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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



tie prayer, "Lord, help," I might have been 

 so foolish as to hurt and harm those about me 

 by speaking out when I was faint from lack 

 of sleep or perhaps from want of food. 



Now, dear brother and sister, these new and 

 terrible temptations are in the air. First the 

 thing breaks out in your neighborhood and 

 then in mine ; and before people get over one 

 shock another terrible thing startles commu- 

 nity. It behooves Christian people and every- 

 body else to be more on the alert and more on 

 the watch. I do not know what happens after 

 death ; but I do feel sure that ever)' perpetra- 

 tor of these horrid crimes finds, when he has 

 passed to the great unknown beyond, that he 

 has made a terrible mistake. Why, even young 

 people are guilty of the crime of suicide. 

 Boys and girls in their teens have been victims 

 of this awtul craze. In looking over the cir- 

 cumstances (and God knows 1 have done it 

 only in order to get at the root of the mis- 

 chief) it seems to me many times as if the boy 

 or girl, as the case might be, intended to get 

 even with somebody by this awful act. A 

 certain girl wanted to go to some questionable 

 place of amusement, but her mother refused 

 to let her. She made some sort of threat that 

 her mother did not understand. At that mo- 

 ment Satan, who is always lurking near, takes 

 possession of the child's heart. She was pos- 

 sessed with a devil. The devil said, " But 

 won't your mother be sorry when she finds 

 out what she has done? and won't it make a 

 stir in the neighborhood ; and won't people be 

 sorry that they trifled with you as they did, 

 when this comes out? Just let them see that 

 you are no t one of the kind that can be tamed 

 down by parental rules." A boy gets angry 

 at his father. Satan persuades him, while his 

 young heart is full of hard and bitter feelings, 

 that he can strike a worse blow by an act of 

 this kind than he could possibly strike in any 

 other way. The rage and anger in his heart 

 are fanned to a flame. Before he stops to 

 think, and without considering the matter 

 over night, or perhaps without considering it 

 one single moment, the poor child seems to 

 have lost all sense and reason, and his life is 

 gone. Our text tells us the demoniac sat at 

 the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right 

 mind. Jesus made him a reasonable being in- 

 stead of a maniac. Oh how I do love reason- 

 able people — people who are fair, honest, and 

 upright ! How I do love people who are not 

 biased and prejudiced — people who are not 

 warped out of their better judgment by little 

 spites and jealousies, and things that are com- 

 ing up almost ever}' day ! Jesus, and he 

 alone, can make people reasonable ; can help 

 them at all times to use the good common 

 sense that is a gift of God. I myself am often 

 tempted to be unreasonable. My natural ve- 

 hemence is a good thing ; it is one of God's 

 gifts ; but when it prompts me to push ahead, 

 right or wrong, or just because I have got 

 started in a certain line, then it is a bad thing. 

 At such a time the dear Savior helps me to put 

 on the brakes, and to ask myself the ques- 

 tion, " Look here, old chap, are you yourself, 

 just now, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, 

 and in your right mind ? " 



GROWING BASSWOODS FROM THE SEED. 



For more than twenty years, off and on, I 

 have been trying to get basswood seeds to 

 grow as we get other seeds to grow. I have 

 planted them in the fall, from the time of 

 dropping, clear up to freezing weather; and 

 I have planted them at all times in the spring, 

 but with almost no success, except that where 

 our rich plant-beds for gardening ran up under 

 the basswood trees the little trees would come 

 up themselves. In one case this spring, 

 where the ground was almost covered with 

 seeds, I had a bed spaded up, I think it was 

 in March; but before we got time to sift it, 

 level it, and plant it, a big rain came on, and 

 the bed lay in that condition till April, and 

 the little basswoods came up so that they 

 averaged only from three to four inches to a 

 foot apart. Another thing, where the bass- 

 wood seeds fell on to the stone flagging under 

 the trees, and rolled down into the crack be- 

 tween the flagging and one of the boards of 

 the plant-bed, they came up through this 

 crack quite thickly. Two years ago we sowed 

 about a peck of seed on perhaps four rods of 

 ground. They were sprinkled in drills touch- 

 ing one another; but not a dozen trees came 

 up the following spring. When we felt sure 

 they were not going to grow we sowed aspara- 

 gus on the bed, and thought no more about 

 the basswoods. Well, it was two years ago 

 last fall that we sowed the basswood seed, so 

 our asparagus roots are now two years old this 

 spring. After the ground was pretty well shad- 

 ed with asparagus shoots, the boys told me the 

 little basswood-trees were thick down under 

 the foliage. It made me think of the text, 

 " Cast thy bread upon the waters," etc. From 

 this incident we learn that basswood seeds 

 may grow, even if they do not come up the 

 first year or the second. I have been wonder- 

 ing if cracking open the hard shell that 

 incases the seed might not assist germination. 

 In the forest, under the leaves, this hard shell 

 seems to decay or rot — possibly from prolong- 

 ed dampness under the leafy covering. But 

 even in the forest, only one seed in a hundred 

 or one in a thousand germinates. I found a 

 tree in the woods a few days ago that stood 

 down near a mucky swamp, where the 

 ground was quite damp and rich, and perhaps 

 a hundred young basswoods were under this 

 one little tree. I looked over the piece of woods 

 pretty thoroughly, but I found only a dozen 

 or less under most of the trees. We succeed- 

 ed in getting pretty nearly a thousand out of 

 the asparagus-bed, and more seem to be com- 

 ing, even at this late date, May 18. Can any- 

 body tell us how to get 50 per cent or even 25 

 per cent of the seeds to germinate? 



This much I have settled: Basswoods grow 

 with much more vigor on well-manured rich 

 ground, especially ground that has been ma- 

 nured for many years, so that it is old, black, 

 and rich. Under such conditions I have had 



