Author of "The Cottager's Guide."
THIRD EDITION.
LONDON:
T. C. NEWBY, 72, MORTIMER St., CAVENDISH Sq.
1846.
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Having written the "Cottager's Guide for the Management of his Bees, upon the Depriving System," which has been printed for gratuitous distribution among the Cottagers, I am induced, at the particular request of several Apiarian friends, to enlarge the above little work, and to give in addition a description of Nutt's newly invented Hive, and other practical remarks in Bee-knowledge, resulting from nearly forty years' close observation.
Should this little work be the means of inducing any person to promote the culture of Bees amongst the Cottagers in his immediate neighbourhood, upon the Depriving System, I shall be amply repaid for the trouble it may have occasioned me; and the hope that such will be the result, must be my apology for adding to the number of books (perhaps already too numerous) upon this subject.
Reaumur, in a letter to M. de la Bourdonaye, in 1757, says, "The preservation and also the increase of Bees is an object of such interest to Britanny, that the peasantry cannot be too much encouraged to turn their attention to it." Surely this is equally applicable to our own country at the present time, when the condition of the labouring poor calls so loudly for relief.