342 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
THE BEE OR NOT THE BEE, THAT !S THE QUESTION. 
MRS. C. E. FLITNER, ST. PAUL. 
Certainly since the days of Solomon, and we know not just how long 
pefore, has mankind been especially interested in observing and investigat- 
ing all forms of life; earnestly and often laboriously striving to understand 
the divine plan in nature. 
Solomon himself “Spake of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the 
hyssop that springeth out of the wall,’ and was doubtless familiar with all 
branches of knowledge. Especially, we believe, did the sciences engage 
his attention, and his advice to the sluggard has been followed by saints 
and sages through all the intervening centuries, the humble, wise little ant 
becoming teacher and inspirer of many notable students and writers. 
The study of botany was at first little more than a catalogue and de- 
scription of known plants, increased through the centuries by each succes- 
sive writer, as new specimens became known. 
About the middle of the seventeenth century, when the number of plants 
known and described had increased from a few hundred to more than five 
thousand, the microscope inaugurated a new epoch of the science, for now 
the structure and organs of plants could be examined more closely, and 
vegetable physiology became the highest department of botanical research. 
Classification, imperfect before on account of lack of knowledge of 
structure, became more systematic, and when the great Linnaeus and some 
other earnest contemporary students gave their contribution to the world’s 
knowledge, near the middle of the eighteenth century, a long stride was 
made toward perfecting a system of classification. 
But the science of botany, as we know it today, has so far outgrown 
even Linnaean proportions as to be scarcely recognizable. Now, a botanist 
must be familiar with phytonomy, organology, vegetable histology, phylo- 
tomy and morphology. Then he may clothe the skeleton of all this knowl- 
edge with living flesh and spirit. Then may he sit humbly at the feet of 
some modest little flower and hearken to the soft flutter of the tiny wings 
of its insect lover, and learn—if he can—some of the riddles that perplexed 
students for years. Why and how does this plant attract this particular in- 
sect? Is he true to this flower alone? What does he receive and in what 
coin does he pay for his dinner? In short, what part in the great scheme of 
nature do these representatives of two great kingdoms bear? Then is the 
formal botanist become philosopher and seer, a true follower of the inspired 
Sprengel and Darwin, who so complemented each other’s thoughtful ob- 
servations as to interpret to the world the divine significance of a simple 
flower. 
And what is the secret which remained so long hidden from the ques- 
tioning gaze of nature students, and which, when partly guessed by the 
English botanist, Nehemias Grew, in 1682, was scoffed at and disbelieved, 
even when Sprengel, nearly a hundred years later, discovered the interven- 
tion of insects. It is the nuptials of the flowers, fully explained by Darwin 
less than a half century ago, when the question of ‘“‘the bee or not the bee” 
was practically settled. Our school children now know what the wisest 
never guessed a hundred years ago, of the value and uses of the different 
parts of plants, their relation to animal life, the interdependence and self- 
regulating power of the great machinery of nature in all her various depart- 
