UTOPIA. 29 



the older bee-keepers, but was read and read again. 

 Every report as to success or failures was carefully 

 pondered. Most of the advertisements requested 

 readers to send for circulars, a request which I ac- 

 cepted, and soon had a pile of documents about 

 hives, extractors, smokers, and Italian queens. I read 

 Prof. Cook's " Manual," turned back and read again, 

 then re-read portions on points about which I was 

 not clear. Then I imagined that I was beginning 

 the season with a hive of bees, and went over every 

 process in bee-keeping time after time, until the 

 whole theory was as familiar to me as the alphabet. 

 I was so entirely absorbed, and went about with such 

 an absent air, that some of the good gossips of the 

 district began to say that the school-master was in 

 love. Often my pencil was in hand, and old envel- 

 opes, the margins of newspapers, and odd scraps 

 were covered with figures. The bee journals said 

 that often, by the system of nucleus swarming, as 

 many as three new, good swarms of bees could be 

 made in one season from one old one, so that begin- 

 ning with one in the spring, you would have four in 

 the fall. They said, too, that in addition to 

 this, honey to the value of ten dollars could be 

 secured from the old hive, helped, perhaps, some- 

 what by a little that the first new ones would give. 3 

 When I put this statement in figures, and carried 

 the calculation out for a few years, it assumed 



