GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



And Joseph went out from the presence of 

 Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. 



And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, 

 very much, until he left numbering; for it was 

 without number. — Gkn. 41 : 46, 49. 



And God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, 

 and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have 

 dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 

 (►f the air, and over every living thing that moveth 

 upon the earth. — Gkn. 1:28. 



SINCE there 

 has been 

 such a call, 

 from our good 

 President all the 

 way down the 

 list, for making' 

 provision for a 

 possible famine 

 I have been re- 

 minded of that 

 wonderful chap- 

 ter in Genesis 

 w here Joseph 

 warned the king, 

 who appointed 

 oi'ficers over the 

 land to take up 

 the fifth part of 



the crops during ^ _ 



the seven plenteous years. Considering all 

 of these things I have reviewed the many 

 hobbies of mine that I have ridden during 

 the past seventy years; and I feel glad and 

 thankful when 'l remember that almost 

 every one of these hobbies was in the line of 

 providing good and wholesome food for the 

 hungry multitude. Wlien I became enthu- 

 siastic about the possibilities of bee culture 

 I said that honey, like butter and eggs, 

 should not only be offered for sale in every 

 corner grocery, bnt it should also be on 

 sale like butter, cheese, and eggs, every day 

 in the year. Well, my prediction has not 

 as yet exactly come to pass; but just now as 

 I write on this 6th day of June, not only the 

 Department of Agriculture but every farm 

 paper, and many periodicals not devoted 

 to farming, are urging that bees enough be 

 kept to gather the honey that goes to waste 

 in such unlimited profusion almost every 

 season. And this comes about just now 

 particularly because of the possible scarcity 

 of sugar in the near future. 



While I am talking abont honey I am re- 

 minded that Mr. Calvert has just said that 

 there is already dittlculty about getting glass 

 and tin containers to hold the honey. Well, 

 I have always urged, and I urge more par- 

 ticularly jiist now, tliat the whole wide 

 world should unite in making the shortest 

 possible cut between producer and consum- 

 er. During these war times tliere is a big 

 excuse for" the middleman to put prices 

 away up. and the poor consumer lias no 

 means of telling whether there is an honest 

 reason for the big advance or no reascm at 

 all except to satisf'y the greed of the middle- 

 men. 



I said to Mr. Calvert, '' Look here, John, 

 why not advise beekeepers to carry theii' 

 honey around the neighborhood in bulk and 

 ask the good women to bring out a pitclier 



.July, 1917 



or fruit-jar and 

 get what they 

 require?" 



Mr. C a 1 vert 

 replied that the 

 above plan was 

 always safe and 

 honest, a n d 

 would be a tre- 

 mendous saving 

 in the end. 



Now, friends, 

 why cannot the 

 Ijrodueer load 

 up his butter 

 and eggs, and 

 honey, and carry 

 them around to 

 the consumers ? 

 Yes, it takes 

 time, I know; but it will be a tremendously 

 big saving by cutting off this business of 

 robbing both i)roducei' and consumer by 

 the cheats that are all tlie time going on in 

 tlie transfer of these necessai'ies of life from 

 the producer to the consumer"? Just an- 

 other thing right here: 



If the man who carries around lus hon- 

 ey, butter, and eggs is a good man (I 

 should like to say a follower of the Lord 

 Jesus Christ) he will very soon establish 

 friendly nelations with all Ms patrons. 

 They will learn to love him, and he will 

 learn to love them ; and this spirit of cliarity 

 and kindliness will grow up on both sides 

 so a misunderstanding or a jangle about 

 prices will be almost an impossibility. 



Well, in thinking over my various hob- 

 bies, and in running over hastily yester- 

 day's Plain Dealer I came on to something 

 that gave me ([uite a " jolt." Here it is: 



All the inhabitants of an Indiana village turned 

 out with pitchforks the other day to shovel in thou- 

 sands of German carp that were blocking the river. 

 That's carrying the war into the interior, all right! 



Our older readers will remember that fish 

 culture, especially growing German carp, 

 was at one time a hobby of mine ; and after 

 reading the clipping I turned to chapter 41 

 of the book " How to be Happy," etc., that 

 was lying on my table. If you have the 

 book, perhaps you had better turn over to 

 that chapter. A good friend of mine, who 

 was an entliusiastic beekeeper also, became 

 interested in growing German carp; and he 

 succeeded so well that he advertised and sold 

 little fishes to start a carp-pond for only 

 $1.25 a hundred. I paid him a visit and 

 looked over his ponds, one below another, 

 between the hills of Medina Co.; and I do 

 not think I ever spent a happier hour. It 

 happened so many years ago that Huber, 

 who went along, was but a small boy. 



