1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



109 



a stove in the island that I know of, nor a 

 house with a chimney. Cooking- is mostly 

 done with charcoal; but as it costs Si. 00 a 

 bushel, we use wood — mahog^any. I chop 

 wood to keep warm, until the sun is up. 

 My catarrh, or grip, is all gone except 

 when I get chilled. My wheel is a real 

 comfort. The paths made by barefooted 

 children are ver3'^ nice for the wheel, and I 

 can go miles through the fields on these 

 paths. I judge the3r have never seen a 

 wheel before, the way thej' gaze and gather 

 round me. 



Milk is 10 cts. a quart; eggs 3 cts. each; 

 flourTcts. per lb. ; Irish potatoes Sets. ; beans 



9 cts., etc. Rice and sweet potatoes are the 

 cheapest. Rice is 5 cts., and sweet pota- 

 toes, of the grower, only about one cent. 

 Thej' are away ahead of any we have at 

 home. I think I could eat them every meal, 

 with a good relish. Meat of all kinds, pork, 

 beef, venison, etc., is all 20 cts. per lb.; 

 chickens about 30. Oranges and bananas 

 are about a cent apiece. Many things are 

 necessarily dear because they don't keep in 

 this climate, and consumers therefore buy 

 only a little at a time, say 10 cents' worth. 

 Grocers seem to prefer to sell this way, and 

 then they c?ix\ guess at the proper amount for 



10 cts., without the bother of fussing with 

 scales. I think an American store with 

 American ways of doing business would be 

 a big success; but, of course, the storekeep- 

 er would have to speak Spanish. 



Right in the streets, near the stores, and, 

 in fact, close to the schoolhouse, we see 

 children four or five years old stark naked. 

 It saves clothing, and then they are so easy 

 to wash. Some good woman should start a 

 "mothers' meeting" among these people, 

 to correct this and similar things. Who 

 will undertake it? 



I fear I have made too much of the objec- 

 tionable features of Cuba. The climate is 

 beautiful at this time of year, and the peo- 

 ple are exceedingly friendlJ^ Theft or 

 crime of any sort seems very rare. Every 

 thing is left outdoors, but so far we have 

 not missed a thing unless it is the little 

 slates on the bee-hives. The small children 

 took some of these at first. Of course, they 

 did not realize the mischief they made. I 



CUBAN HOMES. 



I might almost say "Our Homes," or, 

 rather, " Our Horne,'^ for it is now a Cu- 

 ban home. " Our " means Mr. Wardell, 

 whom most of you know about more or less; 

 Stephen N. Green, a Medina boj' who has 

 been several j'ears one of our office boys in 

 Medina, but who took a notion to study 

 Spanish a year or mpre ago, and who was, 

 therefore, chosen to go with Mr. Wardell. 

 Well, besides these two 3'our humble ser- 

 vant has been there for a week or more an 

 inmate of this Cuban home. The most of 

 these homes, at least those in the little town 

 of Paso Real, are built of poles from the 

 woods, covered with leaves from the palm- 

 tree. A building 9x12. that we had made 

 for a kitchen, cost, entire, S18.00. A couple 



of men brought the material and did the 

 work, so the house was ready to " move in- 

 to " for the above sum. I might add, too, 

 that they did it on Sunday. They didn't 

 get it all done the first Sunday, so they 

 waited until the next and then finished it. 

 As there was nothing said, when the bar- 

 gain was made, about working on Sunday, 

 we could not very well complain. It might 

 have been a little difficult, also, with Ste- 

 phen s command of Spanish, to explain why 

 Sunday was any different from any day — 

 that is, to these people. 



Posts were first driven into the ground at 

 the four corners; then poles were set up 

 and down about every two feet. Across 

 these, horizontally, still lighter poles were 

 firmly tied with tough bark. These hori- 

 zontal poles were about 15 inches apart. 

 Now for weather-boarding, imagine a great 

 corn-husk, large enough to wrap up a small- 

 sized man. This comes off the palm-tree 

 where the leaf is attached to the trunk. 

 These husks are laid out on the dewy grass 

 over night until they will flatten out on the 

 walls of the house. To keep them flat, 

 another horizontal pole is tied on the out- 

 side, the "big husk" being very firmly 

 tied between the two slender poles. The 

 roof is made of palm or palmetto leaves, 

 very much as we make a thatched straw 

 roof in the North (see picture on p. 1023, is- 

 sue for Dec. 15). The roof projects a good 

 deal all around to shade the walls; and 

 where there is a porch, it goes over the porch 

 also. To get air, the walls seldom go clear 

 up to the roof; but no storm can beat in, as 

 the roof goes over far enough, and comes 

 down low enough to prevent this. There 

 are no chimneys. The smoke from the fire 

 used in cooking goes right through the po- 

 rous roof; and I have never seen a smoky 

 apartment in Cuba, even when a fire is 

 first started. We have all this ventilation 

 every day in the year, mind you, and I for 

 one like it. There isn't a pane of glass in a 

 house in the town except the schoolhouse, 

 and I almost believe it would be better for 

 the pupils without it there. There are 

 shutters, to be closed in bad stormy weath- 

 er, but at no other time. Iron rods are 

 across the store windows, to keep out 

 thieves, but I have never heard of any steal- 

 ing. The floors are usually just the ground 

 tramped hard. When the broom is used 

 often it does not look so very bad. I think 

 this dirt floor is cooler in hot weather than 

 a board floor. There are no stoves. Cook- 

 ing is mostly done with charcoal in an iron 

 bowl made for the purpose. This bowl has 

 a sort of standard, with an opening to let 

 the ashes out, and to let in air. We burn 

 wood, cut up short, in these iron bowls. 



STINGLESS BEES, AND BEES IN LOG HIVES 

 IN CUBA. 



This morning I visited on my wheel Mr. 

 Ciriaco (rutierrez, three miles away from 

 our place. Although Mr. G. has 100 oxen 

 pasturing in one field, and other things on 

 his farm to match, he lives in such a house 



