714 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



NOVEMBEE, 1921 



day. As a natural consequence, during all 

 these years n:en, women, girls, and boys 

 have been coming to me wanting a job. 

 Some good men who now stand away up in 

 some of our great cities once worked for 

 me, when they were little kids, for five cents 

 an hour, and one or two for even three cents 

 an hour. We have had many a laugh over 

 it. Sometimes an applicant has said to me 

 in substance, ' ' Mr. Eoot, if you will show 

 'lie what you want done I will do the best 

 I can, and you may decide what you can af- 

 ford to pay." My son-in-law, J. T. Calvert, 

 worked in our apiary in just that way, and 

 for a time, he got a raise almost every week 

 until he finally became general manager 

 for the entire A. I. Root Company. I have 

 tried all along these years starting tramps 

 at work who claimed that they could not 

 get a job; but the greater part of them, I 

 soon discovered, were not very anxious to 

 get a job at fair wages. By the "way, it 

 just now occurs to me what a tremendous 

 difference there is in humanity in this mat- 

 ter of finding something to do. Just think 

 of it! a full-grown man with average intel- 

 lect unemployed because there seems to be 

 no chance to do honest work, and at the 

 same time, right near, perhaps in his next- 

 door neighbor we find a man like Ford who 

 employs men by the thousands, paying them 

 unheard-of wages, and at the same time is 

 a blessing to the whole world in this mat- 

 ter of transportation. Our doing away with 

 intoxicants and opiates is certainly going to 

 be a great help. 



I have not touched on the matter of 

 strikes in the above; but while I agree that 

 it is certainly right and proper for working- 

 men to have some sort of union, it certainly 

 is neither right nor Christianlike for any 

 man, who sees fit to refuse the pay offered 

 him, to stand in the way, or to put stum- 

 bling blocks in the path, of those who would 

 be glad to do the work and receive the pay 

 that he has declined to accept. 



THE HIGH COST OF LIVING, THE HIGH 



COST OF GETTING SICK, AND 



THE HIGH COST OF DYING. 



Something About a Still Shorter Cut Be- 

 tween Producer and Consumer. 



Mrs. Eoot and I lately stepped into a Me- 

 dina grocery. After making our purchases 

 we both noticed a very attractive package 

 on top of a glass showcase, labeled "Gra- 

 ham Crackers. ' ' Now, I am great on every- 

 thing graham; but I want the pure wheat — 

 not any sugar nor anything else. I think this 

 attractive package read something like 

 this: "Ninety-nine per cent pure wheat." I 

 asked the grocer if they were sweetened. He 

 said they were not, and so we took the pack- 

 age. When we reached home I also read, 

 "6l^ ounces net." The price was -0 cent?. 

 You can readily figure that we paid about 



50 cents a pound for our graham crackers, 

 where the real wheat ("99 per cent pure") 

 brings the farmer, just now, less than 3 

 cents a pound. How is that for economy in 

 the household, or to reduce the high cost of 

 living? The producer gets less than 3 cents, 

 and the consumer pays close to 50 cents a 

 pound. 



Yes, I have had this matter up before; 

 but, God helping me, I am going to keep 

 bringing it up for several years yet. The 

 graham crackers are not alone; almost 

 everything you buy at the grocery, espe- 

 cially if it is put up in small attractive 

 packages, is a good deal in the line of that 

 little package. ,You pay for the pasteboard, 

 you pay for expensive printing, you pay for 

 handling; and if you will go into the gro- 

 ceries and investigate, as to almost every- 

 thing put up in packages, you will find the 

 same result. 



Down in Florida last winter the only oys- 

 ter crackers we could get were 30 cents a 

 pound in bulk. If you bought Uneeda bis- 

 cuits or any other kind of crackers in pack- 

 ages the price was more than 30 cents a 

 pound. Later the crackers came down to 25 

 cents, and I do not know but one store made 

 a specialty of some kind of crackers in bulk 

 for only 20 cents. I sent to Sears, Roebuck 

 & Co. for a 12-pound box of very nice crack- 

 ers, and they cost only IJf cents a pound; 

 but the freight was so much, even with a 

 lot of other stuff, that it was not much of 

 a saving after all. Today (Oct. 5) at a 

 "cash and carry" grocery, right across the 

 railroad tracks from our factories, very nice 

 oyster crackers are only 14e per pound. 



Now, where is the remedy? I do not pro- 

 pose to make a kick against our grocers or 

 anybody else unless I have something to 

 offer in the way of a remedy. Grind your 

 wheat in your own home in a coffee-mill. If 

 there are not "kids" enough in your fam- 

 ily, either boys or girls, to turn the mill, 

 have it done by means of an electric motor 

 or a little cheap gasoline engine. By the 

 way, you will not need any more ingredients 

 to make a most wholesome and appetizing 

 substitute for either bread or crackers. You 

 can boil the wheat whole until it cracks- 

 open; but this takes a lot of time and con- 

 siderable fuel, and therefore it is a saving 

 all around to grind the wheat. Just crack 

 it and it will cook very much quicker. 

 "Cracked wheat" has been so much talked 

 about for years past that I do not need to 

 elaborate. 



I have been having quite a lot of auto- 

 mobile rides lately thru the country, and I 

 have kept saying "thank the Lord" men- 

 tally, even if I did not say it out loud. Do 

 you know why? Well, just of late we have 

 been enjoying a beautiful macadam road 

 between Medina and Cleveland. No matter 

 what the weather is, my little electric auto 

 spins like a top up hill and down. Well, 

 since this good road was finished there is 

 an almost constant stream of automobiles 



