PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 131 



pounds more honey, much of which labor might be saved by intelligent 

 management. 



"Properly kept, every good stock wintered will produce a good strong 

 swarm; and it may as well be an early as a late one. Both the stock and 

 the swarm, starting early, and with such advantages as intelligent care 

 may give them — not being allowed to rear hungry hordes of idle drones, 

 nor trifle with their own and their keeper's interests by playing swarm the 

 whole season — will each, by moderate estimate, yield forty pounds surplus 

 honey, making for each stock wintered a net gain of about $20. Most, 

 perhaps, of our farmers might keep from ten to fifty swarms, with as good 

 an average result. Have they any stock that is more worthy of their care? 

 Bees would pay all our taxes if we would let them do it. 



"Many a farmer loses more tlian he makes by not keeping bees, or not 

 keeping them properly. He and his family grow prematurely old with 

 plowing and reaping, mowing and hoeing, and all the drudging incident to 

 tilling, while every flower is saying to them ' send us bees and we'll 

 relieve you from wasting toil.' But for more cruel treatment — what by 

 neglect and what by wholesale slaughter — these sable servants would 

 challenge competition in converting the sweet treasures of nature to their 

 master's use. Spare them life; it is short at best. Let inventive genius 

 protect and aid them — they will appreciate the favor. ' Cut and try,' 

 if need be, as in everything else that promises gain with proper aid, until 

 the right facilities are found. We cannot afford to do withoirt bees, much 

 less to keep them in a profitless manner. The profits of bee keeping may, 

 without doubt, be doubled; and who shall provide a feasible way to do it 

 will deserve a niche with him who makes two blades of grass grow where 

 one grew before. ' A penny saved is two pence earned.' " 



The Butter Question. 



Mr. Solon Robinson read the following letter from Dr. N. C. Meeker, of 

 Dongola, 111., entitled "Sending Butter to England:" 



The American consul for the city of Bristol, writes in the Prairie 

 Farmer, printed in Chicago, about sending butter to England. He says 

 that if a fine article is put up in the most careful manner it will reach that 

 country in good condition, and sell at a fair price, say twenty cents, which 

 will be a good return, as it is only worth from six to eight cents here. If 

 the packer, however, is not guided by the directions he gives, the article 

 will be sold as grease, no matter how good it was when churned. "Most 

 people have been taught to think this well enough, and perhaps worthy of 

 attention. But the shipping of butter to foreign countries, as well as other 

 articles of food, is, when rightly understood, an evidence that we are doing 

 ourselves a great wrong, and I think that if we continue in the present 

 course, we will not only continue poor, in comparison with England, but 

 we will grow poorer. There never can be good times for American 

 farmers till we cease shipping food abroad, and till we cease to be guided 

 by a class of politicians who received their brains from the slaveholders. 



"The shipping of butter to England means that our farms, though 

 unproductive to what they might be, yield more than our manufacturing 



