892 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



lutely extravagant and unreasonable. And 

 this reminds me that one can not, in the 

 broad sense of the term, guarantee satisfaction 

 in all cases. A man once demanded $50 dam- 

 ages because I sent him a few pounds of foun- 

 dation that was not just what he ordered, and 

 I was foolish enough to pay it. Quite recent- 

 ly a customer wanted $10 damages because 

 five cents' worth of seeds was not what it 

 should have been. But such cases are very 

 rare. 



Now, one of the principal reasons for pub- 

 lishing these letters is because I wish to know 

 if it is really true that The A. I. Root Co. is in 

 the habit of sending out things not according 

 to order, and, worse still, neglecting or de- 

 laying the matter of making such transactions 

 satisfactory. This matter of ignoring special 

 requests of customers is a grievance more or 

 less widespread. At our convention in Buffalo, 

 a little over a year ago, our good friend O. L. 

 Hershiser illustrated this point by a little 

 story. A man who has his own notions in 

 regard to things went into a restaurant and 

 asked the waiter if he could have a nice beef- 

 steak served just according to order. He 

 said he was willing to pay for all the extra 

 trouble, but he "wanted ivhat he wanted." 

 The waiter was very courteous and accommo- 

 dating, and promised that every thing should 

 be exactly according to his wish, and listened 

 attentively while he described what sort of 

 steak he wanted, how it should be cooked, 

 and all the particulars. All was pleasant so 

 far. Our friend thought he had got into just 

 the right kind of restaurant. Imagine his 

 dismay, however, when he heard the same 

 waiter, a few minutes later, call through the 

 speaking-tube, "One beefsteak!" and noth- 

 ing further. All the details that he had been 

 so careful to thoroughly instill into the mind 

 of the genial waiter were entirely ignored. I 

 do not know but this waiter excused himself 

 by saying that what the man described was 

 exactly what they always served to everybody. 

 If this was true, all right; but when the steak 

 came it was quite ordinary, and not at all what 

 was wanted or ordered. 



Now, there are quite a few of the friends 

 whose eyes rest on these pages who are in 

 some kind of business. They are serving 

 their fellow-men in some capacity or other. 

 We are all taking orders and filling them. 

 Let us ask ourselves the question, " Are we 

 like the waiter in the restaurant, or are we 

 hungering and thirsting after righteousness, 

 and, as a legitimate consequence, serving our 

 fellow-men because we love them ? " 



People have wondered and sometimes ques- 

 tioned as to the secret of the great growth of 

 our business. Its early growth certainly de- 

 pended on the fact that we studied the wants 

 of our friends and fellow-travelers, and tried 

 hard to give them exactly what they asked 

 for. Sometimes we surprised them by giving 

 them goods better than they expected for the 

 money they sent ; and I confess I enjoyed 

 exceedingly to see such happy surprises. But 

 I should not want to do business a day — in 

 fact, I am not sure I should want to live — if I 

 surprised these friends of ours by sending 



them something they did not order and did 

 not want. Friend Dolson tells us he was 

 advised not to send the money with the order, 

 for if he did we would send him something 

 he did not want, and that after we had got the 

 money we would not pay any attention to 

 complaints and remonstrances. In the above 

 case it really looks so, I confess. Now, I 

 have not consulted with the other members of 

 our firm in regard to what I am going to say, 

 but I do not think they will object very much. 

 It is this : If our company has been guilty of 

 sending you something you did not order and 

 did not want, and, worse still, neglecting to 

 make the matter right when courteously in- 

 formed of the fact, I wish you would address 

 a letter to your old friend A. I. Root, and 

 mark it "personal." I assure you it will get 

 some sort of reply by the first mail. I simply 

 wish to know if it can be true that only the 

 kind words come to me and not some other 

 things that I should be glad to know about. 



Just one word more. When our business 

 was first started I spent a good deal of time in 

 hunting up the addresses of bee - keepers 

 through all the agricultural papers and bee- 

 journals, and every thing else ; and when I 

 had secured a list of these friends I began to- 

 get acquainted with them, and get orders, and 

 I tried very hard indeed to let these people 

 know that, in the language of our text, I was 

 really hungering and thirsting after righteous- 

 ness. When a clerk or anybody else was dis- 

 posed to be impatient or short with any of 

 these special friends, I remonstrated. I some- 

 how learned to feel that orders were a sort of 

 sacred trust, and that God expected me to be 

 careful about wronging even the least of them 

 or hurting their feelings unnecessarily. It is 

 natural for me to be selfish, I confess ; but I 

 try hard to keep down selfishness with these 

 friends far away, especially when they trust 

 me with their money in advance. In my 

 prayers of years ago and in my prayers of 

 late, I have often said something like this : 

 " O Lord, I thank thee for these dear kind 

 friends thou hast given me, scattered over the 

 land far and near. Help me to be careful 

 about all my relations with them. Help me, 

 in short, to honor and recommend the dear 

 Lord and Savior by the way in which I deport 

 myself, especially in our business transac- 

 tions." As I look back it seems to me I have 

 lived up to this prayer in only a very feeble 

 and imperfect way; and I often feel like ask- 

 ing these dear friends to remember that I am 

 still exceedingly human, and therefore to be 

 slow in concluding that I am deliberately and 

 really selfish and scheming. 



ELECTRIC LIGHTS FOR MECHANICAL WORK, 

 ETC. ^IP*^^^^^ 

 Since we have been using electric lights ev- 

 er} where, again and again have I said to my- 

 self, and sometimes out loud, ' ' Thank God 

 for this wonderful, gracious new gift of the 

 nineteenth century." In our work of in- 

 stalling new machinery, a great deal of it has 

 to be done in dark basements in the month of 



