1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1449 



me such a place should be explored and 

 opened up, and these air-currents utilized 

 for some purpose. Perhaps some of our 

 readers can tell us more about the breathing 

 wells and caves found in different places 

 throughout this wonderful earth which the 

 kind and gracious Father has given us to 

 live in, to study, and to explore. 



O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom 

 hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. 

 -Psalm 104 : 24. 



"iiomcs 



".RjBoi 



Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: 

 I came not to send peace, but a sword. — Matt. 10: 34. 



Woe unto them which justify the wicked for re- 

 ward. . . and listen to bloody men whose right 

 hand is full of bribes.— Isa. .5:23; Psalm 26:10. 



Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 

 sin of the world!- John 1: 29. 



I clip the following from a recent number 

 of that excellent home paper the Rural New- 

 Yorker: 



Hen-roosts are so systematically raided in Pike Co., 

 Illinois, that the supervisors of that " district " want 

 the State legislature to enact a law making- chicken- 

 stealing a penitentiary offense. The supervisors ex- 

 plained that the hen crop of the State was greater 

 than its wheat crop, and that fully one-fourth of the 

 chicks were stolen annually. So earnest was the plea 

 that the Society of Supervisors. Clerks, and Commis- 

 sioners of Illinois, which closed its convention in 

 Waukegan. October II, adopted the resolution. 



If any thing moves my indignation, it is to 

 hear about thieves stealing the chickens 

 reared with great care and pains by farm- 

 ers' wives and children scattered through- 

 out our land. It is indeed commendable to 

 see not only the good wife but the boys and 

 girls engage in poultry-raising on their own 

 farms or around their own homes. This 

 outdoor work takes them out under God's 

 clear sky, and puts them in touch with na- 

 ture — yes, just as bee-keeping puts folks, 

 little and big, in touch with God and his 

 works. Some of you may remember that I 

 mentioned stopping for a few days at a 

 farmer's home in the southern part of this 

 State. With much pains the good wife had 

 got a fine lot of chickens of some choice 

 breed. Her last work at night was to shut 

 them vip where rats and other vermin could 

 not get them; and her first work in the 

 morning was to let them out and see them 

 enjoy their liberty and their food. Just a 

 few days before my arrival she went out 

 with her dishes of feed, opened the door, 

 and called, but not a chicken came forth. A 

 thief had come in the night and taken the 

 fruit of all her hard labor. She sat down 

 and cried. Now, friends, let me explain to 

 you that this woman was under the doctor's 

 care for consumption. Some of the time 



she could hardly speak a loud word. She 

 had been raising the chickens so that she 

 might be as much as possible in the open 

 air. They were on a rented farm, and were 

 obliged to use a degree of economy that 

 many of us know little about. All the mem- 

 bers of the family were working early and 

 late, striving hard to make both ends meet: 

 and yet some wretch in human form came 

 and robbed her of the result of all her hard 

 work from early spring to the middle of 

 summer. But that is not all. Poultry-thiev- 

 ing was so common in that locality that it 

 was almost an every-day (or every-night) af- 

 fair. On one occasion the farmer got out, 

 saw the thieves, and ordered them to stop. 

 When he threatened to make them trouble 

 they picked up a gun and ordered him off. 

 Now, I can not remember the full circum- 

 stances; but either this same thief or another 

 one like him was caught as he was going 

 into the city of Dayton. He laughed at his 

 pursuers; and when they tried to take the 

 law on him, through some technicality he got 

 off scott free. Do you wonder the farmers 

 in that region are becoming discouraged, 

 and that their wives are becoming discour- 

 aged, and begin to say it is no use to try to 

 raise chickens or any thing else? When I 

 heard this story I wondered that circum- 

 stances were so different there from wjhat 

 they are here in our own county. We let 

 our bees stand out in the open fields the 

 year round. Our chickens roost in open 

 sheds, without a door or padlock. Fruit and 

 other property are all around, and as a rule 

 it is safe from one year's end to the other. 

 Do y(m want to know how this comes about? 

 Medina has no saloons, and has not had 

 one for more than twenty years. The thiev- 

 ing done in the southern part of the State, 

 which I have just been telling you about, 

 was close to the great city of Dayton. That 

 city has a population of 86,000; and by the 

 aid of Dun and Bradstreet I have been able 

 to count up two liundred and Jiftij-six sa- 

 loons! I do not know much about Pike Co., 

 111. Will some of our readers who live there 

 or in that vicinity tell us whether this state- 

 ment in the Rural can really be true? and 

 will they also tell us about the saloons of 

 Pike Co. ? I find thei'e are two large cities 

 close to Pike Co. Hannibal, Mo., has about 

 12,000 people; and that city has 88 saloons. 

 or about 3 for every 1000 inhabitants. Quin- 

 cy. 111., with 36,000 people, has 89 saloons, to 

 say nothing of the wholesale liquor-stores — 

 pretty nearly 3 saloons to each 1000 inhabi- 

 tants. My impression is that the saloons in 

 Hannibal are shut up nights and Sundays. 

 If they were not. Gov. Folk would be after 

 them. In Quincy, I am afraid they run all 

 the time. 



Do you wish to know what saloons have to 

 do with stealing chickens? Well, the man 

 who who will steal chickens, especially from 

 the farmers' wives and children, is u.sually a 

 man who will do anything to get the where- 

 with for drink. He will steal the shoes off 

 from his baby's feet in zero weather, prompt- 

 ed by the hellish appetite. The saloons are 



