954 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



began offering' little packets of flower seeds 

 for three cents a p iper. or four packets for 

 a dime I thougfht at the time he was gret- 

 ting thp price exceedingly low, and watched 

 his publications year after year to see how 

 he held out. His particular bent seemed 

 along the line of supplying poor people— yes, 

 very poor people— with the means of having 

 s^me flowers and plants, not only in windows, 

 but around in little bits of dooryards, bright- 

 ening their humble homes; and I tell you, 

 friends, such an undertaking is no small 

 matter in this land of ours. The care of 

 flowers and the sight of flowers may do more 

 for directing the steps of many people in the 

 way of "stepping heavenward" than any- 

 body knows. Two or three years ago I be- 

 gan testing some of these very cheap flower 

 seeds. I have told the result through Glean- 

 ings. I have also mentioned that friend 

 Park has for some time offered valuable 

 plants for so small a sum one could hardly 

 understand how he could make it pay ex- 

 penses. Let me illustrate: "~~ 



Some years ago there was a new tree ad- 

 vertised, and it was called a honey- plant— 

 the Paulownia Imperialis. Even though the 

 trees were $L50 apiece I invested in one. 

 It grew with wonderful rapidity, and was 

 the admiration of the neighborhood for a 

 number of years, when it finally died. Since 

 then I have thought of trying the Paulownia 

 again. About a year ago I was delighted to 

 find it in friend Park's list of plants sent by 

 mail postpaid for only four or five cents each, 

 where you bought half a dozen or more, of 

 the Paulownia. I uttered an exclamation 

 of surprise, and picked out some more plants 

 to go with it (to make a i doz.), and got the 

 order off at once. The plant that came was 

 rather small ajid insignificant-looking, it is 

 true; but I put it in a little pot, and in a 

 very few days it showed the peculiar char- 

 acteristic of that plant or tree, rather. I 

 think it was in August when I put it in the 

 ground outdoors; but when the frost came it 

 was three or four feet high. Thinking I 

 started it too late to winter over I paid no 

 more attention to it. This spring, when the 

 weather began to get warm, it shot up from 

 the roots and commenced again to put out 

 its great leaves, and, like Jack's beanstalk, 

 it is now four feet high, and one of its leaves 

 is 23 in. across. Friend Park, in his descrip- 

 tion of the plant, says the leaves are some- 

 times 14 inches wide; so you see he did not 

 tell all of it. even in a florist's catalog; and 

 I believe this is characteristic of the man. 

 You do not find in his catalog any "billion- 

 dollar oats" nor "mortgage lifter potatoes. " 

 He may have just as good seed, but he does 

 not talk about them in that way. At the 

 same time I got the Paulownia, I planted a 

 couple of campanulas, or Canterbury bells. 

 Instead of sending me plants for only four 

 cents each, I received a little clump that I 

 separated so as to make half a dozen. For 

 lack of room I put them down by the auto- 

 house; and when they came in bloom Mrs. 

 Root told me I had put the prettiest flowers 

 on all the grounds away out of sight where 



nobody could see them. The flowers are 

 bell- shaped, of ever so many shades of color. 

 Once more, in passing a country home a few 

 days ago I was startled by a plant in a door- 

 yard, three or four feet high, with delight- 

 ful dark-green foliage, and such a mass of 

 scarlet bloom that I stopped and went in to 

 investigate. The place belonged to a bee- 

 keeper, and so I was soon quite at home. 

 The plant they called the perennial pea, and 

 it winters out of doors without any trouble 

 at all. As soon as I got home I looked over 

 several catalogs and found perennial peas 

 for 30 or 40 cents a plant. Then I thought 

 I would look in Park's list of cheap plants, 

 and there it was, sure enough, different col- 

 ors, in his four and five cent list. This de- 

 cided me that I would not wait any longer, 

 but I would go and see how this friend of 

 olden times sells things so cheap. He is lo- 

 cated about 60 miles west of Philadelphia. 

 His whole establishment is run by water 

 power. Right in front of the factory is one 

 of the handsomest round beds of pansies I 

 ever saw in my life. Other beautiful plants 

 were scattered everywhere. 



The first piece of machinery that took my 

 eye as we stepped into the factory was a 

 new printing-press that takes a big roll of 

 paper in at one end and turns out magazines 

 all stitched, trimmed, and ready for use at 

 the other. A boy takes out the magazines 

 and packs them in boxes. The machine it- 

 self does all the rest. Only two people are 

 required to operate it. A man sits near the 

 machine, holding a lever to stop it quick- 

 ly if any thing should go wrong. But I 

 judge, from what I saw while I was there, 

 he does not have very much to do. Now, I 

 can not take time to tell you of all the won- 

 derful machines in that great humming bee- 

 hive; but I will just mention one more. It 

 is also an automatic machine that goes by 

 water power. It puts up packets of garden 

 and flower seeds. I never knew before how 

 it is that Bro. Park offers ten packets of gar- 

 den seeds for a dime, postpaid. In answer 

 to my questions he said something like this: 



"Why, Bro. Root, there are lots of poor 

 people in this country who find it a hard 

 matter to pay even a nickel each for a pack- 

 et of feeds. Besides, they do not want a 

 whole packet. They have only a little bit 

 of ground, only room enough for a few things 

 of a kind. Seeds enough for a dozen cab- 

 bage-plants is all they need. If there were 

 any left they would probably be lost before 

 another season comes around. Well, you 

 can give this machine 2 lbs. of cabbage 

 seed for instance, and tell it to put 20 seeds 

 in a packet, and keep on doing it till you 

 come around again, and ask it to do some- 

 thing else. The machine says 'All right,' 

 and goes to work. It will put up seeds all 

 day, and, as it goes by water power, all 

 night for that matter, without anybody to 

 watch it. It counts correctly, does not for- 

 get what it is about, does not loaf, nor ac- 

 quire bad habits. Now, as long as it would 

 just as soon work as stand still, why not let 

 it go ahead and thus help the poor people?" 



