1897 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



425 



you know I iilways lako a now road when 1 can. 

 Constance says this Is so I shall get lost and 

 have some adventure. I did not get lost this 

 time. I did. however, run across another celery- 

 ranch. A bright gleam of color caught my eye 

 from a sort of plant bed or greenhouse. This 

 bit of color was Grand Rapids lettuce. It was 

 still standing In the seed-bed; but its cotton- 

 cloth covering had bleached it so it had that 

 fascinating light green, almost white. I asked 

 the young man who owned the ranch if his 

 lettuce-plants were not getting pretty tall. Ho 

 explained that they cut off the tops with 

 shears, and used or sold the lettuce, and then 

 waited until the roots had started again, pro- 

 ducing much the same result as transplanting, 

 with less expense. This man had an engine to 

 warm his beds and pump his water, and a lot 

 of iron pipe to carry the water all over his little 

 farm. He has not got his drainage quite as 



Eerfect yet as the Jordan Brothers, but I think 

 e will make a success of it eventually. In 

 drilling for water he struck a flowing well — at 

 least the. water boils up over the top of the iron 

 pipe, and runs away. The water rises only a 

 little higher than the level of the surface water 

 in his ditches. 



Further on I visited the onion-farm of Mr. 

 Barnhart. and found him using one of the 

 Breed weeders 1 illustrated in our previous 

 issue. Excessive rains prevented him from 

 using the weeder so as to kill the weeds before 

 they were "horned;" but his men were at work 

 with wheel-hoes and weeders, getting his patch 

 ready so the weeder would do the work for the 

 rest of the season if we are not drowned out by 

 too many heavy rains. If the price of onions 

 will only hold up to 81.50 a bushel or 1.5.00 a 

 barrel, what a picnic we shall have when mar- 

 keting time comes! and, as usual, I expect to 

 have American Pearls and Whittakers on the 

 market before anybody else has any thing large 

 enough to call an onion. 



Our Homes. 



And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's 

 servants came and told him concerning- the well 

 which they had digged, and said unto him. We have 

 found water.— Gen. 26:. 33. 



And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that 

 will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 

 — JOHNl4:13.| 



!i:That whole 26th chapter of Genesis has 

 always been interesting to me because it has so 

 much to say about digging wells. In my earli- 

 est childhood I was greatly interested in wells 

 and springs, especially the soft-water springs 

 round about my hilly home in Mogadore, Sum- 

 mit Co., O.; and I soon learned to enjoy drink- 

 ing the pure cool water from certain springs; 

 and when away from home, where I was oblig- 

 ed to drink hard water from wells, I always 

 found it quite a cross. In view of this it is not 

 strange that, when the oil excitement broke 

 out in 18^,0, I became deeply interested in ex- 

 ploring the depths of old Mother Earth for the 

 treasures (or God's gifts, if you choose) which 

 were just then found to be stored away, await- 

 ing man's energy and inventive genius to bring 

 them to light. I have told you about well- 

 digging on our own premises, and of the two 

 soft-water wells that rejoiced our hearts as a 

 reward for our researches in the way of well- 

 digging or drilling, rather. And, by the way, 

 I am now feeling happy every day because one 

 of those wells I told you about is now supply- 

 ing our whole town of Medina with pure soft 



water. While putting in new waterworks there 

 was no readily available plan of keeping the 

 town supplied unless the pumping-engine was 

 located at our lirst soft-water well; and it is at 

 this very moment while I write doing duty by 

 supplying the town. 



Perhaps I have already told you that we 

 have digged and drilled seven difl'erent wells 

 on our premises, and all of these have been put 

 down since we came here, nineteen years ago. 

 After securing these two wells of soft water, 

 especially when we were using only one of them 

 for our own premises, it would seem that we 

 should be content. Not so, however. The well 

 at the windmill upon the hill was put down 99 

 feet, and gave an abundance of very hard 

 water, unfit for steam-boilers, and unfit for 

 drinkimj after you have once tried the water 

 from the soft-water wells— at least, that would 

 be my verdict. 



The windmill has been standing idle ever 

 since the soft water was found. It must have 

 continued to stand idle unless we did one of two 

 things— move it down to the creek bottom, 

 where there is comparatively little wind unless 

 we have a very expensive high tower, or drill 

 the well deeper at the windmill, so as to strike 

 the same vein of soft water. We finally decid- 

 ed, during the month of March, to try drilling 

 the well deeper. The well-driller preferred to 

 make an entirely new well at his usual price- 

 something like a dollar a foot for a six or 

 eight inch bore. He said he did not like to fuss 

 with wells already put down; but he agreed, 

 however, to work for me, giving the use of his 

 tools, and one man besides himself, for a dollar 

 an hour; but I had to take all chances of pull- 

 ing up the old tubing, and getting the smaller 

 hole reamed out, etc. I chose the latter plan. 

 In the first place, it was somewhat doubtful 

 whether the old tubing could be pulled out, for 

 it was driven very securely into the rock (sixty 

 feet deep), and had been in place over seven 

 years. 



We procured a stick of timber for a lever, 30 

 feet long; made a very substantial foundatioa 

 for a fulcrum; and although we succeeded in 

 breaking our heavy chains, the tubing would 

 not budge. After we had wasted considerable 

 money in this way, we substituted two power- 

 ful screws in place of the lever. Once more it 

 seemed as if no power on earth could pull up 

 that iron pipe. We might pull it in two, but it 

 it seemed so firmly imbedded or driven into the 

 rock that it would never move. I began to feel 

 nervous over so much waste of time and money, 

 and, as a matter of course, began to pray that 

 God would help us in our efforts to get pure 

 water, as I had prayed more or less over all the 

 other wells on our premises. 



" Boys, are we not getting it started just a 

 little?" 



The man who was bossing,the job replied: 



" I do not think, Mr. Root, it has started a 

 particle." 



I had prayed over the matter in the morning 

 before starting the work, and I mentally pray- 

 ed again that God might help us where we 

 seemed to be helplfss. If I remember correctly, 

 it was not many minutes after this silent prayer, 

 that somebody called out: 



" We are all rightl she's starting!" 



We could hardly believe the good news until 

 careful measurement showed that it had moved 

 something like an eighth of an inch. The 

 screws were turned again until every thing 

 began to snap, and the boss told us to hold on a 

 little and giv.e it t(//ie to come. Pretty soon we 

 had made a whole quarter-inch; then a whole 

 inch; finally several inches, and the little 

 steam-engine with its powerful derrick soon 



