four supers of honey since, which it could hardly have done had it lost all of its brood at the beginning of the honey-flow. It was in a Danzenlaker hive, and the brood was practically all covered. It was about 7:30 in the morning when I discovered that they were under water. I carried them out and cleared out the water as best I could. I fully expected that all of the submerged brood would die, and was happily surprised on later examination to find it all good. I did not think to take the temperature of the water that morning, but did on the following morning, when I think it was about the same. It then stood at 56 degrees F. The ditch had ceased overflowing when I discovered the calamity; and as the storm "assed over just before midnight I am certain the lower part of the brood, at least, must have been under water for some time.

Ogden, Utah, Sept. 2. JOSEPH H. PETERSON.

Getting Rid of Laying Workers with a Bee-escape

It is not difficult to cure a colony of laying workers if they are taken soon after they have begun their work-that is, within four or five days after the first eggs have appeared. If a couple of frames of young brood, with the adhering bees, are given, queen-cells will almost invariably be started. It is well not to allow these to hatch, for the queen will almost certainly be inferior. so they may be replaced after two or three days by a ripe cell. A queen will often be accepted at this stage, but I have found introduction risky. But when the laying workers have been allowed to go for ten days or more, so that the combs are filled with drone brood in all sorts of scattering stages, a cure may be said to be impossible, so far as making the colony of any use within a reasonable time. Under these circumstances the bees will seldom accept a queen if offered in any usual way, and the combs are too full of worthless brood any way to allow a queen to lay.

The result of a good many experiments in the past two years has led me to fix on the following plan, which has never yet failed me. A two-frame nucleus is made from a normal colony, and a queen introduced, or a very weak colony may be. used instead of this nucleus, if there is one which needs strengthening. The laying-worker colony is set on a bee-escape board over the nucleus. That is all. In the course of four or five days, fourfifths of the abnormal bees will have gone down, one by one, and will have united themselves quietly with the nucleus. The few bees left above I have always fancied to be the laying workers themselves; but they do no harm if knocked out on The sealed drone brood is then uncapped, and left to chill over right. It may then be given back to the bees, which will clean out the dead larvæ.

the grass.

A Burlap Awning in front of the Hive as a Shelter from the Sun or Snow

My method for a few years past has been to fill the super with good absorbents, such as sawdust, leaves, or excelsior, and to wrap the hive with heavy building paper well tacked on frame top to bottom, leaving the ull entrance open. For a shield from snow or wind, I tack burlap along the top of the front of the hive, letting it drop over the entrance. In case of a single-walled hive, more paper can be put on and fastened with thin slats.

When the sun shines on the front of the hive, it shields the light from the bees. When warm enough for them to fly I throw the sack on top of the hive and drop it down as needed. I find it the best front protection, in my experience of fifty-two years in handling bees. Conesus, N. Y.

D. W. TRESCOTT.

Living up to Their Name

In buying old lumber last winter I came into possession of a beer sign which I sawed and made into a hive with the big letters on the outside of the hive. Never have I had bees work as busily as this colony; for when they were put into this hive on the first day of June they had neither comb nor foundation. I was about to advise others to use saloon and beer signs for hives, when, hap

pening to look into the brood-nest, it was plain that these bees had been doing crooked work from the very first. The combs were all crosswise and cornerwise. Would it be well to use brimstone at once, or will they do straight work another year if foundation is put into a new hive, and the beer sign removed?

Chelan Falls, Wash. Sept. 11. C. B. JACKSON.

[We would advise you to give the bees another chance. May be they will reform if you start them right once more next spring. ED.]

A Good Record Made by an Eighty-year-old Bee

keeper

When I started this spring I had thirty-six colonies of bees. As soon as they began to have three or four combs of brood I began dividing them, making increase following Mr. Doolittle's plan as well as schemes of others, and also drawing on my own fifty years of experience.

I extracted over ten barrels of honey, and besides this I have about 1000 lbs. of comb honey in plain sections. I did all of our work myself in spite of the fact that I was eighty years old the second of May. I am very busy now getting it ready for market. We have a very good home market here. and I think I will sell it all in jellyglasses and Mason jars. A. C. BUTLER.

Newcastle, Neb.

What a Three-frame Nucleus did on a Peninsula 11⁄2 Miles Wide

The first of last June I purchased a three-frame nucleus and an observation hive. The bees entered the super on the first of August, and up to the present time I have obtained 56 pounds of comb honey. Besides this I should judge that there are from thirty to forty pounds of honey in the brood-chamber, and the little chaps are still hard at work. It seems to me that this is a good showing. There is very little farming here no buckwheat or basswood, and we are on a penin sula not over 11/2 miles wide.

Wood's Hole, Mass., Sept. 20. W. K. BUTLER.

Bee Demonstration to Swell the Membership of an Association

The farmers of upper Bucks County, Pennsyl vania, held a two-days' picnic on the 6th and 7th of September. On those two days I made demonstrations of modern methods of beekeeping, using a wire cage, and this feature proved both profitable and entertaining, for several hundred people surrounded the cage whenever I entered it. The dem onstrations stimulated beekeeping, and they were the means of bringing a number of new members into the Bucks County Association. Richlandtown, Pa.

S. T. CLAY.

Be not unequally yoked together.-II. COR. 6:14. Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.I. PETER 5:8.

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.-MATT. 11:28-30.

A BEEKEEPER IN TROUBLE.

The following letter somewhat explains itself:

Mr. A. I. Root:-I am in great trouble, and in jail on account of not being able to pay alimony to my divorced wife. This is an attempt to take my pension money away from me. I have had 12 dollars a month up till a few days ago, when it was increased to 30 dollars a month. They took ten dollars a month out of the twelve dollars for some time, till I had to sell my horse and cow to keep my two little boys and myself, and I am about $500 in debt. I send you book and paper under other two covers, which will give you an outline of the case.

Sept. 10.

J. E. C.

The book sent me, referred to in the above, is about the size of GLEANINGS, and contains 59 pages. These 59 pages contain full details that need not and should not have been allowed to get into print at all, as they refer only to neighborhood quarrels between relatives and neighbors. Why in the world our good friend should have ever gone to the trouble of putting such matters in print is more than I can explain. Notwithstanding his statement that he is a poor man, and has had to sell his horse and cows, and part with his two little boys, in a letter in a local paper which he sends, he says he is working hard to get money enough to buy a gas-engine to run his extractor. He says his right arm is partly paralyzed by turning the extractor to extract so much honey. Now, my opinion is that turning the extractor has had but little to do with it. His nervous condition from dwelling so much on his quarrels with his wife and neighbors has brought on paralysis, and no wonder. Let me quote briefly from the first page of this book:

AN EXPOSE; A TRUTHFUL STATEMENT OF MY AOQUAINTANCE, MARRIAGE, AND DIVORCE FROM MAY E. SMITH.

In the spring and early summer of 1892 Miss May E. Smith came to my place repeatedly after a quart of honey vinegar. She had called herself Miss Chase to me; and, in fact, I did not learn her true name until, speaking to a schoolmate of hers and calling her Miss Chase, he said to me, "Her name is not Chase, her name is Smith.' Yet I thought for some time after that she was Mrs. Chase's daughter by a former marriage. Certainly she had lived in Medford over four years when this took place, but my attention had never been called to her. I took her to be about fourteen years of age in the short dresses she wore.

I can tell you I was considerably surprised when she told me she was twenty years old.

I was forty-eight years old at that time, and was not interested in any girl so young, only to

treat them respectfully. But there was a persistency in her attentions and treatment of myself that would have taken an indomtiable "I will not' to counteract, and thus I was led forced, against my own best julgment into a marriage with this too young person, by and with the help of Mrs. W. S. Chase, a lady for whom I had the greatest respect at that time. I want to sav right here that this marriage was the mistake of my life. I have my faults, as we all do. I am afraid of the person that has no faults; but can we not cut them out, nor make them grow less. I can stand a lot; my shoulders are broad; but surely my punishment for this marriage is too grievous. They have kidnapped my children, my pets, my darlings, my babies, out of the nice little home which I had provided for them, and left me bereft of my jewels in my old age, and this is a crime for filthy lucre, and nothing else, or why did they resort to perjury and fraud to accomplish this vile scheme? Three sisters perjured themselves-Amanda Smith Cady testifying that I drew a big revolver on her and her father. This is false.

A man 48 years old was unwise enough to get married to a little girl wearing short dresses. She claimed to be 20, but Mr. C. thinks she was only about 14. Of course it was a big blunder to contract such a marriage in the first place. But after it was all "said and done," and especially after there were some children given them, friend C. needed the grace of God in his heart if anybody ever did. A genuine Christian man-one who is full of the patience and forbearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, would get along with a wife, even in her teens, and the divorce he speaks of, I feel sure, was entirely wrong and out of place.

ress.

Dropping for the present the case before us, let us consider a little this matter of old men marrying young girls. I need not make particular mention of the millionaires who have quite recently divorced the wives of their early manhood, in order to marry a young girl-generally an actIn fact, I have feared there are giddy and unscrupulous young girls who set about a course of training in order to capture or captivate some old man who happened to be rich; and I have watched as well as I could the results of such marriages. The young girl not only soon gets sick of her bargain, but the foolish (and, I might almost say, the idiotic) old man in a like manner would be exceedingly glad to get back to his first wife-the faithful companion, perhaps, for forty years or more, if it could be done. divorced wife frequently had nearly or quite as much to do in accumulating the riches as the millionaire himself; and yet after the divorce she is put off with a mere pittance. Let me suggest to you John Jacob Astor, who recently died in the Titanic. In his will the faithful old wife was comparatively unrecognized,

The

while the young actress succeeded in scooping in several millions; and now there is a jangle about the millions that are to go to the baby only a few weeks old. If this thing is allowed to go onthis thing of letting a man go scot free or letting him trample the most holy and sacred laws (of both God and man) under foot, because he is a millionaire-we shall have something worse than "race suicide."

Now, our beekeeping friend is by no means a millionaire; and this kind of sin is by no means confined to millionaires. How many times do we see old men acting silly around young girls-perhaps girls in short dresses! And, by the way, the short dresses of late do not seem to be confined entirely to girls in their teens, as used to be the custom and fashion. May God help us, or may he help us who claim to belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, to do all we can to put a brake on the work of that "roaring lion" who is just now particularly active in going about "seeking whom he may devour." I suppose that, in every community, there are more or less old men, both married and unmarried, who act silly around young girls especially if these young girls are full of life and attired in modern styles.

I am now going to come still nearer home. May God help me, the author of these Home papers, to beware how I take more notice of the bright young girls who are flitting around me like butterflies, than I do of the young boys who are just as nice and just as bright. Some time ago I made the remark that I really enjoyed being near the entrance of our factory (just before the whistle blows) and looking into the bright faces of our employees, and saying "good morning" to each and every one. I think I happened to remark that I especially liked to catch the eyes of the bright young boys as they come to their work exactly on time. While I was speaking, somebody in the crowd-I do not know but it was one of my daughters-in-law-looked up mischievously and asked me if I did not particularly enjoy saying "good morning" to the good-looking and nicely dressed young girls who work in the honey-room, the various offices, and in the packing-rooms of our establishment. There was a big laugh all around at this sally; and when I came to look into my own heart I confess I felt a little guilty. May God in his great mercy help me to keep even more closely in that straight and narrow way, and to look on all mankind even as did the dear Savior when he said, "He that doeth the will of

my Father my sister a Now, the cl blame in this

'e same is my brother and my mother."

men are not altogether to matter. There are middleaged and eve elderly women who act foolishly around young boys. Years ago one of the first converts it was my privilege to lead to the Lord Jesus Christ made an abrupt change in his life. He deliberately did come "out of darkness" and get into the broad daylight of the gospel, and into a full trust in God's promises. Christian people right and left extended to him a helping hand and bade him Godspeed in the new way. Among them was a woman prominent in Christian work. She took so much notice of him, and made so much of him, that I began to protest. I feared the boy might be spoiled by her overdoing. She excused herself by saying, "Why, Mr. Root, I am old enough to be his mother, and I am only taking a 'motherly' interest in him." Her good husband was a beautiful example of Christian manhood. He, too, took an interest in the boy who had dropped his tobacco, profanity, strong drink, evil companions, and every thing else, and was a real friend to the boy. I cautioned the boy as well as her who wanted to be a "mother" to him. Finally the young man came to me and told me his troubles. This motherly woman had Then my

young friend said something like this:

"Mr. Root, if there ever was a good man it is this woman's husband; and I would rather die than harm him or his domestic relations by thought or deed. It will not do for me to be where I shall see this woman any longer or have any thing to do with her."

May God be praised, this young man, by my advice, heeded that part of the Lord's prayer where it says, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." It is right and proper that elderly people should notice the boys and girls, lend them a helping hand, and watch over them in a fatherly and a motherly way; but whenever you are tempted to go further than that, remember the caution from your old friend in this Home paper.

that

Our beekeeping friend suggests there was "a persistency in her attentions and treatment." Now, girls of fourteen or fifteen often jest with, and banter elderly people with whom they are well acquainted, without a thought of any thing wrong.*

I have more fear of the designing mothers back of the young girls than I have of young girls fourteen or fifteen. We should each and all of us, especially we men folks, pray constantly for grace and strength and wisdom to treat all young girls, wherever we see them, exactly as we would have all men treat our own daughters. This is sometimes a hard thing to do, I know, especially if all men are created much after the same pattern as myself. But you know the promise in God's word, "My grace is sufficient for you," and, again, "He will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able to bear."

Now comes in one more thought, and it is a most important matter. Old men and perhaps young men are in this present day and age, many of them, employing bright young girls as stenographers; and oftentimes these stenographers are shut up with the employer in his office away up many stories high. I would not have it. May be you will think I am old-fashioned and over cautious, but I know whereof I speak. Granting, if you choose, that there are hundreds and thousands of good girls earning their bread in this way, the fact still remains they are making a precedent and at the same time setting a bad example. A nephew of mine is a skillful physician. When girls go to his office for counsel he tells them that they must bring their mothers along; or if that is not convenient his good wife is called into the room, and she remains there until whatever must be said and done is ended; and may God be praised that I do know of one such family doctor. Now let us have society so framed that it will be generally understood that it is not exactly the thing for a man and woman who are not related to each other to be kept much together. As a rule I deprecate gossip; but my good pastor, Rev. A. T. Reed, years ago, said that, when things of this kind are going on, people ought to talk, and he said he was often glad that they did.

Not very long ago a banker with whom I am acquainted was talking about getting

life.

My friend took particular pains to have us two become acquainted. During my stay of two or three days we became so well acquainted that my friend suggested to his sister something like this:

"Sister, I trust you will not forget that Mr. Root is a married man while he and you seem to be having such a good time together."

I shall always remember her quick repartee"Dear me! do you think I would carry on in this way with anybody who was not a married man?" Her philosophy (and I think it was reasonably sound) was like this: Every man who has a wife (and especially if he has a baby too) at home, is expected to be manly in the best sense of the word, no matter where he is nor what the circumstances may be. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

a divorce from his wife, or, rather, she was going to get the divorce-it does not matter particularly. The reason was the employment of a lady book-keeper. The wife wanted this woman dismissed. But the banker said that would mean ruin to his business to dismiss that faithful and competent woman. In discussing the matter with a Congregational minister of that town, this minister declared that this wife was unreasonable. But I said, "No, no, NO! Let the banking business be ruined or even wrecked; but do not wreck or ruin the sacred relation between this man and wife." Some of you may suggest that sometimes women are unreasonably jealous. There may be a few of that kind, but I do not believe it occurs very often. I do remember one case where a man was jealous of his wife where there was not a shadow of reason for it; but this man was very soon after pronounced hopelessly in

sane.

I like to see warm and intimate friendships, and I like to see friendship between the young and old; but I always feel worried and troubled when too intimate friendships exist between old men and young girls. Beekeeping and poultrykeeping, greenhouses, gardening, flowers, high-pressure gardening, the study of botany, microscopy, and even astronomy, often bring together intimate relations between people in various parts of life. If some bright young woman is skillful with chickens, and you enjoy paying her frequent visits, go right ahead; but take your wife along, even if said wife does not care much for the chickens. If you have no wife, get one; and if this expert poultrywoman has no husband, get her by all means; and if you can not get her, do a good job in trying; and after you have once gotten her (so you can call her your own), so live that all men may know you are remembering that solemn vow you took: "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

I have spoken of young girls full of health and buoyancy of spirits who oftentimes innocently attract the attention not only of old men but men of all ages. Now, when these girls need a guiding hand from the father as well as from the mother, what do you think of the wretch in human form who deliberately waylays these children (for that is what they are), and brings them down to ruin? The dear Savior contemplated this, I think, when he said, "It were better for such a man that a millstone were hung about his neck, and he were cast, into the depths of the sea."

Just recently I have been pained to note by the daily papers that the city of Cleveland has been, during the past summer, inaugurating what they call "three-cent dance-halls." These dance-halls purport to be for the purpose of giving the children outdoor exercise; and I have been waiting and wondering why some of the Christian men and women of the different churches of that great city did not come out with a vehement protest, especially when the authorities are proposing to open even a greater number of three-cent dance-halls. The following clipping from the Cleveland Press would indicate that there are asylums or institutions of some kind in Cleveland to take care of these unfortunate results from the dance-halls:

"It is plainly the mother's duty to acquaint her child with the important facts of life. But the majority of mothers are obviously failing," said Mrs. Clark. "We have from twenty to thirty girls here constantly.

"They

from come

some of the best homes in the cities, and some of our so-called 'finest young men' are responsible. They come here almost invariably by way of the public dance hall and amusement parks.

"Just now we are caring for the results of last winter's dances in the public halls. After the first of the year those girls who this summer have frequented the parks to their own grief, will come to us. What does it all mean?

"Primarily that their mothers failed to do their duty when they failed to tell them the things they should know.

"If each girl were closely questioned I doubt if we could find three of them who had been told the truth. I base that estimate on the fact that so many of them range from thirteen to seventeen years. One child of thirteen gave birth to a baby girl here this morning. Her mother, heartbroken with grief, admitted to me that it had been her own fault.

"Since the majority of parents either can not or will not instruct their children, I think it is flatly up to the state, through the schools, to supply that instruction.'

Let me add to the above clipping that I fear our reform institutions will accomplish but little in the way of cure while every great city forgets all about preven tion, and keeps on opening up more threecent dances.

When friend C. first sent me the letter at the head of this Home paper I wrote him as follows:

My good friend, I have looked over your book quite a little, but really can not take time to read all of it. It seems to be an account of neighborhood quarrels and family quarrels that nobody in the world except your immediate community is interested in. I think you did a very foolish thing in putting so much gossip in print; and if you will excuse plain talking I am sure you must be at least somewhat to blame. I never knew of a neighborhood where there were not more good people than bad, and where the general public are not always ready to give a poor man a chance. Neither in your letter nor in your book do you intimate that you have been holding fast to God's promises. I will quote just this one: "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake."

Now, if you are trying to do right, and ask God to help you every day of your life, I don't see how you can have any such trouble. Get down on your knees, and ask God to forgive you

for what you have done wrong: then ask him to guide your erring footsteps. Remember also the promise: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." If you will do this I am sure you will not only be at peace with your neighbors but with the good wife, the mother of your children. I wish you would show her this letter. If you are both beekeepers, I suppose you have been reading my Home talks in GLEANINGS. I have prayed for you both, and I will pray for you again. Your old friend,

A. I. ROOT.

Sept. 13, 1912. Well, in due time I received the following reply:

Mr. Root: I am ashamed to have such a letter in my possession as you wrote me. Certainly it is plain that you did not read my book. Do you think I would place that letter in this woman's hands? She would clap her hands and screech with delight at my inability to protect myself from her. Surely she would not have to pervert that letter to her liking.

In regard to myself, first I am persecuted because I am a beekeeper; next, because I was friendly to sweet clover; then, last but not least, because opposed to strong drink being shipped into our no-license village, and kept in a blind piggery where several claimed the right to store their

liquor, then come together, to drink it; then have the brewery team come from F. every few days and deliver beer in bottles and kegs at this "piggery," and also at their private houses in broad daylight. You should remember that I received 250 copies of "A Stainless Flag." by Dr. Chapman, which I faithfully distributed in F. and the towns of O. and M., and that O. came within eight votes of going dry; and I believe that, if I had had the 300 copies that the box would have held (50 copies more, in place of refuse paper), O. would have gone dry.

This (for reasons best known to myself) I left out of the book. This woman's father was a notoroious drinking man. Liquor and crime go hand in hand; thus this crime comes against me. I took GLEANINGS for your writings and nothing else; yet I look it over a little, more for sweet clover and alfalfa than any thing else. I have four acres of sweet clover and 3% acres of alfalfa. I am no hypocrite, so say little about religion. I would be a poor person to speak in church, yet I have sung in choirs for many years, and I thoroughly believe what I sing. Do you think that I could sing otherwise? This woman never looked in GLEANINGS that I knew of, nor a Bible either.

I wish I could get three or four copies of "The Truth About Sweet Clover." I think I have two or three copies of "A Stainless Flag" yet at home, which I should like to get into this jail. Oh the terror of strong drink! There is a man in this jail who killed a babe less than a day old-a Bohemian. His wife comes about twice a week to see him. He is a prosperous farmer, worth $50,000; and now he is sober, they both nearly die over the matter. Yours respectfully,

Jail, Sept. 24, 1912.

I have given the above letter entire because it illustrates the sad condition of one who has become entangled in a family quarrel, and finally in a quarrel with neighbors also. It would look at first glance as if the writer had been persecuted for righteousness' sake; but come to look into the matter carefully it hardly seems likely that people should all be against him because he is a beekeeper or because he is friendly to sweet clover, and certainly not because he is a temperance worker and one who is faithful and earnest in distributing temperance literature. He says he took GLEANINGS for my writings and