934 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



orchard that belongs to a man whom every- 

 body thoug-ht was crazy. He planted three- 

 fourths of a section in a locality not sup- 

 posed to be very favorable for apples. Last 

 year his crop sold for something like $40,000. 

 You see there was a scarcity almost every- 

 where else, and his trees all happened to 

 bear a wonderful crop." 



So you see, friends, that people who go 

 into these things on such a terribly large 

 scale, once in a while turn out to be not so 

 crazy after all. I think one of the agricul- 

 tural papers stated this man's crop for last 

 year alone almost paid for the entire plant. 



A good many of the passengers in our tour- 

 ist car had never been through the moun- 

 tains and deserts before; so I was frequent- 

 ly called on for explanations, which I felt 

 very glad to give. The first really startling 

 piece of scenery was the Canyon Diablo, a 

 little this side of the Grand Canyon. Our 

 courteous conductor gave us notice that in a 

 few minutes we would pass over the cele- 

 brated chasm, and warned us to be on the 

 lookout. Before we reached it we passed a 

 great many places where the water had cut 

 great channels through rocks, sometimes be- 

 side the railway tracks, and oftentimes right 

 under them. Well, this Canyon Diablo is 

 so narrow at the top that it is easily span- 

 ned by an iron bridge having no support 

 from one side of the great crack, or rift, as 

 it looked like, over to the other. When I 

 looked down from the side of the car it did 

 not seem to be very deep after all; but there 

 was something about it that looked strange 

 and uncanny. I have frequently passed 

 over bridges one or two hundred feet above 

 the water; but when we were told of the aw- 

 lul depth below this bridge we could hard- 

 ly believe it. The eye refused to credit it. 

 As I write I am not able to give the exact 

 depth of that chasm; but I think somebody 

 said it is 1300 feet. 



Before night of the same day we stood on 

 the brink of the Grand Canyon, which I 

 have already described. Monday afternoon, 

 when we started on our trip, there was con- 

 siderable said about the heat we should ex- 

 perience in passing the Needles, where the 

 railway crosses the Colorado River. The 

 Needles are about as far west as Yuma on 

 the Southern Pacific. Unfortunately we 

 passed it in the night, so I could not get a 

 view of the wonderful river we had been 

 thinking and talking about at the Grand 

 Canyon. 



Tuesday morning we opened our eyes and 

 found ourselves in California. After the 

 convention was over, as I had business in 

 San Diego I was urged to make a call on a 

 Mr. G. M. Hawley who lives at San Jose, 

 in a beautiful valley about fourteen miles 

 out of San Diego. On our way out, friend 

 Hawley said I must stop long enough to see 

 a neighbor of his, a woman who for several 

 years worked in his father's family as a 

 hired girl. When pretty well along in life 

 she took a notion to grow strawberries; and 

 right out in the desert, on a little piece of 

 ground in a locality where nobody else 



thought of growing strawberries, she had 

 one of the finest strawberry-ranches I ever 

 saw anywhere. It looked funny to see a 

 little woman, well along in life, directing 

 a lot of men how to do their work. The 

 berries were the variety called the Arizona 

 Everbearing. You may remember this 

 berry was distributed quite extensively here 

 in the States, but never made very much of 

 a mark here in the East. With the mild 

 climate of Southern California, and plenty 

 of water for irrigation, it was just doing 

 wonders. Perhaps not as many berries lay 

 ripening around the hills as we often see 

 here in Ohio; but this woman picks berries, 

 and carries them to market every day in the 

 year from February till November. For size, 

 perfect color all over, and beauty of shape, 

 I think I never saw any finer ones. I was 

 invited to help myself freely, and I can cer- 

 tify that they are not lacking in quality. 

 Friend Hawley informed me that she had 

 probabl3' lost quite a little money by agree- 

 ing to let a certain man in San Diego have 

 the wholecrop at a uniform price of ten cents 

 a box. This box holds something between 

 a pint and a quart. The reason why she 

 lost money is that she succeeded in growing 

 larger and finer berries than anybody ex- 

 pected to get. Yes, they were larger and 

 finer than even she expected to get. By con- 

 stant application she had learned the trick, 

 and had become an expert; and she could 

 beat anybody else in that region in growing 

 strawberries. The men who work for her 

 saw exactly how she did it; but I very much 

 doubt whether those same men could start a 

 strawberry- patch of their own, and manage 

 it as she does. This woman is, perhaps, 

 uneducated, and she does not speak our lan- 

 guage very well; but it was as much of a 

 pleasure to take her by the hand, and raise 

 my hat to her as I spoke, as to meet and 

 talk with some of the greatest and most ac- 

 complished ladies of our land. In middle 

 life, by some misfortune, if I am correct, 

 she was obliged to shoulder a considerable 

 debt. This she had paid all off honorably; 

 had paid for her land, and is now getting 

 in comfortable circumstances financially. 



Further on, friend Hawley showed us the 

 beauties of the picturesque San Jose Valley. 

 One of the prettiest sights as we looked from 

 the sides of the mountain down into the val- 

 ley was a vineyard of many acres, the vines 

 all looking green and thrifty, and yet they 

 do not get a drop of water in the way of ir- 

 rigation. When I told this story in other 

 places in California, they thought I must be 

 mistaken. This shows that there are scarce- 

 ly any two localities, even in California, 

 where all the conditions are exactly alike. 



And now, friends, I am going to startle 

 you a little with an item on bee culture. 

 Friend Hawley, with all of his other work 

 on hand in the way of fruits and fruit buy- 

 ing and selling, has done quite a little in 

 raising queen-bees — not for sale, but for his 

 own use. About three years ago he told 

 friend Doolittle he wanted a queen that 

 would help him to repress swarming. Now, 



