68 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1917 



business, alarmed the business men of our 

 town. I mortgaged what little property I 

 had, and then got into a tight place finan- 

 cially. The boys I took out of the jail did 

 not all get into " the straight and narrow 

 path " just at once. I was worried in 

 trying to look after so many thing:s; and 

 before the roof was on that first brick 

 building, the one with the text, " In God we 

 Trust," no one among my friends and 

 neighbors wanted to give me any financial 

 help. Mrs. Root feared I had done wrong, 

 not only in pushing ahead so fast, but in 

 taking the boys out of jail and trying to 

 make good hoys of them. Said I, " We will 

 kneel down, Sue, and ask the great Father 

 to open the way out of our financial trouble 

 if he is pleased with what I have under- 

 taken in regard to the boys in prison." I 

 had in mind the very text we are talking 

 about — " seek ye first the kingdom of God," 

 etc. Do you remember what happened? 

 On the very day the money was due for the 

 brick in the building, a cheek came from 

 away off in Quebec. Another thing, it read, 

 " Pay to the order of A. I. Root $600 in 

 gold and charge to the account of George 

 0. Goodhue, Quebec." 



Once more (please excuse a brief repeti- 

 tion) I was trying to discourage the young 

 boys who were thinking of using tobacco 

 from doing so. One day when there was a 

 little gathering at a beekeeper's home down 

 in Chatham, Medina Co., Ohio, one of the 

 crowd used cigar smoke to quiet the bees. 

 A beginner in bee culture who saw him do 

 it said in substance. " J am going to buy 

 some cigars and learn to smoke so I can 

 handle them as that fellow does." 



At once I protested, saying, " My young 

 friend, if you will give up the intention of 

 buying cigars, and promise me not to use 

 tobacco in any shape or form I will make 

 you a present of a new kind of smoker that 

 I have just invented." 



Of course that created a laugh all around. 

 But nobody was offended, even if he were 

 a user of tobacco, because of the way I put 

 it. Then another boy said, " May I have a 

 smoker too?" Then the whole crowd took 

 it up and began to laugh because they 

 thought they had got a joke on me. With 

 that beautiful text in my heart, if not be- 

 fore my eyes, I said, " My good friends, 

 you can each and all have a nice new smoker 

 providing you will give me your promise 

 and let me print it in our little bee-journal 

 with your name attached, that, if you ever 

 use tobacco again in any form or manner, 

 you will pay me fifty cents — the price of 

 the smoker." 



Once more, dear friends, i had no thought 



that I had unconsciously started a new 

 scheme for advertising. Shall I be pre- 

 sumptuous if I tell you now that the Holy 

 Spirit was leading me and I did not know 

 it? I need not tell our older readers the 

 outcome of the smoker pledge. I met a 

 man away down in Florida not long ago 

 who said he owed A. I. Root a vote of 

 thanks for having induced him to break 

 loose from the shackles of the tobacco habit 

 in years past. Later on I had to modify 

 my offer and put it something in this shape : 

 "Any beekeeper who is a user of tobacco 

 may have a smoker postpaid free of charge 

 if he will give me his promise, to be printed 

 in Gleanings, that he will pay me for the 

 smoker, postage included, if he ever uses 

 tobacco again in any shape or manner." 

 In a little time over a thousand smokers 

 were given away, and their names are stand- 

 ing now in black and white on the pages of 

 the early volumes of Gleanings. One rea- 

 son why the pledge held was because the 

 friends and neighbors, besides his own fam- 

 ily, saw his name m print with the pledge 

 above it. There are but very few people 

 who would like to be told that they have 

 broken their pledge put down in black and 

 white. Not only ministers of the gospel 

 made the pledge, but quite a number of 

 women. 



Aftei- I had given away several hundred 

 smckers in this way one of our bee friends 

 up in Michigan claimed that my smoker was 

 an infringement on his patent; and rather 

 than incur litigation over the matter I 

 decided he was perhaps right, and I told 

 him that I would give way and not manu- 

 facture any more smokers on the principle 

 involved. When I gave him that promise 

 I did it without thinking very much about 

 the smokers I was giving away. He took 

 it for granted that I would buy of him 

 instead of making them; but they would 

 then cost me a dollar each. As before, Mrs. 

 Root said, " Dear husband, have you not 

 been hasty?" 



Once more we knelt down and asked 

 " the Lord to provide." Right away came 

 a smoker from away off in California from 

 J. G. Corey, of Ventura. It was made on 

 a new principle, and the idea was so novel 

 and unique that we had a lot of the new 

 cold blasts finished and ready to send out 

 the very day the sample came by mail. Let 

 me go back a little. 



My fashion of giving a smoker to bee- 

 keepers if they would give up tobacco was 

 a sufficient novelty to get it into the daily 

 ]ia]iers; and, as in the ease before men- 

 tioned, it secured for me a lot of advertis- 

 ing; and before the year was out over 



