778 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



OUR 



HOMES, 



BY A. I. R OOT. 



Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, 

 and he that hath no money; come * * * —Isaiah 55 : 1. 



You will notice, friends, I have placed the 

 same text above my talk to-day that I used 

 in the last issue, and I want to go back with 

 you to the Oberlin waterworks plant. When 

 I first reached the grounds my eye caught a 

 glimpse of a large plant in full bloom that I 

 had never seen before; but other things took 

 my attention so that I partly forgot about 

 it until just before leaving; then I said: 



"Friend Gerrish, what was that beautiful 

 plant of which I caught a glimpse just as 

 we came on to the ground ? ' ' 



"Oh, yes! to be sure. You must come 

 and see my flowers." 



Sure enough, it was something I had never 

 seen, and I was a little surprised, too, to find 

 that, in all my visits to greenhouses, exper- 

 iment stations, public parks, etc., this new 

 revelation of beauty had never met my eye 

 before. The plant was three or four feet 

 high, and radiant with great blossoms almost 

 the size of a dinner-plate. I raised my 

 hands, and uttered an exclamation of sur- 

 prise. Yes, it was one of my "happy sur- 

 prises," and a big one too. First, there 

 was the outside row of rose-colored petals. 

 Just inside of this was a zone of cream- 

 colored petals, and inside of that another 

 zone or row of a different color still, flecked 

 with crimson spots. Inside of this, and fill- 

 ing the center, was a great mass of corolla 

 and stamens; and the Italian bees from the 

 apiary before mentioned were tumbling over 

 each other to get their noses (or perhaps we 

 should say antennae) into the center of that 

 great blossom. There were, perhaps, a 

 dozen blossoms on the plant, and I do be- 

 lieve that it was the handsomest floral pro- 

 duction I ever saw, not excepting any I ever 

 saw in Cuba or Florida. What do you sup- 

 pose it was ? After my two friends had 

 laughed at my enthusiastn, Mr. Gerrish 

 replied that it was a tree peony, bought of 

 Storrs & Harrison, Painesville, Ohio. He 

 said it stood outdoors unprotected, and had 

 borne blossoms several summers. There 

 were three or four other tree peonies, but 

 none of them so gorgeous and startling in 

 their beauty as this one— at least to my eye. 

 Then I remembered that I had heard strange 

 talk about the old-fashioned peonies of our 

 grandmothers having been lately brought 

 forward and developed into new and gor- 

 geous creations at the hands of experts in 

 that Hne; and then I remembered again that 

 on my table in my office at home there was 

 a pretty good-sized book or pamphlet on 

 the cultivation of the peony. I have been 

 intending to write it up, but was not quite 

 decided as to whether the readers of Glean- 

 ings would care to know about a book devoted 

 entirely to peonies. By the way, the author 

 of this manual on the peony is a queer sort 



of brother. Let me make some extracts 

 from two letters I received from him: 



My dear Bro. Root:—\ have been in the ministry 47 

 years. My nerves were worn threadbare. The wolf 

 was at the door, so I started a nursery. God has blessed 

 me in it. I have your book on tomato culture; glad you 

 put Christ in it. I am issuing two books— see circulars 

 I send you. One book is on the peony. The other will 

 be out in a few days. I now write for papers having- an 

 issue of over 300,000, preaching the evangel of beauty. 



York, Neb., Jan. 23. C. S. Harrison. 



Here is another letter that came later: 



Bro. Root:— At 66 my health failed; then with God's 

 help I pulled out of my head and hands one of the finest 

 nurseries in the West. The old man would not go on 

 the brush-pile after all. 1 developed 20 new phloxes of 

 rare merit last summer. It is delightful to work with 

 God among flowers. I sowed 35 pounds of choicest 

 peony seed last fall. I should like tb live to see them 

 bloom. Oh! this is God's wonderland. I want to make 

 the hither shore prophetic of the glory beyond, and 

 dress up Beulah land before I leave it. 



York, Neb., Feb. 6. C. S. HARRISON. 



Now, this book about the peony contains 

 64 pages. It is fully illustrated, and men- 

 tions several hundred varieties, and quotes 

 from 25 different growers and originators. * 

 The book will interest you because it is a 

 good deal like the letters I have quoted. I 

 am sorry, however, it does not have very 

 much to say about the tree peonies, because 

 they do not do extra well in Nebraska. A 

 few days later I found a postal card on my 

 desk which reads as follows: 



Dear Sir.— Are you interested in peonies? We have a 

 fine stock; will be in fine bloom about Sunday or Mon- 

 day next. C. Betscher. 



Canal Dover, Ohio, May 31. 



' ' Interested in peonies ? ' ' Well, I should 

 say so. I had to laugh to think of its com- 

 ing just when I was getting the fever. Then 

 I discovered on page 40 of the book I have 

 mentioned a list of peonies grown by friend 

 Betscher. I found by the map that he lives 

 about 60 miles from here; but the State 

 Sunday-school convention that was just 

 coming off was near by, and the two places 

 are connected by an electric line, so I took 

 in both on the same trip. Now, friend Bet- 

 scher is a very modest man. I supposed he 

 had a few dozen plants around his green- 

 house or in his dooryard. Well, that was 

 true. I found enough beauty to pay me for 

 my trip before I discovered that he himself 

 was half a mile away out in the Tpeony -field; 

 and I actually found him and his helpers 

 amid three or four acres of peonies in full 

 bloom. The sight of the 75,000 plants was 

 wonderful. It was a revelation. It can not 

 be described on paper. Imagine a handsome 

 thrifty potato-field with half a dozen flowers 

 on every plant, and blossoms as large as sau- 

 cers. There were not many of them as large 

 as the ones I saw at Oberlin. There were 

 in that field something like 1000 different 

 varieties; and I believe friend B. has tested 

 as many as 1000 different ones in order to 

 get at the best. I asked him if it was not a 

 good deal like the Isttuces of America, in 

 that a good many were so much like others 

 that none but an expert could tell one from 

 another. He said that was true; and if I 

 recollect correctly he said they might be cut 



* Friend Harrison will mail the book for 30 cents. 



