1897 



CLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



thiir siutT f n o of cliargo.aiid ijustpuid l)t'sides'? 

 Wlitti is tlio I'xplanation of this? Both tiruis I 

 have iiKMiiioiu'd are quoied as being worth 

 many thousands of dollars. They are prompt 

 and stralgin in their bnsiness. What Is the 

 secret of all this? How can they atTord to 

 throw away their money in this way? Why, I 

 will tell you. If you like the medicine, and 

 want soriie, it i> ^^J.OO a bottle, or two buttle? for 

 WOO. If yon buy four bottles at one time they 

 will pay the express charges to any place in 

 the United States. They may have to give 

 away a good many samplos free without getting 

 any thing for them; but once in a while a cus- 

 tomer thinks he is benefited, or gets better from 

 some cause or other, and keeps'on buying. A 

 friend of mine told me her father had used 

 some eighteen or twenty bottles. He at tirst 

 thought it was doing him .wod, but finally 

 decided he was not sure it had any elTect what- 

 ever. It is the old Eleciropoise business over 

 again. 



Take the people at large, and you will find 

 certain impressible natures that imagine they 

 are benefited, and hand over their money. Yes, 

 there is a (jrcat (irniy of people, perhaps, scat- 

 tered through our country who stoutly insist 

 they are greatly benefited by a humbug toy 

 hitched to their ankles by a piece of wire. In 

 fact, some of them are oflfended if you even 

 suggest the thing has no virtue. 



Providentially I have been furnished with a 

 most overwhelming proof of the truth of my 

 position. You have all heard more or less 

 about the air-ship. May be some of the readers 

 of Gleanings have seen it. If you have, please 

 write and tell me about it. There certainly is 

 an air ship sailing about the country over our 

 cities and villages at night time, for dozens of 

 people have seen it and are seeing it every day. 

 Their testimony is just as plain and conclusive 

 as that of those who use Electropoisr — yes, 

 even more so. If you have been reading the 

 papers you have sein the testimonials, with 

 name, place of residence, etc., signed to it. 

 Now, the air-ship has done us some good, and 

 it is doing good. It demonsiraies that, without 

 question, there is this queer phase in humanity. 

 It is scattered all about; it may be in your 

 next door neighbor; in fact, you yourself may 

 be one of the victims. Medical mpn and sci- 

 entists had long susnected it. Electropoise 

 confirmed this supposition. Why, bless your 

 heart, the proprietors claim to have testimoni- 

 als from a hundred ministers of the gospel, and 

 religious periodicals all seem ready, or at least 

 nearly all, to accept their silly advertisements. 

 I have not yet learned that any ministers of 

 the gospel have seen the air-ship. God forbid! 

 This talk n^eds a brief summary. The sum- 

 mary is this: 



Be careful, dear friend, how you let your 

 imagination lead you into paying out good 

 money for some worthless medicine or other 

 trap that some worthless and swindling concern 

 may try to push off on to you. Furthermore, 

 be careful how you even accept samples that 

 are furnished you free of charge. These men 

 know what humanity is made of, and they are 

 not wasting their postage-stamps or throwing 

 away their money in this or any other way, you 

 may be sure. 



The people who declare they have seen the 

 air-ship are honest, or a great part of them are 

 honest, no doubt— at least we wiH try to believe 

 they are so. Almost every town or village in 

 our broad land furnishes one or more of these 

 peculiar impressible people: and when the air- 

 ship. Electropoise, or a certain patent medicine 

 is talked about these are ready to give their 

 testimony. 



Before reaching Prescott we came down out 

 of the mountains acros-; quite a long level plain. 

 This plain is called Lonesome Valley, and no 

 wonder — not a tree, not a human habitation, 

 not any thing except the grt-at mountains away 

 off in the distance. Friind Jordan told me 

 some experiments had been made, and they 

 felt pretiy sure that sugar beets could be grown 

 in that "' lonesome " valley. They have a little 

 rain along the latter part of the winter; and 

 this rain, it Is said, is suflicient to cause the 

 seed to germinate; and after the plants once 

 get down into the desert soil they will mature 

 a crop of beets large enough, and of the best 

 per cent of sugar, without any later rain. 



There is one station in the middle of Lone- 

 some Valley. It is called Davis; but instead of 

 being a town or village there is not a building 

 of any sort— not even a coalhouse. All you can 

 see is some lumber - piles. This lumber is 

 brought in from a sawmill away up in the 

 mountains, too far away to be in sight. Je- 

 rome Junction has two or three buildings. Be- 

 tween this point and Prescott there is some 

 very fine scenery, but none to compare with 

 that further along. Although the turns in the 

 railway are not quite as stiarp as near Jerome, 

 the scenery is grand and beautiful. Great 

 rocks shoot up like needles. All you have to 

 do is to fix your eyes on these and then watch 

 and see how the train curves in and out around 

 the mountains. Great mountain peaks rise up 

 in their grandeur, and the railway seems to 

 hover around them for an hour or two almost 

 as if it were loath to break away from their 

 awful presence. There was one round-topped 

 peak that it seemed to me was in view a great 

 part 01 the day. The turnings in and out, 

 horseshoe within a horseshoe, as I described in 

 my last, were incessant. As the weather was 

 mild I spent the greater part of the lime on the 

 platform at the rear of the train, drinking in 

 the wonderful scenery before me. Skull Valley 

 I have casually mentioned before. It is so 

 named, I presume, because of the great number 

 of skulls and skeletons of cattle scattered 

 for miles around. I suppose this was caused 

 during some season when the usual amount of 

 rain was lacking, and the vegetation of the 

 whole country was scorched and burned up by 

 the terrible Arizona heat. But when we got 

 several n lies away from Skull Valley, down 

 toward Kirkland, we found what is called a 

 "cienega." This is a piece of land where 

 Nature has worked out sub irrigation, and it is 

 just about as nicely fixed as our folks at the 

 Experiment Station at Wooster have it in their 

 greenhouses. It is caused by a valley or de- 

 pression with an Impervious subsoil, so that 

 the water stands so near the surface of the 

 ground that the roots of plants or farming 

 crops will go down into it; and with the intense 

 heat every thing just thrives wonderfully with- 

 out any assistance from rain. Such tracts are 

 found at different points all through California, 

 and occasionally in Arizona. At one point near 

 Tempe the ground became so wet from frequent 

 irrigation that water stood on it the year 

 round, and no crops could be raised until some 

 deep canals were cut through to let off the sur- 

 plus. This surplus was used for irrigating 

 other grounds at a lower level. I climbed down 

 into one of these canals, and saw the water 

 coming out of the gravel like a beautiful spring. 



