1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



S39 



THE A. I. ROOT CO.'S MANUFACTURING PLANT 

 AS SEEN THROUGH THE CAMERA. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



Many of our readers have often expressed 

 a wish lo visit the Home of the Honey-bees ; 

 but owing to the great distances that pleasure 

 has been denied them. Others who have call- 

 ed here have expressed surprise at the size of 

 our plant. "Why," said one, the other day, 

 " the Home of the Honey-bees is a good many 

 times larger than I have been led to believe 

 from the illustrations." And this opinion has 

 been expressed by a great many who have 

 come here. The fact of the matter is, the 

 average picture on letter-headings, showing 

 manufacturing plants, is usually so enormous- 

 ly exaggerated out of all proportion, that, 

 when one does see a picture that tells the ex- 

 act truth, he thinks it is a lie just the same. 



To give our many friends a chance to see 

 our place, without spending a good many dol- 

 lars in railroad fare, we present here a series 

 of actual photographs in half-tone, showing 

 our plant from different points of view just as 

 it is in reality. W.Z.Hutchinson hts said 

 that the Root Co.'s establishment is a good 

 deal bigger inside than from what appears 

 from the outside. However that may be, we 

 can show the exterior appearance better than 

 the interior. 



jjy/The first one of the series is a bird's-eye 

 view drawn by a local artist, Mr. T. D. Brown. 

 This, from the point of view from which it is 

 taken, is a very fair and accurate representa- 

 tion. It is the only one in the series that is 

 not a photograph, for the reason that no cam- 

 era could be elevated to a point that would 

 take in this general view. 



Now suppose we get off our imaginary perch 

 where we are getting our birdseye, go around to 

 the rear of the manufacturing plant, and final- 

 ly clamber on to the top of the dwelling of 

 A. I. Root. Having arrived here we get a view 

 overlooking the apiary, as is shown in plate 2. 

 This is not the work of any artist, but is sim- 

 ply a good fair photo showing the buildings 

 just as they are, from the west side. The oth- 

 er buildings — warehouse, lumber-sheds, lum- 

 ber, etc., stand at the right, and are out of 

 view; but turning the leaves we find them in 

 their proper position. Photo No. 3, looking 

 from the southeast, showing the wood-work- 

 ing shop in the left foreground, is taken from 

 a planing-mill just opposite. The new brick- 

 work on the left shows the addition that was put 

 on last fall, and is 20X55, three story and abase- 

 ment. On top of the roof of the wood- work- 

 ing building as a whole, are shown the dust- 

 separators by which the fine dust in making 

 sections is separated from the excess of air, 

 and then blown over to the large separator 

 shown on the top of the boiler-house, just the 

 other side of the Big 4 freight-car loaded with 

 lumber for the Root Co. 



The first floor of the annex contains our 

 $1000 double-surface planer, the same directly 

 connected to a 60-horse power electiic motor, 

 for it requires from 25 to 50 horse power to 

 run the big machine. 



Plate No. 4 shows a view taken from the 

 large warehouse, and represents the southern 

 aspect of the main buildings — all except the 

 one on which the photographer stands. The 

 lumber shed shown in the foreground will hold 

 a million feet of basswood lumber — enough, 

 in fact, to make up an aggregate of 20 million 

 sections, providing all the lumber was good 

 enough to make sections. This lumber-shed 

 is covered over, sheeted on its sides with cor- 

 rugated iron, and is designed to keep the lum- 

 ber, when cured, just right and in fit condi- 

 tion to work nice and dry. 



Just beyond this structure is the annex, the 

 main wood -working-shop, and beyond that is 

 the boiler room, brick stack, and the other 

 buildings. 



We will now get off the warehouse alongside 

 of the Northern Ohio Railroad, running east 

 and w T est, grab up the camera and belongings, 

 and clamber up on top of the new annex just 

 off from the main wood-working buildings. 

 We poise the camera, and finally have the view 

 shown in plate 5, taking in the roof of the 

 lumber-shed and the warehouse, as well as a 

 part of the lumber-yards and switch-tracks. 

 In this yard, not all of which is shown here, 

 there is represented something like $40,000 

 worth of lumber that was bought six months 

 or a year ahead. 



Having taken a general view of the plant as 

 shown from the outside, w r e will now take a 

 peep at the electric-power plant as shown in 

 plate 6. At the left is the dynamo, 100 horse 

 power, that carries the power by means of the 

 subtile fluid, over the large cables shown at 

 the left of the picture, over to the annex. The 

 small wires above the switch-board run the 

 small motors scattered over various portions 

 of the plant. The little dynamo at the right 

 furnishes electric light as well as power when 

 the big machine is shut down. 



The last plate shows a peep into the ma- 

 chine-shop where all our machines are built 

 for section-making. On the erecting floors of 

 this shop may now be seen three or four au- 

 tomatic machines that are in process of build- 

 ing — one for sanding sections, another for 

 dovetailing, V-grooving, and scoring out the 

 bee-ways of sections. There are two more 

 machines for automatic gang-sawing, and 

 planing the edges of the sections up into 

 strips. Besides the new process for making 

 comb foundation we have also a new process 

 for making section honey-boxes, or shall have 

 very soon. 



This whole manufacturing plant represents 

 an investment of something like $200,000, and 

 is capable of turning out any thing the bee- 

 keeper may require, from a queen-cage up to 

 a 24-frame steam-power honey-extractor. In 

 this one plant there are made annually any- 

 where from 50,000 to 75,000 hives, and from 

 14 to 16 million sections, besides vast quan- 

 tities of other stuff that go to make up the re- 

 quisites for the ordinary apiary. 



A good many of our requirements in ma- 

 chinery are of such a character that it is im- 

 possible to buy them in the market, and, as a 

 consequence, we have to build machines for 

 our special work. 



