September, 192n 



C I, K \ N' I \ (i S T X I'. K K <' r I, 'I' r H K 



5r)7 



[\ 



(irks 

 love 



sliineth nion 

 I'Rov. 4:18. 



ONE oT the 

 great piiv 

 ilegx's () I' 

 my busy litV lias 

 been the oppor- 

 tunities 1 ha\f 

 had to be in 

 dose toiu'li witli 

 some of the 

 g:reat and good 

 men of the pres- 

 ent e e n t II r y : 

 and T liave often 

 wondered h o w 

 it happened 

 that so many 

 c a ]> able men, 



foUege professors and others, liave stopped 

 their work to talk with me and answer ques- 

 tions of a backwoods farmer's boy who 

 never had an opportunity to get more than 

 a common-school education. When I was 

 of a veiy early age 1 showed my love of 

 l)ooks and wanting to know what was go- 

 ing on in this great world. My parents 

 discussed the matter of sending n\e to col- 

 lege; but we were a family of seven. There 

 were three older and three younger than my- 

 self. My good father started alone back 

 in the woods. In fact, he cut down the 

 trees to build the log house where I was 

 born, and it did not seem possible to save 

 up the means to send me away to school. 

 Well, in this Home paper I wish to make 

 a brief mention of three great and good 

 men with whom it has been my privilege to 

 be in close touch dui-ing the past 50 or 

 60 years. My zeal for bee culture brought 

 me in touch with Prof. A. J. Cook; and as 

 our acquaintance ripened we found there 

 were many rural subjects, aside from bees, 

 wliere we were in close accord. From child- 

 liood up I have always been greatly inter- 

 ested in maple-sugar making. This was 

 one of Professor Cook's hobbies ; and at 

 my solicitation he finally gave the world his 

 little book, ''Maple Sugar and the Sugar 

 Bush." In the preface to that book I 

 mentioned visiting his home in Lansing, 

 Mich., and forming the acquaintance of 

 liis good wife and two bright children — a 

 boy and a girl. If I am con-ect. Prof. A. J. 

 Cook was one of the first if not the ven/ 

 first to introduce spraying for the preserva- 

 tion of fruit and other farm crops. Of 

 course, others took up and developed it 

 further later on. I think Professor Cook 

 also suggested county farmers' institutes 

 and put it in practice to a certain extent. 

 The wonderful development of bee culture 

 in the State of Michigan was owing largely 

 to l\is efforts. At one of tlie beekeepers" 







OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



Aiul tlicii' V 

 Thou slialt 

 19:18. 



Tlie patli nf the .iust is as the shining light that 



do idllosv thum. — REV. 14:13. 

 thy neighbor as thyself — Lev. 



and more nnfo the perfect da\ 



conventions, in- 

 stead of letting 

 one iiiaii or ]iei'- 

 h a ]i s two o r 

 three men do all 

 the t a 1 k i n g. 

 friend Cook sug- 

 gested we should 

 hear b r i e f 1 y 

 from every one 

 present. 1 won- 

 der if that would 

 not be a pretty 

 g'ood thing some- 

 times nowadays. 

 Well, at one of 

 these c o n v e n- 

 tions Professoi- Cook said somethinii like 

 this: 



"Now we want to lieai- .something from 

 that boy away over in the coiiier. He can 

 certainly give us a little talk if lie does no! 

 choose to do more.'' 



The boy in the corner, altho somewhat 

 emban-assed at being made so conspicuous, 

 stated briefly that their bees were kept in a 

 sort of company arrangement, and that he 

 and his father were the "company." At 

 this Professor Cook suggested that it was 

 a grand idea, and he did not know of any 

 better business arrangement in the whole 

 wide world than to have a boy in company 

 with his father.* 



After some years we had a county far- 

 mer's institute here in Ohio, and by that 

 time I had become considerably interested 

 in agriculture, especially in gardening, and 

 I happened to be present when T. B. Terry 

 gave one of his famous talks in regard to 

 l^otato-growing. Instead of a lot of theoriz- 

 ing he told exactly what he had done on a 

 neglected run-dow-n farm near Hudson, 0. 

 He told how he got out the stumps, then 

 laid the tile foi- drainage, even if it was a 

 gi-avelly hill. Then he told us how he grew 

 clover and turned the clover under and 

 grew potatoes, and got more and better po- 

 toes (and sold them at a higher piice in 

 the then rapidly growing town of Akron) 

 than any of the old farmers could grow. 

 While Mr. Terry was not a college profes- 

 sor, he was, if T am correct, a college grad- 

 uate. After the lecture was over I asked 

 him if what he had told us had ever been 

 put in print. He said it had not. "Then," 

 said I, "Friend Terry, your talk toniglit 

 must be jnit in the fonn of a little book ; 

 and I want you to get at it at once, and I 

 will send out the book." T think our book 



*This i.s now 

 at the head of 

 |{()ol Coinpan.x. 



my .son-in-law, Mr. A. T,. Royden, 

 the honev bu.siness of The A. t. 



