1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



405 



Peace on earth, good will toward men. — I,uke 2 : 14. 

 As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to 

 them'likewise.— IvUKE 6 ; 31. 



It is an easy thing to listen to good sermons, 

 for there are plenty of them, if people would 

 only attend the places of worship ; and I came 

 pretty near saying, it is an easy thing io preach 

 good sermons, for most of us can do a little 

 preaching occasionally, especially when we 

 get to discussing the faults and inconsistencies 

 of our neighbors ; but it is another thing to 

 put in practice the golden rule, and to work 

 for peace on earth, good will toward men. A 

 good many times we can better realize what 

 these texts mean by making a practical appli- 

 cation of them to some business transaction 

 than by listening to sermons or by preaching 

 little sermons in the way I have suggested. 

 When we are discussing the ways in which 

 other people fail to apply the golden rule, we 

 are apt to be quite enthusiastic for truth ; but 

 when it hits our own seh'es and our own pock- 

 etbnoks our enthusiasm is likely to grow faint. 

 A great many of the friends are interested in 

 gardening ; and I wish to tell you at the out- 

 set that in this little transaction I do not mean 

 to advertise our seeds nor to advertise myself 

 as a seedsman, nor even as a Christian. Let 

 me say in my own defense, however, I never 

 thought of putting the following transaction 

 in print when it occurred. The letters I wrote 

 in regard to it were written without a thought 

 that anybody would see them except the good 

 friend to whom I wrote ; and he is a good 

 friend of mine, I am sure — yes a better friend 

 because he tells me plainly and squarely 

 wherein I have been guilty of omission if not 

 of commission. And now for the story. 



If you look in our brief seed catalog you 

 will see that we advertise 10 lbs. or more of 

 spinach seed at ]2>^cts. per lb. This is quite 

 a low price, and the margin is very close ; but 

 I enjoy helping market-gardeners by giving 

 them low prices where they want a consider- 

 able quantity of staple seeds. For several 

 years we have bought spinach seed by the 

 quantity for 8 to 10 cts.; but last fall it ran up 

 unexpectedly. In fact, we got an order some 

 time in the fall, the money with the order, at 

 12)4 cts. per lb.; but before I could fill the 

 order I had to pay 15 cts. for seed. I explain- 

 ed the transaction to my friend, however, and 

 he very kindly paid me what the seed cost, so 

 I was not out of pocket. Of course, I must 

 advance the price in the seed catalog ; but this 

 is something I hate to do, and I wanted to be 

 very sure there was a ^^Wd'ra/ advance in the 

 price of spinach. By a little correspondence 

 I found two growers who would sell me seed 

 at 10 cts. I considered them both to be good 

 responsible men. I purchased a lot from each 

 one, and commenced the year with spinach 

 seed at the old price. The two following let- 

 ters indicate the quantities of spinach we oft- 

 en sell to the market-gardener : 



Dear Sir : — Find inclosed S'-.OO, for which please 

 send 16 lbs of Bloomsdale spinach seed. 

 Water Valley, N. Y., Feb. 26. E. Gressman. 



Dear 5/>-j.-— Find inclosed 81.00 for 8 lbs. of Blooms- 

 dale spinach seed. I got 16 lbs. of you a spell ago, so I 

 thought j'ou would give me the S lbs. at 101b rate. 



Water Valley, N. Y., Mar. 30. Elmer Gressman. 



The orders were filled promptly, and noth- 

 ing more was thought about it until the follow- 

 ing came to hand : 



Sirs: — The 10 lbs. of spinach seed I received from 

 j-ou in March is no good ; and the worst of it is, I rec- 

 ommended your .'eeds to my neighbor, who took 10 

 lbs. It is going to be a hard blow on him, as by sow- 

 ing now we can not come ahead of the rush and get 

 the high prices. It may make half the difference. 

 When I discovered the seeds were not good I would 

 rather have lost SIO.OO. I wouldn't have felt as bad, 

 but I insisted on this man getting his seeds from you 

 — that your seeds were reliable, and you used the 

 same seeds you sent out, and knew what they were. 

 It puts me in a nice place, you see. The first seeds he 

 got were not good. It was only yesterday morning 

 (Sunday) I found it out. I knew by driving about 30 

 miles I could get seeds even it was Sunday, so I con- 

 cluded to go. Some of my peop'e were opposed to it, 

 but I said if I had to commit a wrong to make a wrong 

 light I should do it, or to make right as much as I 

 could my neighbor's wrong so he might have the seeds 

 early Monday morning to sow, as it might rain Tues- 

 day and Wednesday, and even longer, and away goes 

 his crop. 



I borrowed the money to get the seeds. My loss, 

 besides, on the crop, is ff2.00 for seeds ; 31 cts. for 

 freight ; 10 cts. for letter and sending money, making 

 82.41. I replaced my neighbor's seeds, whether I get 

 any thing or not. I have made up my mind never to 

 recommend any more seeds no matter who the firm 

 is. If I had let this man get his seeds where he wanted 

 to, they would have been nearly up now, and would 

 be several daj's ahead in the market, hence the differ- 

 ence in the pi ices. 



It is difficult for me to understand ho v people can 

 put a worthless article on the market to get good 

 money for it. The second lot of seeds I sent for are 

 coming all right. Elmer Gressman. 



Water Valley, N Y., April 24. 



You may be sure I was a good deal worried 

 when the above came. Our readers are per- 

 haps aware that most seedsmen decline to be 

 responsible any further than that they will re- 

 place any seed after they have had good evi- 

 dence that it is bad. But this was a more seri- 

 ous matter, a good deal, than simply the val- 

 ue of the seed. I find by the copy-book I 

 wrote promptly to friend Gressman as follows ; 



My good Friend: — I am exceedingly sorrv for all the 

 trouble you have had ; but you are certainly mistaken 

 in saj-ing the spinach seed we sent you is not good. 

 We sowed the .same sted in the greenhouse, and it 

 came up beautifully, and we are now gathering the 

 nicest .'pinach we ever rai.sed. There was certainly 

 some other reason besides the quality of the seed for 

 your failure. We will at once plant some more of the 

 seed outdoors, and will report to you later how it 

 comes up. If we sent you poor seed I will try to make 

 good all you are out of pocket in the transaction. I 

 do not see how there can be anv mistake, because we 

 bought 50 lbs. in one lot last fall. We sowed some of 

 it then and some more of it in February in the green- 

 house, and it is certainly all right with us 



A. I. Root. 



Permit me to say in regard to the above, 

 that I am not in the habit of promising to 

 make good the consequences of poor seed. 

 Any seedsman, or, in fact, almost anybody 

 else who considers this matter, will see how 

 impossible such a course would be. But friend 

 Gressman's letter has the impress of truth on 

 it. The circumstances are peculiar. He tried 

 to do a neighbor a favor, and got into trouble. 

 He promptly replied to my letter above as fol- 

 lows, giving still further particulars : 



