June 29, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



409 



formed that we shall need more funds than are now in sight 

 if we continue the work. 



Pure food legislation and impure food prosecutions are 

 the lines of work laid out for especial effort this year. 

 Other matters are also receiving attention, but the largest 

 ■expenditures will probably be in the direction named. 



Yours truly, Eugene Secor. General I\[anager. 



United States Bee- Keepers' Association. 



Now, the foregoing candid statement of proposed ef- 

 fort, and appeal for funds, ought to induce several thousand 

 bee-keepers to forward their dollar membership fees to Mr. 

 Secor at once. It certainly would be discouraging to get 

 into the midst of costly prosecutions and then not have 

 funds sufficient to push them to a finish, and to victory for 

 the association. 



There ought to be a membership of at least 1,000 in the 

 United States Bee-Keepers' Association by the time of the 

 Philadelphia convention— Sept. 5. Why not send your 

 dollar now to Mr. Secor, if you are not already a member ? 

 Address him thus : Hon. Eugene Secor, Forest City, Iowa. 

 Or, if more convenient for you, send the amount to us, and 

 we will forward it to Mr. Secor, when he will mail you a re- 

 ceipt therefor. 



Now, please don't read this and. then do nothing. Your 

 help is needed in the work projected and that which is 

 already begun. 



Some Honey Prospects in California. — Thomas G. 

 Newman, of San Francisco, Calif., general manager of the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Union, wrote us as follows June 17, 

 in reference to the prospects for honey in Southern Cali- 

 fornia : 



The following item from the San Diego, Calif., Daily 

 Vidette, of May 30, 1899, shows that the honey crop in 

 Southern California is better than it was feared it would 

 be. The drouths here are killing, and we had two j-ears of 

 such. This year is much better in the northern part of the 

 State, where we had plenty of rain ; but San Diego was not 

 so blest. It is the largest county in the State. The item 

 reads thus : 



'-"'•The hnney crop will not be a total failure in San Dieyo county, as 

 was predicted before the late rains. IL is now estimated that there will 

 be at least a fourth of a crop, amountint.' iu the aff?regate to about T.iilio 

 pounds, as the product of the county for this j'ear." 



Thom.\S G. NEWM.iN. 



It -seems to us Jthere must be a big error in the above 



paragraph. Surely, "7,000 pounds" is not a fourth of the 



honey crop of San Diego county in an average year ! That 



would make only 28,000 pounds as the total amount of an 



annual crop in a fair season. If it is anything like the 



other honey counties in Southern California, we should 



think that 140,000 pounds would be nearer the true amount. 



Grading Comb Honey by Pictures is being pusht in 

 Gleanings. S. A. Niver was appointed by the New York 

 Geneva convention to prepare a set of pictures, and these 

 appear^in Gleanings. There are three grades — Fancy, No. 

 1 and No. 2 — a set of three square sections and another set 

 of three tall sections. Each picture is intended to repre- 

 sent the poorest that will be allowed in its class. The No. 

 2's have perhaps one-sixth"'of the surface unsealed. The 

 Fancy and^No. I'sections 'appear not so '.[unlike but that a 

 novice might have difficulty in deciding their respective 

 places. One is a little surprised^Jto see in the tall Fancy 

 section a dozen or more cells unsealed. 



Grading by pictures is ;not ,yet an establisht fact, but 

 the whole matter of grading^is so complicated and difficult 

 that anything in the line of help should be encouraged. 

 Mr. Niver has certainly struck^a good idea in'selecting for 

 each^class the poorest representative of that'class. Editor 

 Root despairs of having ,a single system of grading that 

 will apply to the whole^ country. New Y'ork bee-keepers 

 would.never be]satisfied[witli^the Colorado system that puts 

 fancy buckwheat in second grade. 



Editor H. E. Hii.i., of the American Bee-Keeper, is now 

 in Florida, and may also go to Cuba, as he has an invitation 

 from Dr. Viete, a resident bee-keeper, who in one season 

 took 180 tons of extracted honey. Dr. Viete "has ofticiated 

 in the Cuban army as colonel, chief-of-staft' of the 1st army 

 corps, and chief health officer." And having been the chief 

 bee-keeper, we think he mig-ht as well be called "Chief 

 Viete " instead of Dr. Viete. 



Mr. G. M. DdolittlE, of Onondaga Co., N. Y., writing- 

 us June 20, said : 



"I am fearfully driven with work now, and have sore 

 eyes and a lame back to make work as uncomfortable as 

 possible." 



We regret to hear of Mr. Doolittle's temporary afflic- 

 tions, and trust he may soon recover from them. It is bad 

 enough to have to work hard in hot weather, without hav- 

 ing ailments that make the burdens heavier. 



* * * * * 



Mr. Thomas G. Ne\vm.4N. of San Francisco, Calif., re- 

 ports in his Religio-Philosophical Journal for June 8, the 

 visitation of an earthquake in his locality. Here is what 

 he says about it : 



"Two earthquakes shook up San Francisco and vicinity 

 at 11:20 p.m. on June 1. Crockery, wall ornainents, and 

 glasses were demolisht in great quantities ; cornices of 

 buildings, chimneys, cap-stones and ma.son-work were loos- 

 ened and fell to the ground ; large numbers of people were 

 alarmed, and ran into the streets in scant attire — but no 

 lives were lost, so far as we have heard. The roaring sound 

 and flash of light accompanying it were the cause of much 

 anxiety and foreboding at the time — but it soon past avvay, 

 and things resumed their usual course— the quake lasting 

 less than a minute." 



When Old Earth quakes it shakes up things. The sen- 

 sations felt must be anything but exhilarating in their ef« 

 fects. What with storms, cyclones, tornadoes, earthquakes, 

 etc., life seems pretty uncertain. How helpless, after all, 



is puny inan I 



♦ # * # * 



Editor Hutchinson, in the June Bee-Keepers' Review, 

 writes this paragraph about the reformed spelling : 



" So far I have said nothing in regard to the reformed 

 spelling. What I have several times thought of saying, 

 has now been said by Stenog in Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 

 Here is what he says : ' If you will rip up the whole alpha- 

 bet from A to Z, and have a precise character for every 

 sound, as we have in shorthand, I shall be much pleased.' 

 So long as a system is radically wrong, we gain very little 

 by tinkering with minor results. So long as we attempt to 

 represent 40-odd sounds by using only 26 characters, just so 

 long will there be confusion. Bro. York gives a .sample of 

 16th century spelling. Of course, it looks odd to us, but I 

 doubt if our present spelling, or even the reformed spelling, 

 would not look as odd to the l6th century folks, if they 

 could see it. as their spelling does to us." 



We hardly think it is a question whether or not certain 

 spelling " looks odd." It is whether or not we are going to 

 do anything to simplify the spelling for future generations. 

 But w'e are almost willing to guarantee that if the whole 

 job of reforming the spelling of the English language were 

 done at one time, neither Stenog nor Mr. Hutchinson would 

 be in favor of adopting it. If they are not willing to adopt 

 a few sensible changes, naturally they would not care to 

 undertake a bigger job. Why, if the whole thing were done 

 at once, even publishers and editors could not handle it. It 

 must be done by degrees if at all. No man builds a man- 

 sion in a day, but rears it little by little. So with the spell- 

 ing reform, 'it can't be done faster than our small abilities 

 can handle it— a few words at a time. 



