alight on the tall evergreens outskirting the apiary.

Two Sundays ago our Sunday watchman (for we have such a man to look after our plant to give notice in case of fire and sometimes of swarms) reported that a swarm was out. As the boys were away, it became my duty to hive the bees. But this Sunday swarm, departing from the usual customs of swarms at the Home of the Honey-bees, saw fit to fly high and to hover around near the top of one of our tall evergreens, something over 30 feet high. As if to be less accommodating still, it separated into three clusters, each cluster being over 20 feet above the ground. I soon brought into play a step-ladder and a Manum swarmcatcher with a sixteen-foot pole. I jarred a part of the bees of each cluster into the basket of the catcher, closed the lid, then stood the machine up on its three legs with a bunch of bees inside of the wire-cloth basket in the air. With a long pole I then began a systematic and persistent pounding on the three limbs on which the bees had been hanging previously. The large bunch of bees in the basket in the meantime began calling, and in a few minutes the rest of the bees deserted their lofty elevations and clustered on the outside of the wire-cloth basket with their fellows. In a few minutes more I had them dumped into a Danzenbaker hive.

Our special prize committee, or committee whose duty it is to award prizes on these photos, did not assign any reason why this particular one should be given first honors; but if any one of them had had the experience of climbing an elm-tree to bring down a swarm, he would probably give a picture showing a swarm close to the ground the first consideration, irrespective of the merits of any other pose or detail in the picture.

The particular swarm here shown is evidently a large one, weighing not less than 10 lbs., I should judge from the appearance, and the further fact that a fruit-tree having a trunk over an inch in diameter was bent clear over.

Speaking of large swarms, the heaviest one we ever had weighed 15 lbs. Estimating 4500 bees to the pound, which is very nearly right for bees of a swarm, ve have an aggregate of 67,500. This particular swarm before us could scarcely have weighed less than 10 lbs., so the number of bees would not be less than 45,000.

There is nothing like the weight of numbers, either in the bee world nor in that larger world in which we live and have our being. I concluded, therefore, that the accessibility for general hiving purposes, and the size of this particular bunch of bees, were some of the deciding factors to cause the committee to award the prize as they did. And that leads me to say that the com

mittee met in executive session, and that their doings are as secret as those of a grand jury.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS.

Some Glimpses of the Surrounding Woods.

BY A. I. ROOT.

After the convention at Central Lake was over-see page 496-I was planning to make a call at the cabin, where one of my neighbors was making maple sugar right in the height of the sugar season, the first week in April. Bro. Hutchinson had been wanting

to see my ranch for some time, and so he went along with me, taking his camera, etc.; and the beautiful views we submit to you in this issue are some of his work.

The one on p. 661 gives us a view of Grand Traverse Bay as it appears from the lawn in front of the cabin. Behind those large trees on the right of the picture is "Dick Bassett's Island," of which you have prohably heard the Robinson Crusoe island of America. The ground goes down so abruptly toward the bay that the brush you see sticking up in the center of the picture are the tops of tall trees, some of them evergreens as you will notice. The land visible a way off across the bay is the peninsula or tongue that shoots down from the north.

On this tongue of land, almost surrounded by water, are the Ne-ah-ta-wan-ta Hotel, Old Mission, and other celebrated health resorts.

The cabin itself, I need not mention to tell you what it is. On top of the hill back of the cabin you will notice that beautiful combination of maples, beeches, and evergreens which I have so many times described. You can distinguish the maples by the bright new tin sap-pails hanging to the trees. You can get a little glimpse of my strawberrypatch between the house and the trees on the hill. Our flower-garden is on the right of the picture near the door-step. The peach-trees you will see scattered in the front yard, and clear up among the foresttrees, where we cleared the forest away. The little kitchen with its white brick chimney rising above is the spot where Mrs. Root and I spend so many happy hours. It is so diminutive that, when we are both in the kitchen at once, we are necessarily pretty close together. But that did not make any trouble at all, any more than it did when we were in our teens instead of being over sixty years of age.

The water-pipe from the spring away off in the opposite corner of our forty acres comes right up near the kitchen door, and it gives water enough so I enjoy experimenting with strawberries and other garden stuff

under the influence of abundant irrigation. On the sandy loam around the cabin there is not much danger of overwatering.

Mr. Hutchinson and myself I need not describe. You know us both, or at least every bee-keeper in our land ought to know us. You can not very well afford not to know Bro. Hutchinson, and I do not think you can afford to omit taking his journal.

I could talk all day about the things I love in and around that cabin, but we must hasten on.

Let us now get down to the sugar-camp. We will take the path that leads from that little kitchen down the hill into the ravine, and here is what we find.

You will recognize me by my fur cap, and because my head is so near that of the horse. One of the Spencer boys is on top of the barrel of sap. They draw their sap with a light buggy because they happen to have it, and it seems to be very convenient in getting over rough places in the woods. Mrs. Spencer, who bosses the camp week days, and superintends the Sunday-school on Sunday, is standing in the sugar-house door; but the picture is hardly accurate enough to give us much of a glimpse of her. She is one of God's jewels-one of the kind who love righteousness and hate iniquity, for her children's sake if for no other reason; and

I rather think she likes maple sugar also. I wish Bro. Hutchinson had taken a view of the inside of the sugar-house, for it was the neatest-looking place inside I ever saw for an establishment of that kind. All the tin and brass work of my new apparatus was shining bright. Every thing was swept up; all the utensils were hung up in their proper places, and it occurred to me then that a woman could supervise maple-sugar making better than any man. Her big stout boys do so much of the hard work that she is spared the heavy lifting. And, by the way, there are two of about as nice Spencer girls in that family as were ever found in that woods or any other. One of them is named Fern; and if you could see her you would think the woods a very proper place for such a girl, and the name a very appropriate one. The big man standing up alone is the driver who brought us over from Traverse City. Bro. Hutchinson instructed him how to "press the button" when he was taking the picture of Bro. H. and myself. Ernest insisted on an enlarged view of both of us. I did not know it was enlarged until he had it done, and I insisted that it was not worth so much space. I suppose it is just about as we looked when we had our many pleasant talks during that beautiful spring day in the woods. It just occurs to me that Bro.

Hutchinson is sitting on the big white stone where I used to pound my beef-steak when Mrs. Root was gone, and I was there alone. You need not be afraid to sit down to a dinner of beef-steak when you come to visit us, because, if Mrs. Root is around, she will not allow any of my backwoods methods of getting dinner.

On page 659 we give you a glimpse of one of the old lumber-roads. The big lumber was cut off some thirty or forty years ago, and an undergrowth has sprung up so thick you can hardly crawl through it in many places. Right back of where I stood there is a stump of a large basswoodtree. I do not know when the tree was cut, but you will notice there are almost a dozen young basswoods, some of them nearly a foot in diameter, that have sprung up where the old tree was cut down; and basswoods will do that every time if you keep cattle away from the young shoots. The old lumber-road in the foreground was worn smooth and hard years ago, and now in many places it is covered with a beautiful soft moss-nature's upholstering. This old road makes one of the beautiful winding paths through the woods where the children go to day school and to Sunday-school. Mrs. Root and I often remarked what a bright picture it was to see the neat tidy children,

with dinner-pails, passing through these lovely wild-wood paths every morning and evening.

Perhaps I had better stop now before I give you any more of a fever to have a cabin of your own somewhere out in the woods. But I do think, dear friends, that a lot of us would find health and happiness by kicking out of the traces of fashion and folly, and going out to such a sylvan retreat where we can wear out our old clothes, and live on as many dimes as it costs us dollars with all the paraphernalia of the towns and cities that we may live "in style."

DR. MILLER NOT THE ONLY MAN WHO USES NAIL-SPACED FRAMES.

Why Italians are More Proof Against Foul Brood than the Blacks.

BY R. BEUHNE.

I have been greatly interested in the many articles on Hoffman and other frames. In a footnote to spacing frames, page 1158, you say: "I wonder if the doctor is the only one who uses nail spacers to any extent." I may tell you he is not. I have