GI/EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



.Nov. 15. 



we were aaiply repaid by a glimpse of the 

 beautiful grounds on the summit. First there 

 was a very pretty house and dooryard, and a 

 beautiful view of the bay with its shores and 

 islands on the opposite sides, and also a 

 glimpse of Traverse City, three or four miles 

 away. Just a little back of the house was a 

 five-acre orchard, mostly peach-trees. I told 

 you, on the page I referred to, that friend Cole 

 had already sold $500 worth of peaches. 

 Well, since then, to his surprise, he has sold 

 almost another $500 worth, and yet there 

 ate only five acres of land, and ttiis land con- 

 tains a great many kinds of trees besides 

 peach. We found beautiful luscious peaches, 

 not only all over the ground, but quite a few 

 still hanging on the trees. After we had eat- 

 en as many as we cared for, and discussed 

 peach-growing on the Traverse hills, Mrs. 

 Cole invited us to see her speculation. On 

 the south side of the peach-orchard was a row 

 of chestnut-trees, and the nuts were just ready 

 to break out of the burrs. Quite a lot of them 

 were scattered about on the ground. Dear 

 reader, did jou ever pick up chestnuts when a 

 child? and do you think you will ever be too 

 old to feel like shouting for joy when you see 

 the bright brown nuts scattered about among 

 the fallen leaves ? Mrs. Cole says she" gets 

 $5,00 a bushel for the nuts, and the trees are 

 just beginning to bear quite profusely. She 

 told me how many jears ago they were plant- 

 ed, but I have forgotten. She has only the 

 native American chestnuts. She has not yet 

 tested the large new kinds ; but she has prov- 

 ed beyond question that the top of the hills 

 in the Traverse country is just the place for 

 growing chestnuts as well as peaches. Just a 

 little below the edge of the hill is a spring, 

 and a little cheap hydraulic ram sends soft 

 spring water into the house and barn, and 

 wherever wanted for the stock. The appara- 

 tus has been running for 14 years ; and this 

 summer Mr. Cole thought the pipe must be 

 getting old, and prepared to put in some new 

 ones ; but when he pulled out the old ones he 

 found them just as clean and perfect, appar- 

 ently, as when he put them in, and so he did 

 not make the exchange. 



Now, this is a valuable point for those living 

 in the Traverse region, at least. The pipe 

 was black iron. The makers of these rams 

 say this is much more durable than galvanized 

 iron that is so often put in with a mistaken 

 notion. Much of our spring water will dis- 

 solve the zinc on the iron, and produce an in- 

 soluble precipitate that incrusts the pipes, 

 while common black iron will remain perfect- 

 ly clean. At the foot of the hill is a water- 

 ing-trough made of cast iron, and of sufficient 

 elevation so any horse can drink without be- 

 ing unchecked. I am glad to know these 

 watering-troughs fed by springs are a common 

 feature near Traverse City. These running 

 springs are a perpetual temperance sermon ; 

 and I do not know but it is another sermon 

 also for the Humane Society, letting the horses 

 have drink with so little trouble that they are 

 not likely to suffer from thirst. May God 

 bless the people who are providing these 

 drinking fountains. 



A little further on we took a crooked cross- 

 road that ran up between the hills toward 

 friend Hilbert's. In California we would say 

 it was a road running up the canyon. We 

 found the potato-growers busy harvesting 

 their crop. Men, woman, and children were 

 hard at work pulling the tubers out of the 

 beautiful soft mellow soil, putting them in 

 heaps and covering them with straw, and then 

 with dirt. They are kept in this wsy until 

 they have time to draw them to market or un- 

 til it seems to be a good time to sell. If the 

 grower decides to keep them till spring he 

 only needs to put on more dirt and more 

 straw. There was a good deal of merriment 

 when I was able to demonstrate to the Hilbert 

 family that I had actually "captured" Mrs. 

 Root and got her up in the Traverse region ; 

 and I hurried back with the horse and c ime 

 up again on my wheel. 



Mrs. Root returned home a week stoner 

 than I did. I wanted to stay and construct a 

 bicycle-path from the top of the hill, where 

 our house is to be built, dow > to the valley or 

 bottom of the ravine. I first selected the low- 

 est point between the hills for a passageway, 

 then made my grades along the steep hillsides 

 around throng'-, one ravine and out of another 

 until I reached the foot, making a regular in- 

 cline with no grade too steep to ride up or 

 down. The bushes and small trees were so 

 thick, as I have explained before, that one 

 could hardly get through at all. Mrs. Root 

 did succeed in getting a glimpse, over the fall- 

 en trees and bushes, of the spot where our 

 house is to be located, but that was about all. 



Well, after she had started home alone I 

 borrowed of a neighbor an ax, a hoe, and a 

 mattock. I brought along with me some 

 strong line, a spirit-level, and a compass, and 

 then I commenced work alone in the woods. 

 As I was unused to such work I was obliged 

 to sit down every little while on a log, and 

 rest. With the help of a neighbor's thirteen- 

 year-old boy, and a crosscut saw, we got out 

 of the way part of the lf>gs that lay across the 

 path.* But we were next confronted by an old 

 hemlock log three or four feet in diameter. 

 Its decayed sides, while the middle was almost 

 solid, together with its great size, made it too 

 big a task for both myself and my young 

 friend Orrville. Just before dinner I managed 

 to get an expert wood chopper to come and 

 help me three or four hours. I thought it 

 was about half a day's job to cut through that 

 hemlock log ; but he did it in little more than 

 half an hour. In about three hours he had 



* At one point my bicycle-path had to go down pret- 

 ty well into a ravine and then up on the opposite side, 

 in order to make a short cut. This ravine was full of 

 rotten logs, leaves, and accumulations of vegetable 

 matter that have piled up there for ages. Well, out of 

 the rotten wood and debris were some of the rankest 

 and most luxuriant raspberr3'-bushes I ever saw ; and 

 while we were running a crosscut saw Orrville held 

 up some clusters of ripe raspberries, about as tempt- 

 ing as any thing I ever saw in my life, and we actual- 

 ly had q.iite a feast on the most lu'icious ripe raspber- 

 ries I ever ta.sted, during the last week in October. 

 The variety is a very soft red raspberry that would 

 not answer well for shipping, but can hardly be ex- 

 celled for eating out of the hand right from the bushes. 

 I do not know whether this is a regular thing — rasp- 

 berries so late in this region — or whether it was on 

 account of the late warm fall weather. 



