18S3 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



9 



If you dare to prosecute them they will try to har- 

 rass you by appealing from court to court, increas- 

 ing your exp uses to several timf.'i the amount ia 

 contest. Such is now their regu! v way of paying 

 damages. They are as hard on the people as the 

 kings and nobles of old. 



Yet these railroad owners are public servants, for 

 the railroads are public services, and no doubt 

 about that, since it was on that account that they 

 were granted the right of expropriating the owners 

 of land, in spite of their refusal. Then we, the pub- 

 lic, have the right to control the railroads; the right 

 to take them in our hands, as we would take from 

 an unfaithful servant the money and goods intrust- 

 ed to him. The act could not be called nn act of an- 

 ger or revenge; it would be an act of justice, an act 

 of self- protection. As to your question, "What 

 shall we do with the baggage-smashPr?" My advice 

 is, not to go for the man who smashed your bag- 

 gage, but for the corporations who tolerate such 

 acts, and perpetuate, every day, hundreds of acts 

 worse than that. The small employes of the rail- 

 roads receive too little pay not to greatly suffer by 

 the smallest reduction of wages. You publish a pa- 

 per read by intelligent people all over the country; 

 open a column against the abuses of the railroads, 

 not in the spirit of angf r, but f»r the sake of just- 

 ice. You will find your reward in the satisfaction 

 of having helped a good cause. Chas. Dadant. 



Hamilton, 111., Dec. 8, 188?. 



I know, friend Dadant, that things are 

 bad ; but I can not but think that you dwell 

 on the worst side of the matter. Our busi- 

 ness with railroads has been large, and ex- 

 tends over almost all the lines in the world. 

 We, of course, now and then have grounds 

 for complaint; but when we do so vve state 

 the matter pleasantly; and it gives me pleas- 

 ure to say, that every claim we have ever 

 sent in. of any account, has been in the end 

 allowed us. I have just now asked our 

 book-keeper about it, and she says there is 

 no single claim standing against them, to 

 the amount of o?ie dollar. If my grocery- 

 man should charge me for 150 lbs. of tlour 

 when I received only 100, I would go to him 

 as I would to a neighbor, and lay the evi- 

 dence before liim ; and even if he were a bad 

 man, I think I should get courteous treat- 

 ment, and justice. 



Deciding to settle things by law is a seri- 

 ous matter, and I should want to advise al- 

 most every thing else before advising it. 

 When goods are lost or damaged, or there 

 are overcharges, we make a statement of 

 the matter, and it goes back over the route, 

 each agent appending his note to it. Some- 

 times the mass of correspondence and bills 

 required to get at the error is a large bundle, 

 and it maybe that it was all about only 25 

 cents. I once told our agent, that if it made 

 them all that trouble for so small a matter, I 

 would rather pay the overcharge myself, and 

 say nothing about it. I saw by his look that 

 he appreciated the neighborly spirit. A 

 short time after, we received a barrel of wax 

 with a stave broken out, and about 25 lbs. of 

 wax missing. I sent in my claim for damag- 

 es, and received a reply, not very courteous 

 or complimentary, to say the least. It stirred 

 me up pretty well, and I was in just the hu- 

 mor for.a fight by law ; but on rejection I 



wrote, expostulating, and yet in a mild way, 

 and to this our agent appended a little note, 

 to the effect that he knew me personally, 

 and that I was not a man who would ask 

 for damages unless I had the best of reasons 

 for so doing, and to the effect that I was al- 

 ways averse to making anybody trouble, 

 when it could possibly be avoided. They 

 paid for the wax at once. 



I dwell on this because it is a most vital 

 point before our growing young men. You 

 know I am not boasting, but that I only 

 seek to make peace. Now, then, to busi- 

 ness: If I wers to go to your station agent, 

 any of you, and ask him what kind of a man 

 you are, would he reply as above, or would 

 he say you were always finding fault, hard 

 to get along with, etc.? Had I gone to head- 

 quarters, and told them the story of my 

 trunk, I feel sure I should have had courte- 

 ous treatment ; but, dear friends, if I have 

 unconsciously earned a reputation for being 

 one who " thinketb no evil," and that among 

 swearing men too, I would not for the world 

 spoil it. I would rather buy five cents' 

 worth of rope as I did, and resolve to have 

 a stouter trunk next time. I do realize what 

 an outrage it was on you, friend Dadant, 

 when you were a stranger it; a strange land, 

 and I pray that God may help us to have it 

 done away with ; and it it can't be done by 

 kindness, "then let us have it done by law. 



HONEV FROM WHEVr^STrSBLE, 



WHEAT THE GREAT HONEY-PLANT, AFTER ALL. 



BY to-day's mail send you a sample of wheat- 

 stubble honey. The first day I cut wheat I no- 

 ticed the bees working on the stubble, and I 

 examined it and found that a clear drop of sap had 

 run out of every stubble, and some had filled the up- 

 per joints, and some was running down the stubble. 

 I tasted it and found it to be very sweK; and that 

 day at noon I extracted the hone}' from the upper 

 combs of one stand of bees, so as to get a sample of 

 wheat-stubble honey. In five days I extracted 15 

 lbs. of this pyrnp, as I call it, from those same 

 combs, and it was from the stubble, as there was 

 nothing else for the bees to get honey from. We 

 had the best wheat crop for many years, and the 

 grain ripened before the straw; and when cut, the 

 straw was full of sap. I think if you will cut wheat 

 with the straw a little green the sap will always run 

 out to some extent. I noticed it run out of the Fiets 

 wheat the most, as it had a very hard straw. This 

 cutting green accounts for friend Lybarger's frosted 

 wheat, which he says he cut before it was commonly 

 called " dead ripe." 



THE FIRST YEAR AS AN ABC SCHOLAR. 



T will hereby give you a sketch of my report for 

 1882: I am well pleased with my first year's busi- 

 ness. I began the season with five stands, four 

 blacks and one Italian. 1 transferred all to Simplic- 

 ity hives, and they worked out 30 lbs. of foundation, 

 all in wired frames, and gave me 500 lbs. nice honey, 

 all extracted except 100 lbs., for which I get 20 cents 

 for extracted and 25 for comb. They increased by 

 natural swarming to twelve, all in good shape for 

 winter, and all Italians but three. My Italian stand 

 that I had in the spring, and increased two swarms, 

 gave 300 lbs., all extracted. I received four first 



