322 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



What does it all amount to? you may ask. 

 Well, vicious men have stopped swearing; 

 stopped beating their horses; cruelty to ani- 

 mals and swearing are out of fashion; bet- 

 ter yet, men as fast as they are converted 

 go to paying up their old debts; to making 

 friends with those with whom they have 

 quarreled; and where there have been differ- 

 t-rces in deals each side vies with the other 

 in showing a liberal spirit and in bearing 

 more than his share if necessary. One can 

 rot help saying as did Nicodemus when he 

 met Jesus by night, "Rabbi, we know that 

 thou art a teacher come from God; for no 

 man can do these miracles except God be 

 with him. ' ' And no man who sees this work 

 of grace going on in Wales can for a mo- 

 ment doubt that it comes from God. 



The tract* concludes by saying, " Can we 

 copy their method?" Dr. Morgan would 

 not undertake it. Do we need to go to 

 Wales to learn how? Not at all. It is God's 

 work. All we can do is to be ready and to 

 fall in line and help it along when it comes 

 near us— to be, as the Bible expresses it, 

 like clay in the hands of the potter, and let 

 the Holy Spirit fashion us. 



Now, friends, I leave it to you. Am I 

 not right in saying Wales is giving the world 

 a ghmpseof this wonderful river that makes 

 men honest? Oh that our millionaires, the 

 men who are managing our great trusts, 

 could get a glimpse and a good big drink of 

 these living waters! that they might of their 

 own accord heed the promptings of the Holy 

 Spirit within their own hearts, and cease 

 oppressing their fellow- men — cease covet- 

 ing " the whole earth," and delight in help- 

 ing along our great industries, with their 

 hearts overflowing in Christian love for 

 every one of their fellow- men, whether he 

 be in their own line of business or some 

 other. God hasten the day! 



We have just had a Sunday-school lesson 

 about Jesus' talk with the woman at the 

 well, wherein he said, " Whosoever drinketh 

 of the water that I shall give him shall nev- 

 er thirst." 



In the above beautiful ^yords spoken by 

 the Master to that Samaritan woman, there 

 is, it is true, nothing particularly said about 

 his followers being truthful and honest, and 

 fair in deal; but would not this, as a matter 

 of course, be included? And is it not true, 

 as in the figure I used in the fore part of 

 my talk, that whosoever drinketh of the 

 water that Jesus gives shall be, in the very 

 nature of things, unable to tell an untruth 

 afterward, knowingly, or to be unfair or un- 

 just with his fellow-men? If this is true, 

 shall we not all say, in the language of that 

 poor sinful woman, "Sir, give me this wa- 

 ter that I thirst not, neither come hither to 

 draw "? 



* The tract I have been describing has 16 pafires, and is 

 fumifhed frf e of charge to all. Address A. P. Fitt, 250 

 La Salle St., Chicagro. 111. If you feel inclined to help 

 bear the burden of printing these tracts, sending them 

 by mail. etc.. you can also send some stamps or money, 

 just as the Holy Spirit prompts you to do, to the above 

 address. 



SWEET CLOVER, NITROGEN NODULES, ETC. 



Just now the government and a good many- 

 other people are waking up to the great value 

 of sweet clover through some unexpected 

 developments in the nitrogen-nodule busi- 

 ness. The information comes through our 

 agricultural periodicals, and from those who 

 are not bee-keepers and in no way interested 

 in the honey business. Sweet clover has 

 shown itself to be one of the readiest plants 

 to get hold of the bacteria and produce nitro- 

 gen nodules. Dig up a sweet-clover plant 

 in any vicinity and you will probably find 

 them in plenty. If not, treat the seed by 

 the government formula, and see how 

 quickly it takes hold of it. Now, it has 

 been commented on again and again for 

 years through our bee journals that sweet 

 clover thrives where no other plant will 

 grow— barren hillsides, railroad embank- 

 ments, along roadsides, etc. Why will sweet 

 clover thrive where no other plant will grow? 

 Perhaps nobody ever thought of it, and I did 

 not until I noticed the way in which the new 

 developments were running. Why, bless 

 your heart, friends, sweet clover gets its 

 fertility by getting nitrogen from the air. 

 It does not seem to care whether there is 

 any fertility in the soil or not. In fact, it 

 rather seems to prefer barren soils providing 

 the ground is well drained, either naturally 

 or artificially. Now, the next refreshing 

 point is that the bacteria that come from 

 sweet clover are so nearly allied to that 

 from alfalfa, its near relative, that they 

 work interchangeably; and one of our agri- 

 cultural papers suggests that the quickest 

 way to get these bacteria into the soil is to 

 start with sweet clover. You may remem- 

 ber that I wrote up the fact while in Salt 

 Lake City and that region, that sweet clover 

 has the remarkable property of sweetening 

 their bad alkaline soil so that the ground 

 will produce any other crop. We have not 

 heard very much of late in regard to sweet 

 clover being a noxious weed that cattle, 

 horses, pigs, etc., would not eat. 



Just one thing more : You may remember 

 that the Ohio Experiment Station stated a 

 few years ago that a moderate growth of 

 sweet clover plowed under produced a won- 

 derful effect in increasing the crop of wheat 

 that was put in the ground afterward. The 

 sweet clover was on a streak running 

 through the field. Where it grew, the- 

 increase was away ahead of that on the 

 remaining part of the field. 



There is one queer trouble with the sweet 

 clover, however. It seems to be a difficult 

 matter to get a good stand of it on most 

 soils. Where it goes to seed, and the seed 

 drops on the ground and springs up itself, it 

 comes up with rank luxuriance, covering the 

 ground with a heavy crop. IBut when we- 



