AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



811 



No. 62— Jolin H. Martin— EafflMer. 



For over a year we have rambled 

 around among bee-keepers (by pictures) 

 in this department, until now we have 

 come to the real and only Rambler. 



JOHN H. MARTIN. 



How fitting it is to thus close a year of 

 "picture rambling" with Rambler's 

 picture. " To make a short story long," 

 as our German friend would say, we 

 will let those who know Mr. Martin 

 speak of him. 



First, we have a short sketch written 

 for Oleanings, by Bro. John H. Larra- 

 bee, and published in 1891, as follows : 



The subject of this sketch was born in 

 the town of Hartford, N. Y., Dec. 30, 

 1839. His grandfather came from the 

 State of Massachusetts, and was one of 

 those hardy Puritan pioneers who set- 

 tled in that region near the close of the 

 last century, and there carved comfort- 

 able homes from the virgin forest. He 

 was a man of high native qualities and 

 Yankee shrewdness, and from him John 

 H. seems to have inherited his full share. 

 As John was an only son, he was given 

 educational opportunities, spending some 

 time at a neighboring acadamy, and at 

 the Fort Edward Collegiate Institute. 



In 1868 he married Miss Libbie C. 

 Edwards, who died in 1881, leaving no 

 children. She was an estimable lady, 

 and her death was a great loss to the 

 community. 



For many years Mr. Martin followed 

 agricultural pursuits on his father's 

 farm; but owing to ? somewhat frail 

 oonstitution, and the death of his wife, 

 followed, in 1883, by the death of both 

 his parents, he gave up the farm en- 

 tirely; and bee-culture, which had 

 formerly been a side issue, was given all 

 his time and attention. 



His grandfather was the first to in- 

 troduce into that section the Weeks 

 patent hive, which, at that time, was a 

 great improvement. By observing his 

 grandfather's bees and methods, he early 

 became interested in the bees and 

 hence he can hardly tell when his career 

 as an apiarist began. As early as 1874 

 we find him with 55 colonies of bees, 

 and a contributor to Gleanings. Since 

 that time his apicultural career has been 

 plainly indexed by his contributions. 



Since he has devoted all his time to 

 the bees, it has been his method to keep 

 from 200 to 300 colonies, running them 

 for extracted honey, and doing all the 

 work himself, except during the extract- 

 ing season. One season his crop was 

 16,000 pounds of honey, and his aver- 

 age for 12 or 15 years was about 7,000 

 pounds of extracted honey per year. 

 Since the advent of the Heddon hive he 

 has adopted it and its methods. 



In person Mr. Martin is quite tall and 

 slender; there is not an ounce of spare 

 flesh about him. In manner he is very 

 modest and quiet, yet continually, 

 through his eyes and his words, one sees 

 the humor of the man. He has a great 

 love of the quaint and humorous side of 

 humanity, yet his humor never offends 

 by its coarseness, nor galls by its acidity. 

 The series of articles written under the 

 nom de plume "Rambler," has made 

 him well known to all the readers of 

 Oleanings. His method of combining 



