974 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15 



go and get what were left, even if it was 

 Sunday. I wonder if some of the good 

 friends will not accuse me again of being 

 loose in my ideas of keeping the Sabbath 

 holy. Well, Mrs. Root and I went out with 

 a tin pan to get the peaches; but we did not 

 gather any of them on Sunday after all. 

 Do j'ou know why? Why, the squirrels got 

 ahead of us. They evidently had held a 

 caucus in regard to the matter, and decided 

 that, if those peaches were not gathered 

 soon, on that very Sunday, these new tres- 

 passers on their domains, which they had 

 held during the whole fall, would be rob- 

 bing (?) them. Some of you may inquire 

 why I did not keep a shotgun and have 

 squirrel for dinner. Because I have never 

 learned how to shoot any kind of gun or 

 pistol as yet. When we want a squirrel 

 for dinner we usually catch one with a 

 steel trap. 



Now a word more about hard physical 

 work for a man between sixty and seventy. 

 I do not know how it is with the rest of 

 you, but it does not hurt }ne a bit; on the 

 contrary, it does me good to work every fore- 

 noon and every afternoon until my bones 

 and muscles ache with fatigue. In a re- 

 cent issue of the Practical Farmer friend 

 Terry says an old physician told him that 

 hard work docs not hurt a man provided he 

 rests enough during the night to feel sound 

 and well the next morning. Well, I think 

 I never did more hard work — that is, mus- 

 cular work — in my life before than I have 

 during the past few weeks, and I certainly 

 never before enjoyed such exuberance of 

 health. I can not say how much that 

 northern climate has had to do with it, but 

 I suspect it has been a large factor. The 

 children at home tried to persuade me that 

 I would do just as well here in Medina if I 

 kept away from the office and factor^', and 

 did the same amount of hard work right out 

 in the open air. There may be some truth 

 in this, but it is not all of it. It is true 

 that, when I am up in the northern woods 

 I do not get into the office at all. My cor- 

 respondence and writing for Gleanings 

 is done rainy days and evenings. I have 

 made now something over a dozen trips to 

 Northern Michigan, and it has been a 

 physical building-up every time — there has 

 not been an exception. After I get back 

 here to Medina my good appetite and 

 healthy digestion hold out two or three 

 weeks. After that time I usually begin to 

 run down. The hot springs at Agua Cali- 

 ente gave me perfect digestion without hard 

 muscular work; but I did not have the en- 

 thusiasm and love for hard work that I do 

 in Michigan. I suppose the hot climate of 

 Arizona would make a difference. 



Now a word about the potato business in 

 the Traverse region. As the prices were 

 up last 3'ear, and are now double what they 

 usually are in that locality (40 to 45 cents), 

 there is a great acreage, and people t^e 

 worrj'ing a great deal about getting them 

 dug before cold weather. As a consequence, 

 help is very scarce. One farmer, I am told, 



ofiFered $3.00 a day and board for men to dig 

 and pick up potatoes, and he could not get 

 men at even that price. As a result, chil- 

 dren stay out of school, and the farmers' wives 

 and daughters help to pick up. One of the 

 good women told me at Sunday-school she 

 had been picking up potatoes, and she said 

 she never did any work in her life that gave 

 her such a ravenous appetite, and health 

 corresponding. Some of you may smile 

 about getting down to such drudgery as 

 picking up potatoes; but, my friend, it is 

 people who " do not have to " do such work 

 that are to be pitied. 



Mrs. Root and I made a call at our neigh- 

 bor Hilbert's just before we came back to 

 Ohio. Mr. Hilbert himself is now in Cuba, 

 and his wife and some of the children, ex- 

 pect to follow him in a few days. Mr. Hil- 

 bert's son. Holly, is taking care of the farm- 

 work. I found him with two men in a big 

 field digging potatoes. The variety was 

 Carman No. 3, and they were getting about 

 300 bushels to the acre. The two little 

 folks, Gladys and Jimmie, that I have told 

 you about, were also picking up potatoes. 

 Jimmie is seven, and Gladys is not quite 

 five. It was between ten and eleven in the 

 forenoon, and these two little chicks had 

 actually picked up 50 bushels of Carman 

 potatoes. Their mother offered them a cent 

 a bushel. Some of the potatoes were so 

 large that Gladys would almost need both 

 her little hands to lift them into the potato- 

 boxes. 



Now, friends, please do not rush to the 

 idea that any of j'ou can go up there and 

 grow 300 bushels of Carman potatoes per 

 acre, and sell them for 45 cents per bushel. 

 That would be Si 35 per acre in one season. 

 The potatoes were also fine and large. 

 There were not enough seconds to be worth 

 mentioning. I think any dealer would take 

 the pile just as I saw it dug, without throw- 

 ing out a potato. I will tell you whj' you 

 can not duplicate the above. Mr. Hilbert 

 is one of the oldest and most successful 

 farmers in that region. His fields where 

 he raised these great crops have grown 

 clover which has been turned under until 

 the whole ground is a mass of fertility, and 

 a part of the field was where he had some 

 of his great crops of berries a year or two 

 ago. The vines were so strong and rank 

 that they had to be pulled out of the way 

 by hand before the potatoes could be dug. 

 Holly told me they grew so rank that the 

 bugs bothered them hardly at all. The 

 only fault that could be found with that crop 

 of potatoes was that thej' were too large. I 

 told Holly he should plant them close enough 

 so as to make them smaller. He said he 

 was going to plant onl}' Carman No. 3 on his 

 farm next 3'ear, and that, furthermore, he 

 would crowd them so close together there 

 would have to be some small ones. In fact, 

 he said he feared they would not have 

 enough small potatoes for their own plant- 

 ing. Oh dear me! I wish I could tell you of 

 some similar crops in the way of yield 

 around our cabin in the woods. One trouble 



