:J76 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Some of you may inquire what the above 

 has to do with my usual Home papers, and 

 particularly what it has to do with the texts 

 J have mentioned. Well, my first text was 

 taken to remind us of a great and precious 

 promise. In years past, in some way I had 

 taken this text to refer to beautiful things 

 after this life is over; but of late I have 

 been thinking it refers also to this present 

 life. If we look about us and see the prog- 

 ress that is being made in everything per- 

 taining to human life and happiness, I 

 think we might recognize the fact that the 

 promise is coming. The boys' and girls' 

 clubs along the line of agriculture are not 

 only surpassing their fathers and mothers 

 but the world at large. The developments 

 of science — just think of it! My father, 

 with a good-sized family of girls and boys, 

 came from Connecticut to Ohio with an ox 

 team. Those of you who have lived for 

 sixty or seventy years have witnessed the 

 wonderful strides. Sometimes we think we 

 have got pretty near the limit. Here is a 

 clipping from the Sunday-school Times, 

 with a moral to it : 



One who has gone deepest into "the deep things 

 nf God " has but scratched the surface of the depths 

 of the riches of Christ. Bible study and interpreta- 

 tion is only in its beginning. The most mature 

 Christian has scarcely begun to lay hold on that for 

 which Christ has laid hold on him. A country lad 

 with a mechanical talent some years ago left home 

 to take his first position in a large machine shop. 

 After his first sight of the great room filled with its 

 wonderful machinery the boy wrote home sadly to 

 his father that there was no chance for him. Tlie 

 work had all been done, and, no matter how good a 

 machinist he might become, there was no improve- 

 ment that he could make. " Before I finished my 

 four years' apprenticeship," he said, in telling the 

 .story afterward, " I saw every single piece of ma- 

 chinery in that great shop thrown on the scrap-heap 

 and replaced by new and improved models. And," 

 he added with pride, " my own hands had left their 

 touch upon that new prodiict." The country boy is 

 now him.self a leading manufacturer, and is con- 

 stantly telling young men to remember that it has 

 not " all been done," that electricity, like every 

 other science, is just in its infancy, and is waiting 

 for some boy to dig deeper into the marvelous 

 hidden secrets. 



Tt looks to me as if four years is a 

 rather brief time in which to dispense with 

 expen.sive machinery in a great shop ; but 

 we have the same thing here in our own 

 shop. Machines that we thought a few 

 years ago were about the best thing that 

 could be made, in a brief time have become 

 entirely out of date. And this is true of 

 the fai-ming business as well as of the 

 machine-shops. We are making progress 

 in improving domestic stock; and it seems 

 this is true of the lady cows as well as the 

 lady laying hens. See the following from 

 the I'laiv Dealer: 



UPSETS BUTTER RECORDS; $20,000 COW BCMPSES 

 FORMKR PRRODUCTION MARK. 



Buffalo, Dec 10. — Lady Pontiac Johanna, a 

 cow valued af $20,000, has just broken the world's 

 recxjrd for butter production by yielding 658 pounds 

 of milk in one week, from which was made 41 

 81-100 pounds of butter. This eclipses the former 

 butter record by five and one-fourth pounds. 



The record cow was milked four times daily under 

 siipervision of a representative of the New York 

 State Agricultural Department. Lady Pontiac Jo- 

 hanna is owned by Oliver Cabana, .Jr., of Buffalo. 



In Our Homes for March 1 I told about 

 that little tract from Charles Gallaudet 

 Trumbull, " The Life that Wins," and I 

 told you in closing that paper that I had at 

 last made a little start along that line, and 

 that is proving true. Where I saw only one 

 wrong thing in my daily habits before, 

 there are now scores; and the above chicken 

 story gives me an excellent chance to illus- 

 trate how these things creep in. After I 

 received a postal card from the Eglantine 

 Farm, saying they would send me another 

 setting, free of charge, in thanking them I 

 said something like this : "My good friends, 

 I do not like to be outdone in generosity. 

 If half or more of the eggs turn out fertile 

 I will send you half price for those of the 

 second lot." 



When the time came for testing I went 

 into my darkened room and counted out 

 seven of the eggs that showed clearly fer- 

 tile. Seven is half of fourteen, but not 

 quite half of fifteen. But there was ojie 

 egg left that"! could not fully decide wheth- 

 er it was fertile or not. A germ had start- 

 ed, but there was a faint black line that 

 looked very much as if the germ had died. 

 As I sat there in my darkened room rolling 

 the egg around so as to let the rays of 

 sunlight strike it in different directions I 

 said to myself, " I am really under no 

 obligation to send them $1.25 more, for 

 there are only seven eggs that are clearly 

 fertile." A better spirit, however, whis- 

 pered that the eighth egg might hatch a 

 good chicken after all; and then came the 

 question, if I am working and striving for 

 that " life that wins," that higher life, I 

 must learn to love my neighbor as myself. 

 I must give him the benefit of the doubt 

 just as readily as 1 would decide in favor 

 of myself when in doubt. And then I said, 

 '" Get thee behind me, Satan ;" and, for fear 

 I might change my mind, I went straight- 

 way and put a dollar and some stamps in 

 a letter and addressed it to the Eglantine 

 Farm, and felt very much happier than if I 

 had decided to " save " the amount sent. 

 My good friends, I realize that it is a little 

 humiliating to confess here in this Home 

 paper that I still have defeats along the 

 line of self, and temptations to be selfish. 

 Oh, what a world this would be if every 



