OR, MANUAI, OF THE APIARY. 19 



IMPROVES THE MIND, THE OBSERVATION, AND THE HEART. 



Successful apiculture demands close and accurate obser- 

 vation, and hard, continuous thought and study, and this, too, 

 in the wondrous realm of nature. In all this, the apiarist re- 

 ceives manifold and substantial advantages. In the cultiva- 

 tion of the habit of observation a person becomes constantly 

 more able, useful and susceptible to pleasure — results which 

 also follow as surely on the habit of thought and study. It is 

 hardly conceivable that the wide-awake apiarist who is so 

 frequently busy with his wonder-working comrades of the 

 hive, can ever be lonely, or feel time hanging heavily on his 

 hands. The mind is occupied, and there is no chance for 

 ennui. The whole tendency of such thought and study, where 

 nature is the subject, is to refine the taste, elevate the desires, 

 and ennoble manhood. Once get our youth, with their sus- 

 ceptible natures, engaged in such wholesome study, and we 

 shall have less reason to fear the vicious tendencies of the 

 street, or the luring vices and damning influences of the 

 saloon. Thus apiculture spreads an intellectual feast that 

 even the old philosophers would have coveted ; furnishes the 

 rarest food for the observing faculties, and, best of all, by 

 keeping its votaries face to face with the matchless creations 

 of the All Father, must draw them toward Him "who went 

 about doing good," and " in whom there was no guile." 



YIEI.DS DEUCIOUS FOOD. 



A last inducement of apiculture, certainly not unworthy of 

 mention, is the offering it brings to our tables. Health, yea 

 our very lives, demands that we eat sweets. It is a truth that 

 our sugars, and especially our commercial syrups, are so adul- 

 terated as to be often poisonous. The apiary in lieu of these, 

 gives us one of the most delicious and wholesome of sweets, 

 which has received merited praise, as food fit for the gods, 

 from the most ancient time to the present day. Ever to have 

 within reach the beautiful, immaculate comb, or the equally 

 grateful nectar, right from the extractor, is certainly a bless- 

 ing of no mean order. We may thus supply our families and 

 friends with a food element, with no cloud of fear from vile, 

 poisonous adulterations. We now know that if we eat cane, 



