1897 



GLKAXINGS IN BER CULTURE. 



r43 



other, and all over the hills was a licavv 

 .i,^rowth of timber. The place seemed to be an 

 ideal one for an apiary, and "as pretty as a 

 ]>ictnre.'" I snapped my Kodak, bnt it was so 

 late in the day I failed to get tlie pretty pic- 

 Inre I expected. 



THK HONKV KXHIBIT \T THK M.\RVI^AND 

 .\GRICri,TrR.\I, COLIJvGK. 

 From a private letter from Mr. Charles H. 

 Lake, who had charge of the honey exhibit at 

 the recent IMaryland Agricultural Fair, we 

 make the following extract : 



The college exhibit of bee.'; and honey was the 

 drawing card, and was attended by at least two-thirds 

 of the vi.sitors. :K,000 in number. I refer you further 

 to a clipping from the Baltimore Sun. It was one of 

 the most .successful exhibits of my life, and many 

 congratulations were showered upon me. 



From the clipping in question we make the 

 following extracts : 



In a large tent erected to the northea.st of the house- 

 hold-department building is the interesting exhibit of 

 the Maryland Agricultural College, which is confined 

 almost exclusively to bees and honey. There are to 

 be seen eight hives of bees, occvipied in storing honey 

 in the comb. There is also a large pyramid of honey 

 weighing ioO pounds, representing the product of one 

 swarm for a year. Besides this tliere are two speci- 

 mens of white-clover honey. One is pronounced by 

 an expert on bees and honey to be superior in quality 

 to any exhibited at the Columbian exposition in 

 Chicago, and the other is a verj- unique and valuable 

 specimen found in the roof of a" hive on taking away 

 the honey. 



A small pyramid shows fancy designs in honey and 

 bottles filled with extracted honey made from several 

 varieties of flowers. There are seventeen varieties of 

 these, and they retain characteristic flavors and color 

 of the plants 'from which they are derived. This ex- 

 hibit is in charge of the college apiarian, Mr. Chas. H. 

 Lake, who has been engaged in bee culture for forty- 

 seven vears. 



BEE-KEEPERS AT NI.\GAR.\ FALLS. 



After the Buffalo convention the bee-keep- 

 ers went to Niagara Falls in little squads. The 

 party that I happened to fall in with was 

 Messrs. D. X. Ritchie, P. H. Elwood, E. A. 

 Wander, E. T. Abbott, and two others whose 

 names I have forgotten. It was arranged that 

 we were to meet Messrs. York, Miller, and a 

 number of other bee-keepers, on Goat Island ; 

 but .somehow we " missed connections." Of 

 course, I took along my Kodak, intending to 

 secure a snap shot of a number of the leading 

 lights in apiculture, with the beautiful Niaga- 

 ra Falls as a background. Having failed to 

 meet the other " crowd " I gathered our com- 

 pany into groups at several different pictur- 

 esque points, and "pressed the button." In 

 another colunm I have reproduced a' " shot " 

 of the gentlemen just as I hit them standing 

 upon a rock, with the Horseshoe I'alls for a 

 backg^round The fog, or mist, arising from 

 the falls almost obscures the famous horse- 

 shoe. The wind was blowing quite hard, and 

 it will be noted that every man in that crowd 

 was obliged to cram his hat down level with 

 his ears, or stand a good chance of losing that 

 important piece of wearing apparel — just as I 

 did, in fact, a few years ago, lose mine upon 

 almost the same spot. 



Well, to return. Our crowd took in the 

 Falls generally, ate dinner on the Canada side, 

 just to see how it would seem, 3-ou know ; 



went down the Gorge, pa.ssed the Whirlpool 

 Ra])ids, on to Lewiston. All the way down I 

 took sua]) .shots of the rapids while the car was 

 going at full speed. One lady curiously re- 

 marked, as she watched me taking pictures 

 while the car was under full motion, " I don't 

 see how you get a picture when every thing is 

 going." "I catch them,'' said I, and I did. 

 Another old lady wanted me to let her look 

 into the camera to see how it looked, and 

 whether the picture was good or not. That, 

 of cour.se, I could not do, as the fdm had to go 

 through a proce.ss of chemical manipulations 

 before it came out a picture. 



I hope the view of the bee-keepers on the 

 rock will appear belter than the picture in our 

 last issue showing some leading bee-keepers 

 at the boarding-house. This picture did not 

 " work up on the press " as I hoped and ex- 

 pected it would. I trust the one I have shown 

 in this issue will come out better. Half-tones 

 are very uncertain, and one can never tell in 

 advance just exactly how they will behave 

 until they get on the press. 



w. A. SELSER. 



As Mr. W. A. Selser, of Philadelphia, has of 

 late been creeping rapidly to the front as a 

 leading bee-keeper, queen-breeder, honey-buy- 

 er, and supply-dealer, I thought our readers 

 would like to see a picture of the man, more 

 especially as he believes in paying cash for 

 honey rather than taking it on commission. 

 He did not have a photo of himself alone, but 

 had one of himself, wife, and ?jaby, and, 

 " would that do ? " I told him to send it on, 

 of course ; and when I saw it I was glad that 

 he didn't have a picture of himself only. I 

 sometimes think it is selfish to show a picture 

 of one half and not the "other half," for 

 many a man is what he is because of the good 

 wife and God's greatest gifts to the home- — 

 children. The cut is shown elsewhere in this 

 issue. 



I solicited a few facts for a "write-up" to 

 go with the picture, and here they are : 



W. A. Selser was born in 1859', in Philadel- 

 phia, in that section of the city then called 

 Northern Liberties ; was educated at the pub- 

 lic schools, afterward attending the Philadel- 

 phia College with the idea of studying for a 

 profession. A year before graduation he was 

 taken sick for .six months ; then having a good 

 offer of learning the morocco-leather business, 

 he entered the factor}- of Wm. R. Stewart & 

 Co. In about two years Mr. Stewart failed, and 

 Mr. vSelser entered the establishment of vSelser 

 & Bro., his uncles, importers of foreign fruits, 

 a business established b}' his father, who died 

 when the subject of this sketch was but twelve 

 years old. He traveled much for this firm, re- 

 maining with them six years, when a chance 

 occurred to take an interest in an old-establish- 

 ed morocco-leather firm, starting as Selser, Meu- 

 rer & Co., and finally merged into the Quaker 

 City Morocco Co., of which he was treasurer, 

 employing 400 hands, and doing a business of 

 three-quarters of a million dollars a year. In 

 1892, through the heavy defalcation of their 

 trusted buj-er of hides, they were compelled to 



