1386 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15 



at night; but under the stimulus of that good 

 coffee I felt very bright and wideawake un- 

 til after twelve that night. I had some dis- 

 turbing experiences that kept me awake, but I 

 should have been very faint if it h:id not bet-n 

 for the unusual stimulus of that coffee. Some 

 of you may say, "Why, Mr. Root, you have 

 just given us a most excellent testimonial to 

 the effect that coffee is a gift of God for 

 those who are obliged to be up while travel- 

 ing on important business, etc." I do not 

 agree with you. If I had the same experi- 

 ence to go through again I would go without 

 the coffee. Remember what the Wright 

 Brothers said about abstaining entirely from 

 coffee on the day they were going to make a 

 test of their liying-machine. I do not want 

 nature lulled to sleep or unduly whipped up 

 to greater exertion by means of whisky, 

 morphine, headache-powders, nor even cof- 

 fee. When the time comes for nature to de- 

 mand sleep I want to respond to it. 



Next day I passed the same lunch-counter 

 in going back home, and the train stopped 

 just ten minutes a little after the noon hour. 

 1 took a little more time and found two boil- 

 ed eggs in a little dish with the shells re- 

 moved. To my surprise these were only a 

 nickel. A good-sized sandwich was a dime, 

 and two apples a nickel, the whole dinner 

 (costing 30 cents instead of 60, and it was all 

 the dinner I needed. 



Before I left the train the car was crowd- 

 ed, and a bright looking man came and sat 

 down by me. After a little talk he asked me 

 how the Wright Brothers were progressing 

 in France and Germany with their liying- 

 machine. I could not answer him, and I can 

 not answer you just now either. He was a 

 construction engineer on a new trolley line 

 that is running across our State. I told him 

 I rejoiced to see what the electric lines were 

 doing, and also to think I might live to see 

 flying-machines outstrip every thing we have 

 at present; but I told him I felt sad to see 

 some things that the world calls civilization 

 and progress. He asked me to explain. As 

 he was soon to get off the train I told him I 

 would be brief. I mentioned the lunch- 

 counter business, and I said something like 

 this: 



" My friend, we are certainly making prog- 

 ress from one point of view. Everybody is 

 busy, getting good pay, and has plenty of 

 money to pay sixty cents for a ten-minutes 

 meal when traveling. I am one of a family 

 of seven children. My mother brought us 

 all up, took care of us with the help of the 

 older ones, gave us a fair education, and 

 lived to be almost ninety years of age. She 

 enjoyed life, and did not think she had a 

 hard time. Now when a baby comes into a 

 family a trained nurse must be kept for two 

 or three weeks at three dollars a day, and 

 you are lucky if you do not have to pay four. 

 The hired girl must have her wages in- 

 creased or else she will throw up her job. 

 Another woman must be employed to do the 

 washing, sometimes a fourth one to do the 

 ironing. This is only a brief illustration of 

 our magnificent civilization you have been 



defending. Young married people are tell- 

 ing me on every hand they can not afford to 

 have a baby in the home; and a good many 

 l>right young men say they can not afford to 

 get married. If they have any children at 

 all, one is about all they can take care of; 

 and where there is only one child in a fami- 

 ily the chances are very great that that child 

 will be spoiled. Now, if no more babies are 

 to be born, how long will it be before there 

 will not be anybody to patronize the lunch- 

 counters or to make trained nurses and all 

 these other things? Don't you believe that 

 you and I were lucky that we have had a 

 'chance to be born,' as Emerson T. Abbott 

 expressed it a while ago?" 



At this point my friend was near his des- 

 tination; and as he got up he pat out his 

 hand and said he was glad of the privilege 

 of having a talk with me, and said something 

 like this: 



"Mr. Root, to put it short you are afraid 

 that, if the present stage of civilization keeps 

 on, we may finally get to a point where we 

 shall be 'civilized out of existence;' and to 

 be frank about it I do not know but you are 

 more than half right. Good by; and do not 

 forget to tell us about the flying-machine." 



Now, my good friends, whoever you are 

 and wherever you are, don't you think our 

 good President has called attention to one of 

 the most important things to be considered 

 by this present generation? He calls it 

 "race suicide;" and my friend the bright 

 educated engineer termed it "getting civil- 

 ized out of existence." May God help us to 

 learn the lessons he is trying to teach us. 



PURE AIR FOR POULTRY AND FOR PEOPLE. 



Our friends are well aware of how much I 

 have had to say in regard to an abundant 

 ventilation for sleeping-rooms, our homes, 

 public buildings, and everywhere else where 

 people congregate indoors. Well, the poul- 

 ti'y-keepers of the whole world are just wak- 

 ing up to the fact that poultry diseases are 

 largely the result of poorly ventilated domi- 

 cils. And now the cattle-raisers have got 

 hold of it and are taking out their glass win- 

 dows and putting in their place sashes cov- 

 ered with muslin or muslin curtains. See 

 the following, which I clip from the Ameri- 

 can Poultry Advocate: 



Such practical proof of the decided benefits of ven- 

 tilating- through muslin curtains in cold weather is 

 most convincing. The gentle admission of the pure 

 outdoor air seems to give exactly right conditions of 

 passing out the vitiated air and steadily passing in 

 the pure air from outside, resulting in better health 

 for the stock, and better health means greater profits. 

 It is so simple a thing that it is almost humiliating to 

 think we have been so long a time in working it out ; 

 but now that it has been worked out, and we are com- 

 ing to realize how great a help it is to us, the right 

 thing to do is to accept it with thankfulness, and help 

 others to an equal share in the benefits. The adop- 

 tion of the curtain-front for poultry houses has solved 

 some of the perplexing difllculties which have con- 

 fronted us. We gladly welcome its aid, and pass it 

 along to our fellows. 



There is just now so much being said in 

 our agricultural papers about the curtain- 

 front poultry-houses and curtain-front sta- 



