862 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15. 



get people to travel with them, and really 

 seemed to enjoy doing any favor they could 

 for any passenger. I wish that all electric 

 carlines would take a hint. 



There was just time enough before the car 

 started, to get a lunch if I did so quick ; but 

 to get it I was obliged to go into a beer-saloon. 

 There was not any other place (so people said ), 

 especially in the neighborhood of where the 

 cars start. I wonder if there is a providence in 

 obliging me to visit saloons so often. Perhaps 

 so ; for when anybody tells me I know noth- 

 ing about the saloon business I can very read- 

 ily prove he is mistaken. The food was well 

 served, and money enough had been spent on 

 the surroundings to make the place not only 

 decent but elegant ; but the foul talk of the 

 customers and proprietor was — well, just about 

 what you might expect when you go into any 

 place where liquors are sold. 



I received a very pleasant welcome from my 

 nephew, Mr. George M. Gray, as well as from 

 his prettly little flock of juveniles. Mr. Gray 

 is an up-to-date fancy printer. He employs a 

 lot of hands, both men and women ; makes 

 use of electricity, modern machinery, has his 

 own engravers, and takes delight not only in 

 keeping up with the times but in showing his 

 patrons what has been accomplished in recent 

 times in the way of ornamental printing. 



At Fostoria Mr. Gray took me through an 

 up-with-the-times flour-mill. It has the latest 

 and most modern machinery throughout, and 

 is large enough so they can, if necessary, make 

 2000 barrels of the best flour in the world in a 

 single day. I can not take time here to de- 

 scribe it ; but just imagine a flour-mill without 

 dust — yes, and go still further and imagine a 

 miller without dusty clothes and cap. In this 

 new mill the machinery is all so perfectly in- 

 closed that scarcely a particle of dust ever gets 

 out into the room. In fact, most of the rooms 

 look more like parlors than apartments in a 

 grist-mill. All the various operations of clean- 

 ing the grain and making it into flour are in 

 full sight of the miller, but it is all covered 

 with large lights of glass. One miller or one 

 attendant looks after a whole roomful of mills. 

 Perhaps there are forty or fifty on one floor, 

 all doing the same thing. Modern mill ma- 

 chinery is so perfect that the miller has almost 

 nothing to do. He carried a duster in his 

 hand, and occasionally wiped off the machin- 

 ery and the large panes of glass ; but the en- 

 tire establishment was about as free from dust 

 as the average parlor or sitting-room. All the 

 handling of the grain and flour is accomplished 

 so perfectly with automatic machinery that 

 there does not seem to be any hard work about 

 it. The wheat is cleaned from dust and im- 

 purities mostly before it goes into the mill at 

 all. Immense elevators for storing grain are 

 of steel so they can not get afire. A beautiful 

 Corliss engine moves all the machinery. The 

 Fostoria Times calls it " the greatest and fin- 

 est winter- wheat milling-plant in the world." 

 It is owned by The Isaac Harter Co. 



We next visited a great factory built ex- 

 pressly for manufacturing electric or incan- 

 descent globes. I think toward one hundred 

 men and women are employed in this institu- 



tion. It is called the Fostoria Incandescent 

 Lamp Co. We first saw the workmen (and 

 women) making the coiled filament that gives 

 the light. This is then attached to the wires 

 that connect the current, which is a compli- 

 cated operation. It passes on from one de- 

 partment to another until it is ready to be put 

 inside of the glass globes. Then we see some 

 fancy glasswork done, and pretty soon a large 

 room shows us the air-pumps at work exhaust- 

 ing the air. This is done by means of columns 

 of quicksilver, in a very ingenious way. Then 

 comes a nice series of machinery for testing 

 bulbs in order to determine the " volts " and 

 a lot of other things I do not suppose I could 

 ever understand, even if it is true that electric- 

 ity has been more or less a hobby of mine all 

 my life. There were dark-rooms and light- 

 rooms. The bulbs are tested this way and 

 that. There are dry batteries and storage bat- 

 teries, and dynamos and motors, and tests 

 that go into the science of optics deeper than I 

 knew that any one had ever delved. In fact, 

 there are so many processes and so much com- 

 plicated and intricate machinery used in order 

 to produce a really first-class electric-light 

 bulb that it seemed to me a dollar apiece would 

 hardly pay the cost of all these manipulations; 

 and yet we are offered these bulbs now by the 

 quantity at only 15 to 18 cts. apiece, and each 

 one is warranted to burn 1000 hours. There 

 are so many companies at work making them, 

 that, after they have made a sale, they write 

 to consumers, begging them to report any one 

 that is faulty, or send back any that play out 

 before the 1000 hours. Yes, and they also 

 urge you to try samples of their product, free 

 of charge. In fact, this establishment begged 

 permission to send samples of their latest pro- 

 duction, express charges paid. All the}' asked 

 was that we would put them beside those we 

 were then using, and see how they would 

 compare with other makes. What an indus- 

 try has grown up within a few years ! And 

 are we each and all remembering to give God 

 the praise that our homes and our towns and 

 cities are now so well lighted, that, even dur- 

 ing the darkest night, we are almost forget- 

 ting there is such a thing as darkness to ena- 

 ble wicked men to do their deeds? And, O 

 dear friends, let us see to it that spiritual light 

 is shed abroad over our laud to keep pace with 

 the beautiful electric lights that do so much 

 toward banishing the bad man who loves dark- 

 ness rather than light because his deeds are 

 evil. 



ROBBING BEE KEEPERS. 



I wish to mention a little circumstance that 

 just occurred, omitting names for obvious rea- 

 sons. A man sent a check to one of our queen- 

 breeders for some queens. The check looked 

 all right, and of course the queens were 

 promptly forwarded; but when the check was 

 presented it transpired that the sender had no 

 money in the bank, and, in fact, was bank- 

 rupt, having made an assignment something 

 like a year previous. After we had written 

 the delinquent a couple of pretty sharp letters 

 he went around among his relatives and got 



