March, 1922 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



159 



those wliii'h are left. Indeed, the roots of 

 two of tlie perennials in Eootville were so 

 closely entwined that it was deemed best 

 not to try to separate them, and therefore 

 both were moved to California at the same 

 time. Those perennials were my sister and 

 myself, who have such similar tastes that 

 we married brothers and have lived side by 

 side practically all our married lives. I 

 suspect our gardeners knew it would be ex- 

 tremely risky to attempt to separate the 

 two families. 



IN the case of perennials, not young, which 

 have never been moved, it is a shock 



from wliich it is hard to recover when the 

 home is sold. The house is not the home, 

 and yet, when the house was planned and 

 built by your husband and yourself at the 

 time you were married, more than 23 years 

 ago, when your three children were born in 

 it, when you have remodeled and improved 

 it from time to time, when you have planted 

 shrubbery and flowers around it, you love 

 every stick and stone in it, and the disman- 

 tling and giving up possession is a keen 

 sorrow. 



In our own case it seemed to me that in 

 those last few weeks I could read in the 

 dear old house a chronicle of the love and 

 thoughtfulness of my husband and cliildren. 

 At one time we removed a partition to 

 make a large living room with fireplace 

 where we loved to gather as a family. At 

 another time a large sleeping porch, with 

 three sides all wide, canvas windows, had 

 been built to insure an abundance of fresh 

 air and coolness for me at a time when I 

 was out of health. Underneath the sleeping 

 porch was a greenhouse or sunroom where I 

 could coax a bit of spring into an Ohio 

 winter. 



The kitchen floor is covered with inlaid 

 linoleum, firmly cemented all over the floor 

 by the head of the house himself because 

 the so-called "experts" would not do it 

 according to the homemaker's ideas. Inci- 

 dentally that floor was a joy to take care 

 of. It never bulged and cracked nor shrank 

 from the wall, and an occasional waxing 

 made it easy to keep clean. 



Adjoining the kitchen was the little 

 breakfast alcove, designed to save the 

 homemaker's steps, and underneath the 

 edge of the gas range was the convenient 

 dust chute, the description of which in 

 these pages brought so many letters from 

 interested readers. 



A part of the house at which the head of 

 the family felt much regret at leaving was 

 the large attic den, lined with bookshelves 

 and containing an office desk and convenient 

 cupboards for a large stamp collection. 

 There was also a pool table, for the den 

 was originally designed as a room for the 

 two boys of the family. When one of the 

 boys went to college and the other boy rode 

 his wireless hobby in the basement at all 



times and seasons, the den was left to dad 

 and he made good use of it. I am inclined 

 to think all men like one room in a house 

 which has not a feminine touch about it. 

 And I suspect the young wireless enthusi- 

 ast felt an equal amount of regret at dis- 

 mantling his apparatus in the basement. 

 You see attics and basements do not seem 

 to' be popular in California. 



TO return to the subject of transplanting 

 perennials: — When our gardeners accom- 

 • plished the feat of getting us to Cali- 

 fornia they deemed it best not to try to 

 set us out in permanent locations immedi- 

 ately and so secured one large pot into 

 which they carefully placed us both, set- 

 tling all the little roots, firming down the 

 soil and watering plentifully. It was a 

 wise precaution, for no sooner were those 

 plants in the pot than the mercury began 

 to slip down in the thermometer until that 

 California thermometer looked so much like 

 one in Ohio that you never could have told 

 the difference. I believe it slipped clear 

 down to 20° above zero in our vicinity, altho 

 I am not sure it is good form for a Californ- 

 ian to mention it in writing to people who 

 are still in the East. If you know anything 

 about transplanting perennials, you know 

 that even the hardy varieties will not stand 

 freezing very well immediately after trans- 

 planting. However, thanks to the precau- 

 tions of our gardeners we have stood it very 

 well, even if we did droop a little for a 

 few days. 



But that weather really was very unusual. 

 There, didn't I say that just like a Cali- 

 fornian of two years instead of two weeks? 

 I have also learned to say "another perfect 

 day", and "this is real California weath- 

 er. ' ' But this cold weather was extremely 

 unusual, for I believe no colder has been 

 recorded by the weather bureau in this re- 

 gion, with one exception. And it froze so 

 many nights in succession. Being accus- 

 tomed to the cold out of doors in winter we 

 should not have minded it except for our 

 sympathy for the citrus growers and our 

 sorrow at the temporary blighting of so 

 much beauty; but when the gas pressure 

 went lower and lower until it reached the 

 vanishing point and the temperature of 

 that "furnace-heated" house went down 

 with it, our spirits followed. 



But sunshine always returns in Califor- 

 nia, and we soon found we could keep fair- 

 ly comfortable by staying on the sunny 

 side of the house. In our rides with real 

 estate agents to look up permanent homes, 

 my sister and I have tried to impress it 

 upon them that we must have houses every 

 room of which has either a southern or east- 

 ern exposure, the former for the sunshine 

 and the latter for the views of the moun- 

 tains. We haven 't found them as yet. A 

 north room in California is an abomination, 

 at least at this time of year. Why is the 

 (Continued on page 185.) 



