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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15. 



BREEDING OUT THE TOBACCO HABIT 



THK BOY AND THE PIPF 



TOBACCO AND THE BOY. 



What, in your opinion, is the best way to prevent 

 a growing "boy or young man from using tobacco? 

 Would j'ou try to induce abstinence by a rigid prohi- 

 bition, enforced by punishment, or would you endeav- 

 or, from earliest years, to create a distaste for tobacco 

 bj' expkiining its physiological danger to growing 

 youth? In a great many cities, the dangerous effects 

 of narcotics and stitnulaiits are explained in the phys- 

 iological text-boi ks used in the public schools: yet.'in 

 the .same cities it is found necessary to pass an anti- 

 cigarette ordinance. What stand would you take in 

 the matter? 



I confess I was somewhat surprised to see 

 this subject so boldly taken in hand b}' an 

 agricultural paper. Other agriculttiral papers 

 have at different times given tis some excel- 

 lent editorials on the matter of tobacco ; but 

 yet the most of them, I am grieved to say, 

 either in the same issue or sooner or later, 

 discuss tobacco culttire, and ptiblish articles 

 telling how to manage the plant and the crop, 

 without thinking they have done any thing 

 wrong or out of the way, evidently. This 

 thing has jarred on my sense of right and 

 wrong until I have felt as if I could stand it 

 no longer. Another thing that has jarred 

 still ivorse is that our government has been 

 and is sending out bulletins in regard to the 

 cultivation, gathering, and marketing the 

 crop, without ever a word in regard to its 

 effect on our people. I have eagerly caught 

 hold of the bulletins, and scanned them from 

 beginning to end to see if the learned professor 

 belonging to the agricultural college whence 

 the bulletin seems to have emanated did not 

 somewhere touch upon the effect and the 

 result of encouraging the tobacco industry. 

 Not a word. There is nothing in the whole 

 bulletin — nothing in a7ty bulletin I have ever 

 got hold of that seemed to intimate that the 

 man had any sense of right and wrong at all. 

 Perhaps he might say it was not in his 

 province or department to discuss the matter. 

 Now, our bulletins on growing strawberries 

 usually have something to say in regard to 

 the advantage that would accrue to our people, 

 especially the children, if fresh berries were 

 furnished to each family— all they cottld con- 

 sume. Why, it is a part of the crovcrnment 

 ivork to discuss foods and their effects on the 

 health. In fact, I have rejoiced to find of 

 late that we are having quite a good many 

 bulletins telling us how to cook food with 

 econotny, and as an aid to good health. Will 

 not these same men — at least some of them — 

 after a while get around to discussing the 

 probable effect of tobacco and cigarettes on 

 the comfort and future welfare of our grow- 

 ing poptilation — especially their effect on the 

 boys? And now, dear friends, perhaps yoti 

 had better read that question from the Rural 

 again, since I have had so nitich else to say. 

 I have space here to give just one of the re- 

 plies. It comes from a mother, and it comes 

 nearer to my heart and home because she is 

 an Ohio mother : 



CREATING THE DEMAND. 



My four children were left fatherless .six years ago. 

 Two were boj's, one of whom is now 17, and the other 

 19 years of age. Within the past year the eldest has 

 taken to smoking an occasional cigar. The boys have 

 been warned against the evils of tobacco from their 



earliest youth. I did not have occasion to punish 

 them then, as they did not use tobacco in any form. I 

 always read to them, or got them to read for them- 

 .selvcs, all of the deaths or'calamities caused by cigar- 

 ette-smoking, of which there are so many accounts 

 in the daily papers. But they do not give them a sec- 

 ond thought, as they know of boys of their own ages 

 who use the cigarettes constantly, with apparently no 

 evil effects. 



The different tobacco firms use every inducement to 

 get young boys for customers. A letter came this 

 week to my eldest son, saying that his name was fur- 

 nished by '\.\\< merchant o'f this place, wanting him to 

 try their particular brand. They also inclosed a cou- 

 pon, good for one plug of their tobacco, which he was 

 to get free from his dealer, who sent his name. The 

 dealer then would return them the coupon, for which 

 he would receive 10 cents. A laudable enterprise, 

 wasn't it for a general dealer in a small country vil- 

 lage? The letter and coupon were taken to the 

 "store" by a very indignant woman, a few questions 

 asked, and a few remarks made. I venture to .say 

 that the boy will receive no more coupons from that 

 -source. Fanny Fletcher. 



I am making a good many extracts from 

 the Rural in this issue, I know, but I want to 

 give just another one, an editorial, where 

 they comment on this mother's repl}'. Here 

 it is : 



What do you think of that storekeeper, who .sent the 

 names of boys to the whole.=ale dealers in tobacco that 

 samples of their wares might be sent the boys? What 

 would yojt do were it your boy ? Wouldn't you make 

 some "remarks" to .such a dealer? Isn't it'about the 

 most contemptible piece of business of which you can 

 conceive ? Every decent man or woman with'any re- 

 gard for the well-being of the children of himself or 

 his neighbors should not stop at making remarks, but 

 instantly withdraw his custom from such a disgrace 

 to humanity; this is the only effective way of reaching 

 some dealers. This custom of furnishing names for 

 various purpo.ses is all too common, and they are often 

 furnished for much more degrading purposes than 

 that mentioned. Kill the whole business. In this 

 city — perhaps in others, also— a postoffice box must 

 not be rented to a minor, that much of this sort of 

 thing may be guarded again.st. The writer was once 

 in a country .store in a little town in Michigan. In 

 this -Store, tobacco was not sold, and signs prohibiting 

 smoking were displayed. And what a contra.st be- 

 tween that store and another in the .same place where 

 there was no such prohil)ition ! It wouldn't be diffi- 

 cult to say where the best class of cu.stomers would go. 

 Encourage the store-keeper with a conscience, and 

 put both feet on the other disreputable or heedless 

 character. 



It is several days since I read these things 

 in the Rural. I purposely waited, to see if I 

 could find more about this btisiness ; and I 

 have tried, too, to look on both sides of the 

 subject. I know it is a fashion nowadays to 

 furnish free samples of goods. Dan White, 

 in otir last issue, when he got on to the scheme 

 of giving away samples of his nice hone}% 

 had evidently fallen into line with the modern 

 w-ay of doing business. Perhaps we can not 

 really blame the tobacco-dealer for wanting to 

 do what other people do, especially when the 

 greater part of the agricultural papers, and 

 even the government of the United States, 

 disctiss tobacco-growing as if it were just as 

 praiseworthy as growing strawberries. 



Who, then, is to blame? Why, we are all 

 to blame. The daily papers are giving us 

 continually the results of the tobacco and 

 cigarette habit — especially the latter. They 

 do not hesitate to speak right out plainly, and 

 tell what killed the boy, a:id protest against 

 the whole business. The doctors, the greater 

 part of them, are bold enough to say frankly 

 what the effect of cigarettes is on our boys ; 

 but when it comes to banishing or killing out 

 the whole business, government ofiicers and 



