SUMMER MEETING. 26 



nished in abundance as fast as they can be tilled, the amount of honey that can be 

 ■stored in a given time by a strong colony is astonishing. One strong colony will 

 store more honey than many weak ones. 



The great trouble about extracting honey is that It talies considerable time 

 and skill, and is difficult to manage successfully except on a large scale. The same 

 ■may be said' of the multiplication of bees by division or artificial swarming. Hence, 

 the small bee-keeper, and especially the amateur, had better depend on natural 

 swarming for his increase in stock and on the system of comb-honey, for his profits, 

 stored in top boxes either with or without movable frames, as by so doing he will 

 be far less likely to make serious mistakes, and the returns will be surer and moie 

 satisfactory, if the quantity is not so great as it might be made in the hands of an 

 expert. Yet it will not be amiss for the small bee-keeper to try his hand cau- 

 tiously at dividing his bees after he has readupprttty well and begins to feel some- 

 what at home with his bees, as he will thus verify many things that he has read, 

 and fix them in his mind in such a way as they will never be forgotten. This is 

 especially important if he is young, and has aspirations to work on a larger scale, 

 for this will test his ability, energy and pluck, for it takes pluck to manage bees 

 successfully on a large scale by the latest improved methods. He must also be a 

 close observer, quick to perceive, prompt to act, thorough in his methods, but with 

 enough deliberation to secure prudence. Indeed all theee qualities are essential in 

 handling bees, whether they are many or few. Bee-keeping and horticulture are 

 so intimately connected and so similar in their requisites, that any one who is ca- 

 pable of making a thorough success of one would be likely to succeed with the 

 other. 



A PLSA. FOR OUR NATIVE PLANTS. 



PKOF. G. C. BROADHEAD, COLUMBIA. 



With the expansion of the area of civilization, so does the area of cultivated 

 land increase; and in corresponding ratio do we gradually lose sight of many com- 

 mon indigenous plants. Their place may, in part, be supplied by other cultivated 

 plants, but In the groves, in the pastures, they are being replaced by grass or by 

 noxious weeds. 



As the buffalo, the deer, the pigeon, the prairie chicken, have nearly disap- 

 peared on account of their reckless slaughter by the ruthless hunter, we find their 

 place occupied by the ox, the sheep and the barn-yard fowl ; so our wild flowers 

 have been supplanted by the dog-fennel, the burdock, the iron-weed, and so also 

 has the English sparrow driven off our native birds. 



In other, but a diflerent and more humane way, by man's industry have our 

 native plants been destroyed, and in their stead are seen fields of waving grain, 

 corn-fields, grassy pastures, the orchard and the vineyard. Upon the destruction 

 of one type arise the flora and the fruit of another type. 



Some of our native plants have entirely disappeared. Many of the most 

 beautiful are now rarely to be seen, and then only within the railroad limit of 100 

 feet. In the hilly woodland region the flora has not materially changed, although 

 many plants which formerly cheered us can now no longer be seen. 



But the prairies are shorn of their beauty, never more to appear. Thirty and 

 forty years ago — aye, twenty years ago — our prairies were the chief charm of the 

 western country. On the upland the ^nrfvo^o^ow waved its plumes at 4 to 6 feet 

 high, and on lower ground the Spartina leared its head 8 feet high. The purple 

 Liairis, the red Echinacea, the Coreopsis, the Silphium and many others with their 

 "Varied colors bedecked the grassy plains. The beautiful Gentiana puberesla could 



