respondence published, wherein John Smith of Maine explains his views on the bee business to Timothy Jones of Oregon, and incidentally sends his kindest regards to the family.
I never take into my hands that delightful book, "A B C of Bee Culture," without turning to the biographies of noted bee-keepers, and looking again at the faces there depicted, noting the noble forehead of Huber; the keen, scholarly face of Dzierzon; the judicial countenance of Friend Quinby and the beautiful expression of the venerable Langstroth. And thus on, page by page, and getting, by the way, a friendly greeting from the kindly eyes of Professor Cook, that most excellent of good teachers; and finally deriving sincere satisfaction from a long look at the keen, humorous face of Mr. A. I. Root himself. These leaders in apiculture are men with whom one is proud to be associated. And the fact that there are, in the United States, 300,000 persons engaged in bee-keeping, makes one hopeful that our republican institutions are to be guarded by intelligent citizenship.
It is interesting to note that knowledge of bees has been given to the world by men who have attained the high peaks of scientific fame. Such knowledge began with Aristotle and Pliny in ancient times, and received no additions during the uncertain Dark Ages. It began anew with Swammerdam, in the seventeenth century, was augmented by Linnæus, De Geer, Réaumur, Bonnet, Lyonnet, Fabricius, Latreille, Lamarck, and finally reached a climax in
