THE COTTAGE AND FARM BEE KEEPER. 3 



considerable share of a man's time and thoughts. He must be often 

 about his bees, which will help counteract the baneful allurement 

 of the village "public," with all its accompanying syren-like evils. 

 Whoever is fond of Ms bees is fond of his home — is an axiom of irre- 

 fragable truth ; and it is an axiom that will be sure to kindle in every 

 true Englishman's breast a favorable regard for a pursuit, which, 

 though humble, has undoubted power to produce so happy an influ- 

 ence. " Where the Frenchman sings of his country, we talk of home. 

 . . .We point with exultation, (and I trust with gratitude,) to the fire- 

 sides of England, and claim the admiration of the world for the virtue 

 which has gained so high a reward." [No home-loving American can 

 be a stranger to tfiese feelings, and cannot fail to be susceptible of the 

 same happy 'influences.] Who will not assist in any efforts, great or 

 small, which may continue this our claim to universal admiration? 

 Who, that sees in the love of home the companion of many other 

 virtues, which, if not yet developed into active exercise, are still only 

 dormant, and may be roused into wakeful energy at any moment? 



To gain the attention, however, of the poor themselves, with the 

 hope of successfully instructing them in an improved system of bee 

 culture, is confessedly not an easy task. While in other countries the 

 peasantry need little instruction from their superiors in this matter — 

 their own quick intelligence supplying them with every necessary en- 

 couragement — it must be acknowledged that our rustic poor are 

 slow of apprehension to a proverb, and unready at learning even from 

 the successful examples of others. Hence it is proper to give them 

 gradual instruction, taking care to make the first converts in a neigh- 

 borhood of the most industrious and intelligent of its cottagers. It is 

 obviously useless, also, to recommend to their notice any system of 

 complicated machinery or of fanciful contrivance. Every suggestion 

 and every improvement which it is intended they shall take in, must 

 be of the most simple kind. I do not think it necessary to say much 

 on the subject of expense ; for costly experiments must ever oppose 

 an insuperable barrier to bee improvement among the poor. Sim- 

 plicity of detail, therefore, and perseverance in instruction, as well as 

 personal .example, must go hand in hand together in any attempts to 

 increase the number of, or to improve the system actually in vogue 

 among, cottage bee keepers. I would fain trust that the system of 

 cottage management, explained further on, will not be found so diffi- 



