GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



put up the factory they demanded a donation 

 of 112.00 spot cash for every acre put out to 

 pickles ; that is, the man who furnishes the 

 pickles must pay the company ;fr2. 00 for each 

 acre. The question naturally arose, "How 

 many bushels of pickles can be grown on an 

 acre?" Now, boys, we who have been in 

 high-pressure gardening know something 

 about it. If you have the ground just right, 

 water just right, and iveather just right, no- 

 body realh' knows how many bushels of 

 pickles an acre might produce. Six thousand 

 dollars in cash is a good deal of money for 

 farmers to scrape up and pay to the pickle 

 combine. But I r'.u.led: 



' ' If you paj' all the money that is required 

 to build the factory and equip it, of course the 

 institution belongs to the 300 or 400 farmers 

 who furnish the mone5^" 



But somebody said very quickly, "Not so. 

 The company will not go ahead and do a 

 thing until we have raised the |6000. Of 

 course, we do not have to pay any thing 

 another j-ear. After the building is up and 

 in operation then we get 40 cts. a bushel for 

 our pickles, without any further payment on 

 our part. They won't go ahead and put up 

 the works an}- other way." 



Now, friends, this does not seem to me quite 

 right. It savors too much of the swindle that 

 the Rural Nciv -Yorker people have called 

 the "t:reamery sharks." But on the other 

 hand it may be that even a great pickle com- 

 pany would not want to furnish the capital to 

 put up buildings in an out-of-the-way country 

 place like this unless the patrons did some- 

 thing toward it. You will have to decide for 

 yourself in regard to the right and wrong of it. 



The building is 210 teet long hy l-)0 teet 

 wide, covered principally with barn boards, 

 leaving cracks as in an ordinary barn. It is 

 not necessary to have the building frost-proof, 

 for pickles can not freeze when in the brine — 

 at least, that was my understanding of the 

 matter. The building contains 81 great tanks 

 sufficient to hold 1000 bushels each. The 

 tanks stand directly on the ground. They 

 rise perhaps o feet through the upper floor. 

 The pickles are taken in at the upper floor 

 and dumped into the tanks. The farmers 

 bring them in in bushel boxes ; and here the 

 discussion came in as to how large a box 

 should be to hold just a bushel. I believe 

 they adopted our bushel box. Pickles were 

 coming in all along the evening, that had 

 been picked during the day. Eight of these 

 great tanks were already full; in fact, I saw 

 8ooo bushels of piekles. It requires 40 Isarrels 

 of rock salt to each thousand-bu.shel tank. 

 After the salt is shoveled on, the tanks are 

 filled with water, and the pickles are then safe 

 until the}- are wanted to put into vinegar. 

 Only the best grade of white-wine vinegar can 

 be used in order to have pickles that will keep 

 indefinitely without spoiling. 



I inquired if there were not a good many 

 farmers who would not succeed in raising even 

 the |12.00 worth from an acre. They told me 

 there were, undoubtedly. In fact, some of 

 the 500 acres have been abandoned already. 

 There were other men who had got their 112.00 



back from their acre, and quite a little besides. 

 I saw 3^ of an acre right in the town. It was 

 a rich garden soil. This had already furnish- 

 ed pickles enough to make a good thing of it; 

 and with suitable weather they expect to have 

 pickles for a month or more from the same 

 pa.tch. I asked about the largest yield they 

 knew of from a single acre, and I believe 

 somebody secured last year for the Creston 

 pickle-factory 200 bushels from an acre ; but 

 this was doubtless by some one who is an 

 expert in high-pressure gardening . 



Our Neighbors. 



Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God ; 

 and every one that loveth is born of God, and know- 

 eth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God ; for 

 God is love. — I. John 4 :7, 8. 



These words were given us b}- the beloved 

 disciple. I have often thought of him, not 

 only as beloved but as a loving disciple. He 

 was a brave and a bright man, but at the same 

 time he was a peculiarly affectionate and loving 

 one. We know he was brave as well as affec- 

 tionate, because he was the only one of the 

 twelve who pushed his way clear to the foot 

 of the cross and stood there while his master 

 was crucified. Yes, and he was rewarded by 

 hearing that same beloved master bid him 

 look after and take care of the poor bereaved 

 mother. It was this John who has so much 

 to saj', sooner or later, about love. In the 

 langtiage of our text he winds up by saying, 

 " God is love." This fourth chapter seems 

 specially devoted to love to God and love to 

 each other. Now, let me confess to you that, 

 in my earlier years, or, say, when I was a boy 

 in my teens, I used to dislike to hear people 

 talk about love. I do not know but I got 

 something of a dislike toward the Scriptures 

 because they have so much to sa}- about love. 

 From my point of view I thought it sounded 

 ' ' soft " — or, as the bo3-s and girls say nowa- 

 days, " spoony." It might do very well for a 

 mother to love her babe or for the babe to love 

 its mother ; and as I got along toward man- 

 hood I do not know that I had any particular 

 objection to men and women loving each oth- 

 er ; but I had a sort of feeling that they should 

 talk about it when they were alone — try to 

 keep it out of sight, as it were. When people 

 talked about uie>i loving each other it some- 

 how or other conveyed the idea to me of men 

 kissing each other ; and, by the way, I sup- 

 pose it is all right and just the fashion in some 

 cotmtries. Yes, even here in America — at 

 least in some parts of it — I am told that male 

 relatives, when they have not seen each other 

 for a long while, have a habit of kissing each 

 other as women do. Perhaps I might as well 

 own up, while I am on the subject, that I am 

 not yet converted to the fashion of promiscuous 

 kissing, especially before folks. I once heard 

 somebody say that a young woman should 

 keep her lips for her husband or for her affi- 

 anced lover ; and I do not know but I would 

 advise young men to do as much. Of course, 

 this would not prevent a boy from kissing his 



