88 DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA: 



is quite wrong, and should be stopped with a firm hand 

 for all considerations. The horticulturist is liable to 

 injure his fruit directly, and if it be true that the bees are 

 poisoned, he not only injures the bee-keepers, but also 

 destroys his best friends. Bees are known to perform 

 such an important part in the fertilization of many 

 flowers that advanced fruit-growers keep bees in their 

 orchards for that very purpose. We all know that the 

 quantity of blossom on fruit trees in the spring cannot be 

 taken as an index of the quantity of the crops that will 

 be gathered, unless there be at that time sunny weather, 

 so that the bees and other insects may visit the flowers 

 and fertilize them. Botanists have discovered that it is 

 far more advantageous for flowers of a plant to be ferti- 

 lized by pollen taken from other flowers, and this is 

 carried so far that nature herself provides, in many 

 flowers, means by which fertilization by their own pollen 

 is impossible. In some plants we find male and female 

 flowers ; these may be either on different plants altogether 

 or on different branches of the same plant. Again, in 

 cases where the flowers are perfect, and contain both 

 male and female organs, we may find that these may 

 mature at different times, so that when the female organ, 

 the pistil, is ready to receive the fertilized pollen, the 

 anthers of its own flower may have already shed their 

 pollen, or vice versa. Charles Darwin, the great physiolo- 

 gist, summed up his observations on this subject in the 

 trite generalization that ' nature abhors self-fertilization.' 

 Although in some cases self-fertilization may be possible, 

 it is not so in all, and it is probably better in all plants 

 that the pistil be fertilized by pollen from other plants. 

 Now, with regard to bees being poisoned by gathering 

 honey from flowers which have been sprayed with Paris 

 green, although I do not know of any actual experiments 

 having been tried, from what I have lately read on the 

 matter I think it is quite possible that they can be 

 poisoned, and if so we may just as well recognise it at 

 once. Some enthusiasts go too far, some saying it cannot 

 be done, whilst others say it can. What we want, however, 



