1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURK 



891 



On my way home from Cuba I had a most 

 pleasant visit with our g-ood friend J. M. 

 Jenkins, at Wetumpka, Ala. Most of the 

 friends in the South know more or less about 

 friend Jenkins because he has for so many 

 3 ears had charge of the Root Co. 's g-oods in 

 that section. Besides, he has quite a nice 

 little bee-hive factory of his own. In fact, 

 he has just installed a new factory built all 

 of brick. If he did not live so far down 

 south I should call him a natural-born Yan- 

 kee. Do you know why? Well, when he 

 wanted brick to make his factorj' he could 

 not g^et them just to his notion, so he estab- 

 lished a brick^-ard, or bought one of some- 

 body else; and he has not only made brick 

 for his own building, but he has furnished 

 a very nice article for quite a number of 

 building's in Wetumpka. When the bee 

 business is not crowding", he utilizes his 

 hands in the brickyard. Well, his home is 

 quite a little piece from the postoffice; and 

 on account of his large business through 

 the mails, or for some other reason, our 

 benevolent Uncle Sam has given him a post- 

 office in his own part of the town. The 

 name is Honej'suckle, and it is in charge of 

 one of his bright wideawake daughters. 

 One of his other daughters, in company 

 with the mother, takes charg-e of all the 

 correspondence in that new brick factory; 

 and you just ought to see the bright little 

 office occupied by the women-folks. In 

 place of cigar smoke and untidy-looking- 

 spittoons, which we too often find in offices 

 occupied bj' men, these women have got 

 some beautiful flowers, and the room is fix- 

 ed up lilmost like a parlor. If a man with 

 a cigar in his mouth should get a glimpse 

 of that tidy little room I am sure he would 

 leave the cigar outside. 



Well, now, the brickyard and the bee hive 

 factory are not all friend Jenkins has on 

 his hands. He is engineer and conductor 

 of the branch railwaj' that runs from El- 

 more, twelve miles, on the L. & N., to We- 

 tumpka. He has charge, and has had for 

 years, of this entire branch railway. He 

 sees to the carrying- of the mails, passen- 

 gers, and freight. I asked his good wife if 

 he had anj' other business enterprises be- 

 sides what I had seen. She said he did 

 have a farm out in the country, but she per- 

 suaded him to let it go. He also has one or 

 more buildings to rent; is one of the direc- 

 tors of the principal bank in his town, and, 

 if I remember rightly, he holds two or three 

 important public offices besides. When he 

 gets older he will probably let go of some 

 of them — at least 1 hope he will. 



THE BLUE COLORADO SPRUCE. 



Now, friends, if you will excuse an ab- 

 rupt jump of several thousand miles we will 

 alight for a moment in the bright little vil- 

 lage of Farwell, Clare Co., Mich. When I 

 visited friend Bingham he told me we must 

 be sure to c^ll on the Wilkin sisters, and 

 while there to be sure not to forget to notice 

 a beautiful specimen of the Blue Colorado 

 spruce. I did notice the tree, but forgot un- 



til now, to make mention of it — see p. 771. 

 This spruce has a sort of bloom much like 

 the bloom of the plum over all its foliage. 

 On this particular tree this blue haze or 

 halo is so pronounced that one starts in sur- 

 prise on getting a glimpse of it. It gave 

 me a pleasant thrill; and when I inquired 

 about it the sisters told me the trees were 

 not so very expensive, but that only occa- 

 sionally a specimen showed this marked pe- 

 culiarity to such an extent as the one I was 

 looking at. They furthermore pointed to 

 several little trees that I think they said 

 were seedlings. Some of them showed the 

 blue more than others. I said then and 

 there that I was going to have such a tree on 

 our lawn, and also several near the cabin in 

 the woods, where evergreens grow spontane- 

 ously. Now. friends, w, hen you visit a nurs- 

 ery again, or when you look over some of the 

 beautiful homes, watch and inquire for the 

 blue Colorado spruce. With this preface 

 we will take up our travels through Michi- 

 gan on the automobile, where I left off at 

 the town of Traverse City. 



While Huber and I were stopping at the 

 cabin in the woods we had the misfortune 

 to break the main shaft in the engine of our 

 automobile. I think I will tell how we did 

 it, as it may prove a caution to others. Near 

 the town of Bingham there are some very 

 bad sandhills. An automobile will run up 

 almost any hill where a team would attempt 

 to pull any kind of load, especially if the 

 ground is hard and firm. Where the soil 

 is so sandy that the loose sand runs in be- 

 tween the spokes of the wheels, it is a pretty 

 hard matter to run any automobile. When 

 a horse pulls a vehicle he lifts up somewhat 

 on the wheels and thus prevents them from 

 sinking. The automobile, however, has no 

 such lift upward. Tlie engine can simply 

 turn the rear wheels. In getting through 

 dry sand or through soft mud we often have 

 to run the engine a pretty good speed, and 

 then put on the slow-motion clutch. Some- 

 times we can go only a few feet at a time; 

 but it is generally possible to get up almost 

 any hill by taking time. The road from 

 Bingham Dock to the town of Bingham is 

 cut up very deep by drawing heavy loads of 

 lumber. For the first time in the whole trip 

 through Michigan we found here a ridge of 

 sand so high between the wheel tracks that 

 in one or two places it struck the chain of 

 the machine. You know how it works when 

 you get sand on the chain of a bicycle. 

 Well, in attempting to go over this sandy 

 ridge the shaft was broken. Later on we 

 got a boot or shoe that protected the chain 

 so it could not possibly get into the sand. 

 Let me say to the credit of the Olds com- 

 pany, however, that a new shaft and bal- 

 ance-wheel were sent us promptly at their 

 own expense. When we bought the machine 

 it was with the understanding it would 

 make the trip all right through Michigan, 

 and it did so. I may say briefly that, be- 

 fore the new shaft arrived, Huber and I, 

 with such tools as we could pick up at an 

 ordinary farmhouse, made a splice that 



