November, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



W 



K 



'H I L E I 



write we 



are told 

 there are some 

 over five mil- 

 lions of unem- 

 ployed people ill 

 our land. I think 

 o n.e statement 

 made it seven 

 millions. I do 

 not know wheth- 

 er the statement 

 was intended to 

 apply to men 

 only, but I have 

 not seen any- 

 thing in regard 

 to the "great 

 army" of unemployed (jirls and vomcn. 

 Here in Medina Mrs. Eoot finds it a difficult 

 matter to find a woman, young or old, who 

 is willing to come and do washing. She 

 usually has a very good woman who comes 

 quite regularly once in two weeks; but as 

 she is the mother of five children^ it is some- 

 times inconvenient for her to come for only 

 about two hours, and at such times there 

 does not seem to be anybody to take her 

 place. Down in our Florida home she did 

 finally get a colored woman to clean house; 

 but her bill for seven hours' work was $3.50 

 — just twice what I paid Wesley for work 

 in the garden. 



About 35 years ago, when there was con- 

 siderable talk about the ' ' great army of un- 

 employed, ' ' I wrote a book entitled ' ' What 

 to Do, and How to Be Hapi^y While Doing 

 It." I think we printed about 10,000 copies, 

 and they have all been sold with the ex- 

 ception of about two dozen. I hope they 

 are still doing good. In that book I tried 

 to point out something for idle men or idle 

 women to do. It was mostly along the line 

 of making garden, keeping chickens, etc. 

 After reading a part of the book today, I 

 still think my instructions were sound. If 

 the man who' is out of work has a little 

 place of his own (as every man with a 

 family should have), let him go to work 

 making garden or fixing up that little home. 

 When the people around him can see that 

 he is both busy and industrious, and skill- 

 ful as well (especially the latter), somebody 

 will have something for him to do. I am 

 scanning the dailies now every day to sec 

 what our Government is doing to find work 

 for the unemployed, and I am pleased to 

 note that making better roads has been sug- 

 gested. After the trip that Ernest and I 

 made a year ago from Ohio to Florida, we 

 certainly are prepared to appreciate good 

 Jiard roads. 1 now enjoy riding over such 

 a road, in a way I never could have done 

 had it not been for that trip; and it is a 

 part of everyday prayer (or almost every 

 day), that God will bless the efforts that 

 are being made to make it easier for the 

 farmers to get the product of their toil up 



OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



"WHiatsoever thy liand findeth to do, do it with 

 thy mi?ht. — Ecc. 9:10. 



In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. — 

 Gen. 3:19. 



I have been young, and now am old; yet have 

 I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed beg- 

 ging bread. — PsALXt 37:25. 



713 



nearer the con- 

 sumer. Nothing 

 is more needed 

 just now than 

 short cuts along 

 that line. Good 

 roads will help 

 it more than al- 

 m s t anything 

 else, 



On page 582 

 of our Septem- 

 ber issue is 

 something about 

 what I discov- 

 ered years ago; 

 and that is, 

 womankind can 

 do almost any 

 kind of work that men can do; and not 

 only, that, in a good many cases, they do it 

 even better. When the war took the men 

 away, our factories and great offices discov- 

 ered that women and girls, especially the 

 stenographers, could get along very well in 

 the absence of the men. Now that the war 

 is over these good women have been a little 

 reluctant to give up their places in the great 

 business world; and my impression is that 

 many of the emplouers have been reluctant 

 about asking them to step ' ' down and out. ' ' 

 This is one reason for those five millions of 

 workmen being unemployed. 



Just one more thing while I am about it: 

 The girls and women do not use cigarettes, 

 nor tobacco in any form. They are more 

 tidy in their habits; they take better care 

 of their sbrroundings; they do not fill the 

 room with smoke; they do not gossip (I am 

 not overstating this matter, am I?); they 

 do not tell filthy stories; and last, but by 

 no means least, they are not absent from 

 business on Monday morning on account of 

 having been out on a spree the day before. 

 ^ As you know, there are various organiza- 

 tions just now up in front in regard to do- 

 ing something for the unemployed. I think 

 our good President Harding has been con- 

 spicuous in the movement. Investigation 

 has been made as to the reasons idiy these 

 men could not get a job. I have not at 

 hand the result of these investigations; but 

 I think the greater part of these unem- 

 ployed men are not skilled workmen. They 

 are not even day laborers, accustomed to 

 good strong muscular work. I remember 

 hearing of one man, who seemed to be a fair 

 sample, when interviewed and offered a job, 

 before accepting it, said he wanted to know 

 what he was to do, what pay he would get, 

 and how many hours were to be considered 

 a day's work. As you doubtless all know, I 

 have been employing people more or less all 

 my life. I think the statement was once made 

 by some periodical that I never did a day's 

 work in my life, for anybody else. This 

 statement, however, was a little overdrawn. 

 I remember distinctly riding a horse in my 

 boyhood, to cultivate corn for 25 cents a 



