1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1203 



annual demand of $2,000,000 worth, while 

 the real truth is, there is a demand for only 

 about $20,000 worth. It makes one think of 

 the ginseng business, and these other chaps 

 who are so anxious to do good by getting ev- 

 erybody to raising mushrooms in old cellars. 

 While there is a limited demand for orris 

 root, and I believe it could be grown profita- 

 bly by those favorably situated, it is cer- 

 tainly important that whoever goes into it 

 should not be misled by such astounding ex- 

 travagances. 



" LOOK OUT FOR HIGHWAYMEN." 



As I have been a reader of your Home papers for a 

 number of years, and know your attitude on certain 

 things, 1 feel like asking- you to reach as many homes 

 as you can, warning parents to look out for the " high- 

 waymen " who are passing out to schoolboys such 

 pamphlets as I inclose herewith. I have a boy thirteen 

 years of age. He, with several others from here, attend 

 school at Niagara Falls. While coming home in the 

 car a day or two ago a man, well dressed, opened his 

 grip and distributed these pamphlets among these 

 young boys. M. Goodrich. 



La Salle, N. Y., Oct. 11. 



The book mentioned above is an advertise- 

 ment for a certain kind of cigarettes. It 

 contains pictures of prominent men, politi- 

 cians, theatrical players, etc. ; and each of 

 these prominent men tells how much he en- 

 joys this particular brand of cigarette. The 

 book is published with the end in view of 

 exciting the curiosity of the boys, and in- 

 ducing them to thir.k there is something 

 wonderfully nice about the cigarette. Once 

 more: Yesterday's daily had an account of 

 a school somewhere in the State of New 

 York that had to be dismissed in the middle 

 of the day. Thirty or forty boys were so 

 sick from the effects of tobacco they had to 

 be sent home and break up school. How did 

 those boys happen to be in that predicament 

 all at the same time? A well dressed stran- 

 ger on the streets of the town distributed 

 among these schoolboys samples of a partic- 

 ular brand of tobacco. They went away 

 somewhere by themselves with the samples 

 and proceeded to test the tobacco to see 

 what it was like, with the above result. A 

 highwayman who would have held up a lot 

 of boys and robbed them of what money they 

 had. or even their good clothing, would have 

 been hunted out by the police, no matter 

 what the cost; but the highwayman who 

 deliberately plans to steal both body and 

 soul is allowed to go unpunished. 



SOME OF LUTHER BURBANK'S TRIALS. 



We find the following clipping from some 

 newspaper; but as we do not know the name 

 we can not give credit: 



Once I had a strawberry- plant that had come as near 

 perfection as I hoped for. Out of several thousand 

 plants it was the perfect one I had been breeding for. 

 I put a fence of little stakes around it, hedging it in 

 from the others, and with much care explained to an 

 Englishman I had working for me that he was to leave 

 that one untouched and pull up the others around it. 

 When I came to look at what he had done I found he had 

 pulled up my one perfect plant— it was lying withering 

 in the sun— and the rest were all growing. 



The above illustrates so vividly some of 

 my own experiences with hired help that I 

 have given place to it. I have sometimes 

 thought these people were willfully stupid, 

 and destroyed purposely that which we value 

 the most, but perhaps this is not so. But it 

 is sad to contemplate the number of people 

 in our cities who can not get a job when 

 there are hundreds and thousands of em- 

 ployers who are ransacking the country for 

 competent help. Is it because our people 

 are not properly educated in youth, or what 

 is the trouble? Some time ago I had one 

 man who was almost sure to do things I 

 particularly cautioned him not to do. 



FINDING WATER WITH A HAZEL ROD OR A 

 PEACH-TREE SPROUT. 



As there are still people who insist that 

 there is sense and science in finding water 

 by the above means, I give place to the fol- 

 lowing, which came from one of the agri- 

 cultural journals; but as I can not find which 

 one, I can not give credit: 



Our correspondent is misinformed, and can easily con- 

 vince himself that the hazel-twig business is absolutely 

 nothing but delusion by simply leading a water-witch, 

 securely blindfolded, several times over the same tract 

 by circuitous routes, and noting, without the knowledge 

 of the magician, every spot where the wand turns. If 

 there wt re any thing in the method the rod would, of 

 course, always indicate the same spots. Nothing of 

 that kind ever occurs with the witch kept securely in 

 the dark and turned round often enough to lose his 

 bearing completely. Either the rod vrill not work at all 

 or its indications will be uncertain and self-contradic- 

 tory. 



Somebody says: 



Man has made the flying- machine, wireless telegraph, 

 and numerous other inventions, but has yet to imitate 

 our little mathematician the bee in making comb honey. 



Special Notices by A. I. Root. 



mcclure's magazine. 

 At our last church conference here, in an address by 

 Washington Gladden he spoke of the great reforms 

 that had been recently started in the financial and po- 

 litical world, and he remarked that one would naturally 

 expect our churches and religious periodicals would be 

 among the first if not the very first to start such a 

 great movement for honesty and truth. But we must, 

 he said, acknowledge to our shame that it is not so. 

 The great war was first opened by our magazines— our 

 recent ten-cent magazines. Mr. Gladden did not say so, 

 but / say that McClure's was one of the first to inau- 

 gurate a reform. Single numbers of that magazine 

 often contain articles worth a whole year's subscrip- 

 tion. It called attention a while ago in a most valuable 

 article to the cause and cure of the great white plague, 

 consumption. Other articles on sanitation, medicine, 

 anti-toxin, etc,, have been equally valuable. Last, but 

 not least, McClure's Magazine will not accept whisky 

 or beer advertisements, and not even a patent-medicine 

 advertisement of any sort. Surely we can afford to 

 give such a home magazine encouragement. You will 

 nolice by the advertisement on page 1205 of this issue 

 that McClure's Magazine can be had three months free 

 by just asking for it. Now, I should not be honest if I 

 did not, while mentioning the good things in this peri- 

 odical, also add that it is devoutly to be wished such a 

 home magazine would discontinue the use of so many 

 profane words in stories, and also recognize that drink- 

 ing whisky and beer, smoking cigarettes, etc., are not 

 just the things we might expect from the hero of a 

 tale — that is, an up-to-date story. 



