was started, and I 

 saw from a distance that the drive-wheel was 

 sliding on the mellow ground. I hastened out 

 into the lot. and found the reel that does the 

 spreading could hardly be turned by hand. In 

 my absence the machine had been left out in 

 the rain. One of the boards had warped so as 

 to press against the reel. Do you wonder we 

 have breakdowns ? Some of you may say you 

 would not have such men around. Gently, my 

 good friend. My men are good men; but the 

 demands of our factory, and large business, call 

 them fi'om one thing to another, and into so 

 many different lines of business, that it is next 

 to impossible that they should do very much 

 bettei- than they do. Better undertake to do 

 one thing, and do it well: then the sweat of your 

 face will stand a better chance of bringing you 

 your bread. 



No matter how good your help may be, you 

 have got to watch things and keep an eye on 

 the minutes as well as the nickels. People who 

 have learned how. and who can. if they have a 

 mind to, work very rapidly, have a way of 

 backsliding and degenerating, if the boss is not 

 around. Now, I hope that my good friends who 

 read this will excuse me if I seem to be com- 

 plaining of my neighbors. I have known wo- 

 men who have brought up families, to go out 

 into the fields to pick snap beans, and get the 

 wrong variety — in fact, pick a great lot that 

 were fit for nothing whatever. I have also 

 known them to pick peas with pods about as 

 thin as caseknives; and I have known men who 

 are the fathers of families, to pick green corn 

 before there was a kernel on the cob. Some- 

 times I would say. " Look here, my friend; how 

 would you feel if somebody were to sell you 

 some corn for dinner like that?" As I spoke I 

 stripped down the hu*k. He did not reply at 

 first: but fiiiiillv. when urged, he said, with a 

 smile. ■■ I guess I should feel pretty mad." To 

 those who pick the peas without any thing in- 

 side of the pods, after I had broken them open 

 and shown the contents as above, the reply 

 would bt^. " Well. I think I shouldn't like it very 

 much." 



