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•AND Honey 

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fublishcdby H'E-A l1^00l' Co 

 SiajPEilVtAR.^'XQ) riEDINAOHlO- 



Vol. XXXI. 



DEC J, J 903. 



No. 23 



^^^jDk C CMiier. 



Let me ask J. J. Burke whether that 

 honej' that soured, p. 967, was not extract- 

 ed while yet too thin. 



My hand is to my ear, listening to hear 

 what Henry Alley calls back to Geo. W. 

 Phillips after reading p. 959. [I made a 

 similar remark after reading Mr. Phillips' 

 article. "But," says Mr. P., "should I 

 soft soap mj' article to such an extent that 

 I would siy wh'it I do not believe?" "Why, 

 no," said I. — Ed.] 



Charles L. R. Barnhart shook swarms 

 about May 10, and thej' sw armed a month 

 later, p. 966. Exactly what I should ex- 

 pect in this localit}' after such earl}' shak- 

 ing. But was there not something abnormal 

 to make general preparations for swarming 

 so earl}' as Maj' 10, or is; New York^ so 

 much earlier than here? 



\Vm. Duncan put me on the track of tags 

 for numbering hives that were just the 

 thing— figures stamped in aluminum or oth- 

 er metal; but, alas! prices were prohibito- 

 ry — Scents for a tag with two figures. 

 Printed manilla tags have not proved sat- 

 isfactory, and so far nothing seems better 

 than tin tags hand-painted. [But don't 

 you remember, doctor, that tin made by the 

 modern process rusts ver}' rapidly? Paint 

 does not seem to protect it. What would be 

 the matter with using zinc? There is a 

 kind of scrap that we could use that would 

 make this kind of tags; and the.v would 

 last a lifetime, paint or no paint. — Ed.JJ 



Plainly I see that I've been away from 

 Medina too long. When I was there last, 

 Stenog was a consistent prohibitionist — 

 been at it for years — now he's been drink- 

 ing tangle-foot, or rather tangle-tongue or 

 tangle- pen — at any rate he's got things all 



tangled up on pages 913 and 953. From p. 

 953 one would get the impression that the 

 English writer favored pro (it is plainly so 

 stated p. 9 13), and I favored prop. Exact- 

 ly the reverse is the case — the English 

 writer said all the vowels should be short; 

 and if I wrote at all what I thought, I wrote 

 that the dictionaries preferred pro. How 

 the Englishman could urge short o to keep 

 in sight the original word pro is his funer- 

 al, not mine. [Doubtless either pronunci- 

 ation is prop-er. The spelling is all I have 

 to look after. The Englishman seems to 

 use language to conceal ideas. — St.] 



Last night, Bro. A. I., I read aloud 

 Notes of Travel, p. 972, to an appreciative 

 audience, and the question was then raised 

 whether our Marengo climate mightn't do 

 as well for you as Northern Michigan. 

 You could bring Mrs. Root along with the 

 cook-book she uses up in the woods. It 

 would hardly do for you to wheel potatoes, 

 for now in the middle of November we've 

 had 10 to 12 above zero for several morn- 

 ings; but we could have lots of fun wheel- 

 ing one another. I could ride and you 

 wheel till you got tired, and then you could 

 wheel and I'd ride. [See answer to another 

 Straw on the "comedy of errors."— Ed. ] 



Brother Doolittle has urged very em- 

 phatically the importance of knowing one's 

 honey resources, and then having one's col- 

 onies strong only at the time when that 

 strength is needed. While fully realizing 

 the importance of thorough acquaintance as 

 to honey resources, I never felt that I was 

 smart enough, with conditions in my local- 

 ity, to put in practice profitably the last 

 part of the rule. I've always been too much 

 of a coward, however, to come out plainly 

 and say so; but now that my namesake, S. 

 E. Miller, has boldly defined his position, in 

 Progressive, I'm ready to get behind his 

 broad shoulders so he may get the benefit 

 of any stray brickbats that may be ehied, 

 and echo his sentiment: " The rule with me 

 must be, colonies always strong.'" 



Toronto, p. 947, seems to be falling in 

 line with Colorado, quoting sections by the 

 piece instead of by weight. Perhaps that's 



