124 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' HEVIEW 



actually did take a piece on my plate pooii 

 after arrival and failed to make it go down. 

 My abhorrence of the stuff had returned to 

 me. Now it looks to me a little as if my 

 spell of eating pork was simply unperverted 

 nature indicating what, she wanted. If un- 

 perverted nature wantt d it I have my doubts 

 if it was harmful. If it was harmless and 

 useful once with me it may have been more 

 than once with some person. I'd jump right 

 up and down while shouting, yes, to have 

 pork and all other tl )sh disused fcr food — 

 only let us have nothing but the absolute 

 truth told and followed to bring it about. 



Once again, it seems to me that Mr. Crin- 

 gle, as well as most of the health talkers, 

 bears down too hard on those dishes not 

 containing flesh, which ae indicated by the 

 rather indefinite adjective " rich, " meaning 

 abounding in butter and sugar. No doubt 

 the person who eats meat more than is good 

 for him, and three times a day, will make 

 his bad situation a little worse by topping it 

 out with ri«h pie and cal e -so far all cor- 

 rect. But in the case of the person who does 

 not eat meat at all ( and that's the port we 

 ought to keep in mind, and be steering tow- 

 ards ) the essential conditions are greatly 

 altered. To carry the idea that people in 

 ordinary health should eat neither flesh, cake, 

 pie, nor sweetmeats is running things into 

 the ground shamefully— so there now I 



If he will consent to take all these brick- 

 bats with grace, maybe I can demean my- 

 self to find a little to approve somewhere. 

 Porchance few nobler medical maxims 

 have ever been put in words than this from 

 page r>0; 



■' Tho symptoms are merely the 8is?Q« of nat- 

 ure's otforts. and 1hf>rRfc)ro should be airlod and 

 regulated instead of lioiiig suppressed. " 



Yet even this doctrine is quite capable of 

 being carried too far. And, by the way, 

 my kick in behalf of white bread does not 

 imply any objection to a better bread, re- 

 presenting more completely the full value of 

 the wheat. Neither does my one word for 

 pork imply any wisli to bolster it up, where 

 it can be pulled down without fanaticism. 

 And ma y thanks to Mr. Pringle, and all 

 others, who keep before us the awful danger 

 of hindering nature's curative efforts in 

 acute disease. Yes, quite likely nature is 

 sometimes compelled to quit fighting the 

 disease in order to fight for a time the more 

 unendurable medicine; and then, very 

 naturally, symptoms change, and we fool- 

 ishly say the medicine has done good. 



As to honey from a bee tree making the 

 stomach ache worse than other honey I do 

 not agree with page 83. I suspect it's just 

 simply because one eats forty times as much 

 when he gets at the debris of a tree as he 

 would if he got at it in civilized fashion. 

 Poison from the sting points is too exceed- 

 ingly volatile to be plastered around much I 

 reckon. Fewer bee trees are taken than 

 formerly — fewer by far — and fewer box 

 hives are brimstoned ; and almost all taking 

 of honey is now done by specialists, who 

 are not liable to the "upsettinsin " of get- 

 ting the honey cholio. 



I rather like the man who runs a tilt 

 against settled opinions, and so take interest 

 in this from R. L. Taylor. Review 73. 



" At best the solar extractor is cumbersome, 

 can be used only about two months in the year, 

 and is of no practical utility inrenderins combs 

 containin.v,' cocoons." 



Ah, friend B. Taylor, we are too diminu- 

 tive and short lived to get a proper per- 

 spective in viewing the decline and death of 

 our world as a ijlanet. Most things in na- 

 ture move in waves ; and what we have been 

 rather sadly watching is merely the decline 

 of one little wave, not the decline of the 

 whole ocean. I, for one, believe we have 

 sean a cleclining wave of a rising tide. In 

 other word^, our plan3t has not yet reache I 

 its fully developed youth, much less begun 

 to die. See arhicle. Review, 75. 



Yes, friend Thompson, Dr. Dubini can 

 only be wholly right on the supposition that 

 pretty much the whole of us don't know bees 

 from bugs. Not only do bees work on the 

 second crop of red cliver, as our editor re- 

 lates, but it used to be common in my local- 

 ity to see lots of them on tlie first crop. Nev- 

 er mind it. Not long since one of the world's 

 famous bee men tried to force through the 

 dictum that there was no such substance as 

 propolis — only wax — and another dictum 

 that there was no such creature as a fertile 

 worker. " We're all poor critters. " 



Perhaps we may thank the same Dr. Du- 

 bini for his silver spoon test. That's very 

 easy : and sulphuretted hydrogen enough to 

 blacken a spoon ( whether fron corrupt 

 brood or other source ) might well bluff us 

 off from eating the stuff. 



I had missed or forgotten friend Reepen's 

 comb filling case to be used in an extractor, 

 and thank Mr. Tonipson for pointing it out 

 to me. I knew that the extractor had hope- 

 ful possibilities, but did not incline to theo- 

 rize any more on wliat nobody had tried. 



