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owners place between the body and the upper part of the hive a zinc screen of sufficient mesh to allow the workers to enter, but which excludes the queen.

Another invention, and one of the most valuable, is the honey extractor. Before it was devised "strained honey" used to be produced by cutting out the combs. and melting them or squeezing the honey out of them. In either case the honey was mixed with impurities and the comb, which required so much labor on the part of the bees, was destroyed. Now the apiarists take the frames from the hives, cut the cappings from the combs, and place the combs in a centrifugal machine whose whirling motion drives all the honey from the cells, but leaves the comb uninjured, ready to be filled again. Under this system the bees often fill each comb as many as half a dozen times in a

latter per pound would be greater than that of the comb honey.

He

In the old days the bee-keeper used to stay away from church on the ground that he "expected his bees would swarm" and had to be there to watch them. need not deprive himself of spiritual instruction longer on that score, as for ten years automatic swarm hivers have been in successful operation everywhere-almost-that bees are kept. These consist of a trap or box made of zinc with meshes large enough to prevent the queen from passing out when the trap is placed at the entrance to the hive, but allowing the workers to pass freely. The swarm will issue as usual, but soon will discover the loss of its queen. Contrary to general belief the queen does not lead the swarm, but is almost the last to leave. When the bees discover they have broken.

ENVELOPE FOR MAILING QUEEN BEE.

home ties without the presence of their queen they will return to the hive. Meanwhile the queen, unable to get outdoors. has passed through a cone in the zinc. screen, and finds herself imprisoned in a compartment a few inches square.

A number of other inventions are used by up-to-date apiarists, and twenty fac

tories, one of them employing 400 men, are kept busy the year round turning out supplies for bee-keepers. The last government census estimates the value of the honey crop at $20,000,000 a year. with 300,000 apiarists-in round numbers-sharing in the fortune. There are enough bees in the United States to sting to death every inhabitant, for each hive contains from 30,000 to 50,000 of them— a peck to a half bushel in a colony. The life of the swarm is the queen, for she alone lays eggs, her output often being 20,000 a day. The worker bees, which constitute the bulk of the swarm, are less developed females, and in the summer each colony has a few hundred drones or males. Fifteen dollars is sufficient to buy the amateur a colony of bees, a couple of extra hives for new swarms, 500 boxes for comb honey, a pound of comb foundation, a smoker, and other supplies desirable in securing a start in bee-keeping.

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Youth and Old Age ran a race,
At the start Youth set the pace;
Madly on and on he fled-
At the quarter far ahead.
At the half he seemed to tire,

As he floundered in the mire.

Old Age finished, gaunt and lean;

Youth was nowhere to be seen.

Bequest to American Boys

By H. D. Jones

UTTING Gordian knots to solve problems, or cutting across lots to reach objectives, are considered American prerogatives in these days. As such they appealed forcibly to a quiet little Quaker gentleman who not long ago passed to his reward leaving a lasting monument to this tendency to break away from beaten tracks. It takes the shape of a free school in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, for the training of young men in mechanical trades. The school is built, endowed and already turning out young men fully equipped to restore the American mechanic to his lost place as the peer of the workmen of the world.

The founder of this school, Isaiah V. Williamson, was so impressed with the wisdom of leaving his millions to the es

coat, the soiling of his dainty hands or the damaging of his carefully manicured finger nails. Mr. Williamson embodied this sentiment in the foundation deed of the school, when he wrote:

"I desire to have impressed upon every scholar and inmate of the school the one great lesson that in this country every able-bodied, healthy young man who has learned a good mechanical trade and is truthful, honest, frugal, temperate and industrious, is certain to succeed in life and to become a useful and respected member of society."

Among the trades that the founder suggested should be taught at this school were those of baker, blacksmith, bricklayer, butcher, cabinet-maker, car-builder, carpenter, carriage-maker, coppersmith, the crafts of constructing, managing and repairing electrical appliances and appa

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MAIN BUILDING OF THE SCHOOL. UNDER ITS FRONT ENTRANCE THE BODY OF ITS FOUNDER IS BURIED.

tablishment of a trade school that he selected the building as his tomb and there he is buried, beneath the main entrance of the administration edifice.

The air is full just now of remonstrances from far-seeing Americans against the tendency of the young man of the period to refrain from any kind of work that necessitates the removal of his

ratus, foundryman, gas-fitter, goldbeater, harness-maker, hatter, locksmith, machinist, marble-mason, molder, painter, paper-hanger, pattern-maker, plasterer, plumber, printer, saddler, shoemaker, steam engineer, slater, stone-cutter, stonemason, tailor, tiler, tinsmith, turner, and wheelwright. It was impossible to give instruction in all these

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CLASS IN BRICKLAYING BUILDING A STABLE, WITH CARPENTER CLASS LAYING TRUSSES.

branches, at the beginning and the trustees decided to include only the following in the curriculum:

Carpentry; bricklaying, including range, furnace- and boiler-setting; the machine trade in all its usual details; pattern-making; steam and electrical engineering, steam-fitting, etc. All boys admitted are apprenticed to the trustees for the term of three years. Only natives of the United States are eligible for admission and, other things being equal, preference is given in the following order:

To those born in the city of Philadelphia; to those born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania; to those born in Montgomery and Delaware counties, Pennsylvania; to those born elsewhere in Pennsylvania; to those born in New Jersey; to those born elsewhere in the United States. The school is intended only for those who intend to follow for a livelihood the trades there taught them. Scholars are required to bring with them a plain outfit of clothing, but while at the school no charge is made for boarding, clothing or instruction, the benefits of the institution being free. The total par value of the securities left by the founder of the school amounted at the time the foundation deed was prepared to $1,596,000, so that the school is amply endowed.

The most picturesque work done by the classes at this school is that seen in the bricklaying departments. One of the photographs accompanying this article shows the boys building a structure on the grounds of the school. The advanced class constructs a complete building thus, and if it is not done to the satisfaction of the expert eye the boys tear it down and build again. Many of the additions to the original school buildings have been made by the scholars under the direction of the teachers.

In the same way a practical training is given in carpentry, machine work, pattern-making and steam and electrical engineering, The boys are shown how to do the work and are then left to do it. It may readily be believed that after three years of this new kind of apprenticeship the graduate from the Williamson school is able to hold his own with the best of the mechanics who occupy the front rank of the trades in this country and who learned their trade in the schools of the older countries.

The school is non-sectarian, but each pupil, immediately after admission, is required to designate the religious denomination of his choice and thereafter is required to attend services regularly at his place of worship in the neighborhood.

In the Track of the Hurricane

By Charles Richards Dodge

CONVULSIONS of nature and the devastation. of of property to a tremendous extent, together with appalling losses of human life, marked the year 1906. The stories of volcanic activity and of earth-shock on two continents have brought to the public mind with startling emphasis the perils of the subterranean forces of nature. During the During the same period, also, the devastations from greatly disturbed atmospheric conditions, have supplied details quite as impressive.

Destructive storms, with high wind velocities, are of two forms: hurricanes or

typhoons, which are of tropic origin, and tornadoes-popularly referred to in the West as cyclones-which are very differerent. Both are cyclonic, that is to say they result from greatly disturbed atmospheric conditions with areas of low barometric pressure, about which the air moves in an inward direction spirally. The term hurricane is applied to a tropic storm of this nature on the Western Hemisphere, while in Eastern countries such storms are called typhoons. And because these storms occur where there are large bodies of water, such as the China Sea and the Caribbean Sea, they are usually accompanied by high seas or

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Schooner set down in a front door-yard by the wind and water, at Pensacola.

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