1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



83 



OUR 



HOMES, 



BY A.I. ROOT. 



RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FIELD OF 

 SCIENCE. 

 What hath God wrought?— Ndm. 23:23 



In mj' earliest childhood, as far back as 

 I can remember, it was my delight each 

 da3f to find out some new wonderful thing 

 to be investigated, explored, and perhaps 

 discovered. My first financial venture was 

 in poultry'. By the way, I am told I asked 

 so many questions when I was a child, that 

 no one could answer, there began to be a 

 demand about that time for cyclopedias. 

 My grandfather had an old one which I 

 used to borrow, and study with great de- 

 light. When I first became the owner of 

 some chickens I began questioning every- 

 body. Then I got hold of some agricultural 

 papers, and went over the numbers for a 

 year or more back, just to find out all there 

 was said about poultry; and being still un- 

 satisfied I began to question my "biddies " 

 themselves; and I began at a very early 

 <3ay to learn "hen language." You may 

 laugh at this, but my fowls themselves be- 

 gan very soon to tell me in plain language 

 what they did want, and also what they 

 did not want — sitting hens, for instance. 

 Whenever one of my biddies wanted to sit, 

 she said as plainly as words— yes, plainer 

 still — "You just let me alone. I know my 

 own business." Her words were empha- 

 sized also by sundry pecks. Hitherto I had 

 been in the habit of giving her loving pats 

 on the back; but now she just wanted to be 

 let alone. In due time some chickens were 

 hatched; and no one who does not love poul- 

 try as I loved it then can imagine the de- 

 light with which I studied and investigat- 

 ed these interesting bits of God's handi- 

 work. In searching the agricultural papers 

 and cj'clopedias for facts about poultry I 

 ran on to no end of wonderful things; and 

 the knowledge thus gained has been of in- 

 estimable value to me all through my busy 

 life. 



And herein is the value of selecting some 

 line of work — to get astride of, as a hobby 

 you may say. If one goes at it with ener- 

 gy and determination, studying it at every 

 opportunity, every line, even remotely con- 

 nected with his new "craze," it gives him 

 a vast amount of information that will now 

 and then through life be of value to him 

 in getting a symmetrical and well-rounded 

 knowledge of men and things. 



When I was twelve or thirteen years of 

 age I got a glimpse of the wonders of elec- 

 tricity. The new science was just then un- 

 folding, gradually. I wanted a galvanic 

 battery. My friends all around said I was 

 not old enough to make one. I remember 

 investing some of my hard-earned pennies 

 at the tinshop, in copper and zinc. The 

 tinner told me I was not old enough, but I 



pushed ahead. My battery worked all 

 right, but I had it for months, and did not 

 know it. If I remember correctly, I cried 

 over it. The trouble was, I had not the ap- 

 paratus to go with it to make its power 

 manifest. Well do I remember the day 

 when I balanced a magnetized steel pen on 

 the head of a pin driven into the table, in 

 my little bedroom. The steel pen promptly 

 swung north and south, like any magnetic 

 needle. This I was familiar with. On 

 this particular day, however, I placed the 

 wire, which connected the copper and zinc 

 in my battery, just over the top of the bal- 

 anced steel pen. When I made the connec- 

 tion, the steel pen jumped with a new life, 

 and swung around toward east and west 

 instead of north and south. My battery 

 was O. K., and for the first time in my life 

 I was the owner of an electric current that 

 exhibited energy. As soon as I could make 

 the necessary arrangements the steel pen 

 was off at a distant part of the room, and 

 some cheap iron wire carried the current. 

 With my battery several yards distant I 

 could make the steel pen swing to the right 

 or to the left; and then I got a glimpse of 

 the fact that the same thing could be done, 

 even with a battery a mile or miles away. 

 From that time on, my experiments succeed- 

 ed. Before I was eighteen I was traveling 

 around to the schoolhouses, giving exhibi- 

 tions or entertainments, and teaching, after 

 a boyish fashion, to eager crowds, the fu- 

 ture possibilities of electricity and chemis- 

 try. Electricity was my craze until I got 

 my eyes and my mind on the honey-bee. I 

 need not tell you of this, because most of you 

 know more or less about it. Of course, all 

 along there have been more or less side issues 

 of exploring, of inventing, and discovering; 

 but the point I wish to make here is that no 

 one knows of the joys and thrills of pleasure 

 that come to one who delights in exploring 

 God's works in this way unless he has been 

 through it himself. A good many times 

 people say to me, "Mr. Root, you need a 

 little more charity and sympathy for people 

 who are not like you. You never care for 

 games of any sort — baseball, croquet, lawn 

 tennis, etc. You may not need recreation 

 as other people do; but the majority of the 

 world need rest — a change of work and a 

 change of thought." 



We have all heard something in the line 

 of the above, again and again. I do not 

 think I am so very much different from the 

 rest of the world, after all. I like a change 

 of work and a change of thought; in fact, I 

 am changing my occupation and my think- 

 ing every day of my life. But some way or 

 other, I do not just feel satisfied unless each 

 hour produces some profitable result. I can 

 not with a clear conscience ride a wheel or 

 take a trip in my automobile unless I hive 

 some special errand. I want to accomplish 

 something. I should be ashamed to have 

 people think I was riding about just because 

 I wanted to pass away the time. God for- 

 bid that I should ever wish to get rid of a 

 single hour that he in his wonderful kind- 



