1897 



•^LEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



207 



of the sheets sticking to the rolls as they came 

 through. This operation did not improve the 

 face of ihe mills, or the foundation. After the 

 sheets were milled they had to be piled up, and 

 cut to a size by hand, causing anywhere from 

 25 to 333:i per cent trimmings thai had to be 

 melted over again. Last of all, the sheets were 

 papered by hand and made ready for boxing. 



Now if you were to peek into our wax- work- 

 ing department you would see an attendant 

 pick up a big cake of yellow wax (60 lbs.) aud 

 set it into the machine, as it were, and Wien 

 he leaves It and goes about other work. After 

 it comes out it is converted into a long contin- 

 uous sheet rolled up on a bobbin. This bobbin 

 is then put into another automatic machine by 

 the same or another attendant; the machine is 

 started, and when this long bobbin of wax 

 begins to unreel it is fed into the comb-mill, 

 and is cut to size without waste. There is a 

 click clack, and the trimmed sheet is next 

 made to lie squarely over a sheet of paper of" 

 the same size as itself, and pick it up; another 

 click-clack, and it takes a hop, skip, and a 

 jump on to the pile; and fingers almost human, 

 but as lifeless as your barn donr. trne up the 

 pile as evenly and nicely as you .tjuld do it with 

 your fingers. 



MR. E. B. WEED. 



Nearly all of this is the result of the brains 

 of one man, Mr. E. B. Weed, whose picture I 

 take pleasure in presenting at this time. If he 

 had done no more, his happiness would be all 

 but supreme. But he is the inventor of the 

 new deep-cell drawn foundation, to which I have 

 referred in former issues. Even before he came 

 here he was the inventor and patentee of a 

 number of other articles, one of which I know 

 he sold for a round sum. 



Like every inventor, he has had his discour- 



agements. His machinery and his appliances 

 for wax-working all seemed to fail to work until 

 he ran across the skilled employees of The A. I. 

 Root Co., and the confidence of the firm itself 

 in his inventions. Many and many a time it 

 looked as if failure was aure to meet him as it 

 had done when he worked for others having 

 less confidence in his wild (?) schemes; but Mr. 

 Weed, undaunted, and with a hope almost 

 superhuman, and with the assurance that our 

 firm would back him, would work and plod 

 away until success was his. 



When trying to solve a problem I have seen 

 him so excited, and so thoroughly absorbed, 

 that he scarcely knew what was going on about 

 him. 1 remember once when one of his ma- 

 chines got into a "balky spell" (at the start 

 they all had 'em). In order to make his kid 

 "come to time," as he called it, in passing to 

 the other side of the machine he collided with 

 one of the women-folks carrying a pile of wax 

 —knocked the pile over, and the woman too, 

 nearly, but scarcely seemed to realize that he 

 had had a collision and scattered the nice wax 

 all over the floor. I have seen an idea seize 

 him so quickly when walking, that, when he 

 turned about face in his sudden, nervous 

 way, his feet slid out from under him, and 

 down he went in an ungainly heap. But he 

 quickly regained his fee', and, so absorbed was 

 he, that he seemed almost totally ignorant of 

 the episode; hut he had the idea; and notwith- 

 standing I was convul-^^ed with laughter he 

 went on to tell me what it was; and as I con- 

 tinued laughing he innocently asked what I 

 saw so funny. 



During the last few days, Mr. Weed has been 

 fussing (I guess that's the word) with a machine 

 that would not do his bidding. It had balky 

 spell after balky spell. He kneiv it ivould work, 

 but was so tired out when I came into the room 

 that he could not think any more, much less 

 see where the naughty " kink " was. The next 

 day, after a night's rest— if, indeed, he rested 

 at all— he went at it again with a determina- 

 tion that I knew meant the machine had got 

 to work, and it did; and to-day he sees the 

 triumph of his perseverance and skill with that 

 particular machine. The benign smile that 

 now plays upon his face is contagious, for one 

 can not but admire such pluck. 



While he does not profess to be a mechanic, 

 he seems to have a remarkable perception for 

 mechanical possibilities. He will grasp an idea 

 in an instant (he doesn't always tumble down). 

 As indicative of his quick perception, he will 

 take a whole page of reading-matter on the 

 most abstruse subject, catch the whole idea, 

 read every word of it in a tenth of the time it 

 takes people generally. 



Just where he will turn his inventive genius 

 after he has made the wax business reach its 

 summit, is hard to say. 



