THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



597 



^t 



For tbe AmerlcaQ Bee JoumaL 



From Florida to Toronto, Can. 



W. S. HART. 



On Aug. 13, 1.S83, I sUuted on my 

 first trip outside of the State of 

 Florida since I arrived in it from the 

 West nearly nine years before. My 

 objective points were Cincinnati, O., 

 to make the personal acquaintance of 

 Mr. Chas. F. Mutli, to which I looked 

 forward with anticipations of pleas- 

 ure, as I hadhaddealingsof the pleas- 

 antest kind with him during the past 

 two years ; then Louisville, Ky., where 

 the great Southern Exposition and 

 the Kentucky Bee-Keepers' Conven- 

 tion were to be held ; after which the 

 Xorth American Bee-Keepers' Con- 

 vention at Toronto, Can., and finally 

 my old home and birth-place in N. H. 

 were to have a fair share of my time. 



After being delayed a couple of 

 days by adverse winds, or no wind at 

 all, a nice sailing breeze sprung up 

 from the southeast and landed us in 

 Savannah on Aug. 17. I took a good 

 look about the city, and as I had a 

 few barrels of honey along to dispose 

 of, I tried the market, but found that 

 there was no chance to sell so fine an 

 article at a reasonable price, the trade 

 being supplied with a very poor qual- 

 ity of dark honey bought at 60 or 70 

 cents per gallon. It would be an ex- 

 cellent place for an energetic man to 

 build up a honey-trade, as a good 

 quality of honey would be a revelation 

 to the citizens. 



I took the train for Atlanta on Aug. 

 20, arriving tliere a little after dark. 

 Atlanta is a wide-awake, growing 

 town. Evidently the Cotton Exposi- 

 tion has helped largely to give it a 

 '■ boom." I tried the market for 

 honey, and found it well supplied 

 with honey of quite a dark color. I 

 placed some of my light-colored man- 

 grove honey here with a prospect of a 

 tair demand in the future. 



After looking over the city and its 

 surroundings, and visiting the large 

 cotton factory in the old Exposition 

 building, I left for Chattanooga on 

 Aug. 22, where I sold a couple of 

 barrels of mangrove honev, which the 

 dealers declared was far ahead of any 

 thing that they had ever handled. I 

 devoted the next two days to visiting 

 the points of historic interest in and 

 about the city. Prominent among 

 these, stands old Lookout Mountain 

 two miles away to the eastward. 

 About two-thirds of the way up the 

 mountain. I came to ilr. Thornburg's 

 pleasant home surrounded with 

 orchards of peach, pear, apple and 

 cherry trees, many of whieli were still 

 loaded with luscious fruit. Among 

 the trees were the bee-hives compos- 

 ing Ills apiary, while his fine stock of 

 poultry ranged " at their own sweet 

 will "■ through the orchard, or half- 

 buried in the rich earth among the 

 raspberry bushes. 



After making myself known, and 

 accepting a hearty invitation to re- 

 turn to tea and stop over night, with 

 my pockets and both hands loaded 

 with peaches and apples, 1 continued 

 my climb to the top of the mountain. 

 The view from the " Look-out " is cer- 

 tainly a very line one. Chattanooga 

 and ^locasoh Bend lying directly in 

 front, but far below, surrounded by 

 ridges and cultivated fields where 

 soldiers marched and counter- 

 marched, fought, bled and died dur- 

 ing the late war. From the top of 

 the mountain can be seen parts of 

 five States, when the air is clear. 

 " Exquisite,'' the word used by George 

 C. Connor in " (4uide to Chattanooga," 

 applies very well to the scene ; but 

 for rugged grandeur, there is nothing 

 here to compare with many views 

 among the White Mountains of New 

 Hampshire. 



Returning to Mr. Thornburg's I 

 spent a pleasant evening sitting on 

 the front porch talking " bees "' while 

 watching the changing lights of the 

 little city far below, or following with 

 my eyes the distant head-light of 

 some locomotive whirling its load of 

 living freight out of the city, and 

 finally dis-ippearing, apparently al- 

 most beneath our feet as it swings 

 around between Macasou Bend and 

 the base of the mountain, a heavy 

 rumbling sound still telling of its 

 progress. 



In the morning, after a hearty 

 breakfast, and with a goodly supply 

 of choice fruit for our refreshment on 

 the way, the horse is hitched irp, the 

 wheels chained, and we, Mr. T., his 

 father and myself, make our way 

 down the mountain and back to Chatt- 

 anooga. 



On Aug. 2-5 I took the train for Cin- 

 cinnati, and I rode nearly all day 

 through a most interesting country, 

 rugged and moimtalnous for many 

 miles, making many tunnels and high 

 bridges. The Higli Bridge of Ken- 

 tucky standing 2S.3 feet above the 

 valley, being one of them. Then 

 droppmg down into as handsome a 

 farming country as this continent can 

 show, as we reach the fertile " blue 

 grass section of old Kentucky." 



I reached Cincinnati towards even- 

 ing, and immediately started for Mr. 

 Muth's. I found him making prep- 

 arations for a trip to his farm, 100 

 miles from the city, but as his hos- 

 pitable hand closes around mine, 

 tlioughts of all else but my best pleas- 

 ure and entertainment seem to be put 

 aside, and although I had intended to 

 have left for Louisville the next 

 morning, I found that it was out of 

 the question to do so ; as Mr. Muth 

 and all his family seemed bent on 

 giving me a good time, and an oppor- 

 tunity to see the interesting points of 

 Cincinnati. I had to give myself up. 

 I found quite a number of things that 

 reminded me of my own home among 

 the palmettoes and orange trees away 

 down in Florida. Among these were 

 the colonies of bees on the roof, the 

 empty hives and other fixtures stowed 

 away wherever a convenient nook 

 could be found, and above all. the 

 thousands of handsome packages of 

 choice comb honey, and the great piles 



of bottles, jars, kegs, barrels and 

 tanks of extracted honey stowed in 

 the store, in the cellar, and under 

 sheds. "How can he ever find a 

 market for all this accumulated 

 sweet "i*" was a question that arose in 

 my mind. Long years of energetic 

 labor has solved that question for 

 him, and brought the constantly in- 

 creasing supply and demand until 

 now, hundreds of barrels of honey 

 come in from all parts of this broad 

 country, and are sold with but little 

 more effort than it took to dispose of 

 the first 400 pounds with which this 

 great branch of trade was started in 

 Cincinnati by Mr. Muth years ago. 



Remembering that the Kentucky 

 Bee- Keepers' Convention was to com- 

 mence on Aug. 29, I reluctantly tore 

 myself away from my hospitable 

 friends and landed in Louisville in 

 the evening of Aug. 28. I attended 

 the Exposition the next morning, and 

 was escorted to the honey exhibit by 

 Mrs. Prof. Todd, who left me in the 

 hands of the Kentucky bee-keepers. 

 I found the honey exhibit a very fine 

 and attractive one. The quality of 

 nearly all the honey on exhibition 

 being of the very best. Some placed 

 there by Mr. Demaree, President of 

 the Kentucky Bee-Keepers' Society, 

 was a novelty, being of a very light 

 color, and so thick and heavy in body 

 as to have the appearance of being 

 half-granulated. I found, however, 

 upon testing it, that there were no 

 other signs of granulation, but that 

 it was as it bad come from the red 

 clover blossoms from which it was 

 gathered. It took the first prize for 

 extracted honey, as it well deserved. 

 If red clover honey is all like this, we 

 certainly have the strongest kind of 

 an inducement to work for the devel- 

 opment of the honey-bee to that point 

 necessary to reach and gather it. 



After examining the honey exhibit, 

 and making the acquaintance of sev- 

 eral pleasant gentlemen who had con- 

 tributed to its success and beauty, I 

 was invited to go with them to one of 

 the rooms provided for such purposes, 

 and take part in the Kentucky Bee- 

 Keepers' Convention. As the pro- 

 ceedings of this convention have been 

 published, I will not go over the 

 ground again ; but I want to say that 

 if the bee-keepers only knew how 

 much sociability and instruction there 

 is in a bee-keepers' convention, I 

 think there would be a much larger 

 attendance. Every Kentucky bee- 

 keeper who failed to put in an appear- 

 ance at the convention lost an oppor- 

 tunity for great pleasure and profit. 



I stopped in Louisville until Sept. 

 4, except that I took a flying trip to 

 Mammoth Cave in the meantime, then 

 returned to Cincinnati. The big Fair 

 was just coming off, and Rex and his 

 fantastic followers about to appear in 

 the city, etc. Mr. iluth insisted that 

 I ought not to lose all this, so I stop- 

 ped until Sept. 7, visiting the Fair, 

 seeing the procession, and taking in 

 as much of the fun and good things 

 of the city as possible in so short a 

 time, to compensate me for the nine 

 long years of steady labor where the 

 sports of forest and stream were al- 

 most the only ones at my disposal. 



