1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



105 



away, and even though he oflfered large prices 

 for them. The whole skeleton is worth to the 

 State four or five thousand dollars, and it was 

 a great deal of trouble indeed to lumt up the 

 pieces and put them together so as to make 

 good the damage done by this thoughtless sort 

 of vandalism. It seems strange that there 

 should be such stupidity among' our people. 

 If the)' would visit our experiment farms and 

 State University a little more they might pos- 

 sibly learn some valuable lessons. Of course, 

 the Slate paid every per.-on for his particular 

 piece ; for such things belong, I believe, to the 

 finder, respecting, of course, the rights of the 

 person on whose land the discovery was made 

 Now, they did not find a complete skeleton m 

 that .swamp, although they found a large num- 

 ber of bonrs that in all probability belonged to 

 that individual animal. Bones, tusks, and 

 teeth have been picked up in different parts of 

 the State, indicating that this was the feed- 

 ing-ground of these great creatures away back, 

 perhaps before man set foot upon this soil. 

 They collected as many bones as they could, 

 that had been found, as I have told 3'ou, and 

 then suppbed the missing ones as nearly as 

 otir best scholars and professors could figure 

 out how they probably were. I asked a mul- 

 titude of questions, and was surprised that so 

 many of them coulii be answered. He was a 

 vegetarian in his diet, living on branches and 

 kaves of trees. 



' ' Would you like to see what he partook of 

 for his last meal ? " I was asked. 



" But, can you tell? " I replied. 



"Oh, yes! we can tell 3'ou. Come this 

 way." 



Then the professor showed me a basketful 

 of chewed-up sticks, apparently ; but they 

 were the petrified remains of the sticks, and 

 very likely they were the contents of his stom- 

 ach when he got " swamped " in that muck- 

 bed. Why don't we have mastodons now? 

 Well, climatic changes may have had some- 

 thing to do with it. Environments have 

 changed. Did God make elephants, masto- 

 dons, and every other animal we have now, 

 and all those that have lived on the earth since 

 the morning of creation ? Probablj' not. Our 

 fleet, slender-limbed race-horses and our huge 

 Clydes ale roadsters are almost as different 

 from each other as are mastodons and ele- 

 phants ; yet the two kinds of horses, without 

 doubt, had a common origin or parentage. In 

 fact, animals are changed in form and weight 

 to suit the wants of mau, even during the span 

 of one single human life. 



In the dairy buildings I met some more Me- 

 dina boys, and I was agreeabh- surprised to 

 find one of our veteran bee-keepers, Mr. H. J. 

 Noyes, of Richland City, Wis., installed as 

 teacher or professor of scientific butter and 

 cheese making, if you choose. The new dairy 

 building is a very handsome structure, and 

 the walls of the building inside are made of 

 milk-white enameled tiling or brick. Every 

 inch of it can be kept as clean as a new din- 

 ner-plate, and the boys are expected to keep 

 it this way. The members of the class are all 

 neatly attired in white canvas overalls and 

 jackets. They also had white caps, and I pre- 



sume they are expected to keep them white 

 and clean. And a nice lot of boys I hey were. 

 If I were a girl, and wanted to get acquainted 

 with some of the nicest boys there are in the 

 whole State of Ohio, I think I would visit that 

 dairy building. It used to trouljle my con- 

 science a little because I took more interest in 

 a class of nice-looking fiirls than in a similar 

 class where they were all boys. Well, now I 

 am either getting older or else the boys are 

 getting nicer, or may be both, for I enjoyed 

 shakirg hands with those boys, and looking 

 into their faces, and watching their move- 

 ments, as much I ever enjoyed being with 

 anv class of the opposite sex. Let me digress 

 a little. 



When I first came on to the grounds I stop- 

 ped in mute wonder to look at the beautiful 

 architecture of a new building, or, rather, pile 

 of buildings, that is just in process of erection 

 on the University grounds. Nobody said so, 

 but I should call it Moorish architecture. Per- 

 haps I got the idea from the great hotel at 

 vSaint Augustine, Florida, which is built on 

 this type. I think I never saw .so handsome a 

 building before in my life — I mean this Ohio 

 building, for it is all real work and real stone. 

 There is not any whitewash so as to make 

 pitch pine look like solid masonry. All that 

 marred my enjoyment in looking at it was to 

 think of the tremendous expense that it must 

 have entailed on the State. It is built for a 

 gymnasiuui. Well, the dairy buildings are 

 equally fine, although, of course, they have 

 not the ornamental work about them. How 

 shall our State of Ohio get this money back ? 

 Well, I think I can understand thi'^ part of it. 

 Those bo\ s are at work with the best appara- 

 tus for making butter and cheese that the 

 world can furnish. In fact, they are testing 

 the work of all prominent manufacturers. 

 They are also learning the very best ai.d latest 

 methods. You have all heard more or less 

 about the " creamery shark." Maybe some 

 of 3 ou have had to//;' fiugers burned. This 

 swindle is worked by having some sharper in- 

 duce the farmers to combine and .set up a 

 creamery. They charge the farmers two or 

 three prices for the apparatus, giving them 

 soTiething that is not the best, then put in a 

 manager who swindles them again, and so on 

 it has been swindle from beginning to end. 

 Now, our State University is going to stop this 

 whole business. Our Ohio boys — boys reared 

 in good honest homes on the farm — are be- 

 coming posted. They learn at this State in- 

 stitution what such machinery is actually 

 worth ; then they know just how to make it 

 do its best. The farmer can not be swindled, 

 because his ouni boy has charge of the thing. 

 The boy is educated to the business, and 

 knows at a glance when the sharper tries to 

 take advantage of him. Our State of Ohio is 

 abundantly able to furnish good machinery ; 

 and not only that, but handsome and attract- 

 ive surroundings for the schools where our 

 boys are being educated. Another thing, 

 sometimes it does not cost any more to make 

 a handsome and imposing structure than it 

 does to build an awkward and misshapen one. 

 Some of these new buildings appealed to my 



