Affords Mental Discipline. 7 



IMPKOVES THE MIND AND THE OBSEEVATION. 



Successful apiculture demands close and accurate observa- 

 tion, 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." 



YIELDS DELICIOUS FOOD. 



A last inducement to apiculture, certainly not unworthy of 

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

 our very lives, demand that we should eat sweets. It is a 

 truth that our sugars, and especially our commercial syrups, 

 are so adulterated as to be often poisonous. The apiary, in 

 lieu of these, gives us one of the most delicious and whole- 

 some of sweets, which has received merited praise, as food fit 

 for the gods, from the most ancient time till the present day. 

 To ever have within reach the beautiful, immaculate comb, 

 or the equally grateful nectar, right from the extractor, is 

 certainly a blessing of no mean order. We may thus supply 

 our families and friends with a most necessary and desirable 

 food element, and this with no cloud of fear from vile, poison 

 ous adulterations. 



