1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



829 



haps I should not have put that sentence in 

 marks of parenthesis; and if anybody objects 

 to that parenthesis he can read as if it were 

 not there. Well, now, 1 have by my "discov- 

 ery" helped Mrs. Root a great deal, and 

 brought smiles to her face that were worth 

 a lot of sacrifice. And this is one of the 

 birds I have killed. 



The other bird was my old chronic trouble 

 of indigestion. For years past my strength 

 and energy gave out before dinner-time. If 

 my dinner happens to be late— no, I do not 

 scold, but Mrs. Root knows by my looks 

 that I am suffering. Well, the stone that 

 killed the two birds relieved Mrs. Root, and 

 cured my "goneness " say half an hour be- 

 fore dinner-time or more. It came about in 

 this way: 



I told her, when the hot weather came 

 on, she should stop cooking breakfast; and 

 finally I declared I would not eat the break- 

 fast, even if she did cook it. We had a 

 package of what they call " Hardy food," 

 a sample of which was left on our doorstep. 

 It costs only ten cents a package, and it is 

 sold at all groceries. Well, I got a good- 

 sized bowl and filled it to the brim with 

 these flakes of Hardy food, poured on some 

 milk, and ate my breakfast. Then I watch- 

 ed and waited with much anxiety to see how 

 my strength would hold out compared with 

 the way it did with a good square meal- 

 beefsteak, potatoes, hot cakes, maple syrup, 

 and the usual bill of fare that we get at a 

 hotel. Of course, we do not have a bill of 

 fare at our home; but for years and years 

 past we have thought it necessary to have 

 some kind of meat, besides potatoes and 

 other accessories. Well, I was interested 

 in my work that day, and I thought I would 

 keep on working until I played out. And 

 here came one of my biggest and happiest 

 surprises. I did not play oiit at all. When 

 the whistle blew for dinner 1 was driving 

 nails, and I felt as if I should prefer to 

 keep right on driving, for I didn't feel 

 faint nor hungry at all. 



Now, somebody may say, "A. L Root, 

 the old chap himself, has been hired to puff 

 a special breakfast food." Not much. Aft- 

 er the package of Hardy food was gone I 

 took the same ration in "Maple Flakes" in- 

 stead of Hardy food. Then I tried Force 

 and similar articles put up by the Battle 

 Creek folks. They all answer the same pur- 

 pose. 1 can not see any difference. Dry 

 bread or zwieback is, perhaps, about the 

 same; but I had used zwieback and milk so 

 long I was a little tired of it. Now, do not 

 be in a hurry to say, "That diet is all right 

 for you, but might not answer as well for 

 one in a hundred. ' ' That theory will not go 

 down; for in talking the matter up I find 

 that many people are enjoying better health 

 on just such a light breakfast, especially in 

 hot weather. You see this is almost in line 

 with Huber's hobby of no breakfast at all; 

 and it is also pretty nearly in line with the 

 Cuban fashion of having no breakfast until 

 ten or eleven. At present Mrs. Root is giv- 

 ing us a good square meal for dinner; but 



my impression is the noonday meal could be 

 cut down in variety a great deal, helping 

 the women-folks by lessening their work 

 and bettering the general health of individ- 

 uals by not asking the digestive apparatus 

 to handle a lot of different kinds of food. 



I hope my good friends in Oberlin, the 

 Root family I have been speaking of, will 

 excuse me if I mention a little incident. At 

 breakfast-time the whole good-sized family 

 were served with oatmeal and milk, or some 

 breakfast food something like oatmeal. I do 

 not remember what it was, and it does not 

 matter. As they gave me a pretty good ra- 

 tion I concluded that was, perhaps, all the 

 breakfast they had. I was admiring their 

 good sense; but when they began to take the 

 plates away and to bring in some eggs on 

 toast I laughingly made a protest, telling 

 them that I had had all the breakfast that 

 was good for me. Then Mr. and Mrs. Root 

 exchanged glances and began to smile, and 

 finally admitted they had got on to my dis- 

 covery that a light vegetarian meal in the 

 morning is better for students, professional 

 men, or anybody else, and that the only rea- 

 son why they had a little something extra 

 that particular morning was because they 

 had a visitor. 



Now, I want to say right here that, when 

 a visitor comes to your home, and can not 

 put up with the regular every- day fare, he 

 had better stay away. When I come to see 

 you, please do not make any difference in 

 your bill of fare on my account. Bro. Terry 

 and some of my vegetarian friends will say 

 that, if I would only get into the way of 

 eating daily three such meals as I eat in the 

 morning, or, better still, only two, it would 

 be a greater improvement. This may be 

 true, but I am not yet ready to subscribe to 

 it. 



Now, friends, this is an exceedingly im- 

 portant matter. By the way, Mrs. Root 

 has objected all along to this, and felt wor- 

 ried because she was afraid I would run 

 down on such a breakfast. But finally she 

 said, "And just think of the years I have 

 fussed to cook meat and other things every 

 morning, when, as you now declare, there 

 was no need of it, and that we all would 

 have been better o^ without it! " 



Now, friends, just try it in your own 

 home; and for the sake of the dear wife, if 

 for nothing else, try to be a little self-sacri- 

 ficing; and if you come out in the end with 

 better health, then you can rejoice with me. 



Before closing I wish to beg pardon of 

 the good friends who have been to the trou- 

 ble of providing fresh meat when they knew 

 I was coming, because of what they have 

 read about the beefsteak diet. Indeed, a 

 change of diet is often a great benefit; and 

 very likely a change to a meat diet may be a 

 great benefit in many cases; but my impres- 

 sion is, a simpler diet with less variety 

 would do almost as well. 



A few days ago I heard of an agent for 

 some kind of theological work who went to 

 the minister of the parish and informed him 

 he would like to lodge and board in the 



