344 



GleaninKS in Bee Culture 



(o)qod° [r^om 



By A. I. KuoT 



Heboid the fowls of the air; for they sow not, nei- 

 ther do they reap, nor eather into barns: yet your 

 heavenly P'atber feedeth them.— Matt. 6:26. 



Of course the above text refers to the tvild 

 fowls, the birds of the air. They are tinder 

 the care of and cared for by the great Father 

 above. He, witlioiit the aid of htinian in- 

 tervention, furnislies what shelter they have, 

 and also jirotection from the weather; and 

 it is well known, and I believe it is general- 

 ly agreed, that the wild fowls and wild ani- 

 mals are mtich healtliier and stronger, and 

 have more endurance, than our common 

 domesticated animals. As an illustration, 

 we go to the wild turkeys, wild ducks, and 

 geese, to get new blood to give our domestic 

 fowls endurance. They do better withotit 

 artificial shelter, and very much better with- 

 out any help from artificial heat. Some 

 years ago there was (juite an excitement 

 abotit cooking food for domestic animals; 

 btit our experiment stations soon decided 

 that it was a mistake. Even our pigs do 

 better on raw food, unground, than with ar- 

 tihcial helj). T. H. Terry, yoti remember, 

 regained his health, wlien he was i)retty 

 close to the grave, princijjally by using raw 

 M'heat (and " tmcooked food") as a diet in 

 l)lace of food artificially i)rei)ared. There is 

 an island somewhere in the great sea where 

 a pe()])leexisted for years, i)ossessing remark- 

 able health and longevity, and yet they 

 wore no clothing whatever. We sent our 

 missionaries among them, and the natives 

 were greatly benefited in the way of morals 

 and si)irituality; but giving them clothes, 

 hotises to live in, and other things belong- 

 ing to what we call modern civilization, en- 

 feebled them so the race threatened to l)e- 

 come extinct. The i)oor natives on this far- 

 away island came near l)eing "civilized out 

 of existence;" and, my good friends. I great- 

 ly fear that some of us have already been 

 civilized out of existence, and, as a conse- 

 (juence, we hear a great hue and cry, es])e- 

 cially from the great cities, abotit "getting 

 back to the land." 



Now, I want to talk considerably abotit 

 chickens in this Home paper; and, hy the 

 way, during the two winters that my chick- 

 ens in Florida have roosted on trees, having 

 no houses whatever for shelter, they were 

 healthier, and laid fully as well (if not bet- 

 ter) as when kei)t in houses. The objections 

 were that the owls sometimes got them tij) 

 in the trees, and they were so wild that it 

 was a difficult matter to catch them when 

 one was wanted or when we wanted to turn 

 otT the whole lot when going liack to the 

 North in the si)ring. i.et us remember the 

 fact brought out in our text before we go too 

 far in adopting cooked footl and artificial 

 heat to keej) our bodies warm. A little 

 further on in the same chai)ter we read, 

 "Take no thought for your life, what ye 

 shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for 

 your body, what ye shall i)ut on." 



" OUT-DOOR.SP]S, I DO." 



These words were sjioken by the little girl 

 we calletl Blue Eyes about ;^5 years ago to 

 her father when he was partictilarly interest- 

 ed in l)ee culture and the flowers. She was 

 getting to be old enough to talk, and her 

 papa had been in the habit of carrying her 

 to see the bees work on the api)le-blossoms 

 (for it was springtime as it is now), and to 

 show her the bees as they hurried into their 

 hives with their loads of many-colored i)ol- 

 lens. And she enjoyed these visits to the 

 blooming ai)])le-trees and the busy bee-hives 

 so much that it was a hard matter to keep 

 her indoors at all. She would keej) saying, 

 as I have ex])lained above, "outdoorses, I 

 do," and then i)at her dimi)led little hands 

 on the toj) of her head, indicating that she 

 wanted her little hat or bonnet so she could 

 go outdoors. Jiy the way, this same Blue 

 Eyes is now the mother of three fine chil- 

 dren; and as her health has recently failed 

 to a certain extent, the doctor ])rescribed 

 oi(f(I()or.<s, so she and the children are in the 

 oi)en air the most of the time — that is, when 

 the older children are not in school. She 

 ai)propriated my little greenhouse before I 

 got back from Florida, and now she is just 

 putting her plants in the open ground, 

 shading them and watering them with all 

 the enthusiasm and enjoyment that her 

 father has felt and told you about for so 

 many years in the i)ast. Some hens and 

 chickens are near by also. Of course the 

 mother hens are shut uj), but the little 

 chicks are hustling and hajijjy all over her 

 lawn and among the flowers. 



A little more than 24 hours ago I was in- 

 vited to talk on bees, chickens, etc., V)efore 

 the "W M. ('. A. in a college town near by. 

 As I stei)i)ed into a car, the only seat I 

 found imoccu])ied was by the side of a gen- 

 tleman who was reading a ])ai)er. Finally 

 he looked out through theoi)en window and 

 made soine remarks abotit the green fields, 

 the fruit-trees in bloom, etc. Of course, I 

 shared his enthusiasm. After a little time 

 he turned around and said, "Why, if you 

 live in Medina you ])robably know some of 

 tlie Boot ])eo])le." I smilingly informed 

 him that I was A. I. Boot. He i)ut otit 

 his hand with eagerness, saying, "Why, 

 Mr. Boot, 1 have long wanted to see you, 

 and to get yotir advice on certain matters;" 

 but when I asked him if he had been read- 

 ing our journal he rei)lied, "1 am sorry to 

 say I have never seen a C(^i)y of it; but I 

 have seen so many extracts in other i)eriod- 

 icals from y(^ur talks that I have great con- 

 hdence in you. Now let me exi)lain that I 

 am a ])hysician. I have charge of the work 



in Hospital, in Cleveland. I have 



been there many years — sometimes I think 

 too many; but so long as I can extend a 

 helping hand to poor unfortunate humani- 

 ty 1 keej) on with my work, even though I 

 realize, ami have for some time, that I must 



