262 ANNUAL KEPORT 



make our laud like the typical land of plenty?— flowing with milk 

 and honey. 



What would we think of the business sagacity of a man, if he 

 had hundreds of acres of finest wheat at his door, and let it waste 

 for want of harvesting? Yet our fields are burdened with millions 

 of dollars worth of the finest and best sweets in the laboratory of 

 nature, and we lose it for want of harvesters, and send to Cuba and 

 import $2,000,000 worth of sugar for our tables. 



God has placed wichin our reach an abundance of harvesters to 

 gather the nectar of the flower and the manna of the forests; and 

 while they are foreigners — mostly Germans and Italians — they are 

 imbued with no anarchist-sentiments and are famed for their in- 

 dustry and intelligence, as well as their willingness to labor where- 

 evcr there is work to do, early and late, for their board, which is 

 usually about one tenth of the crop they gather. 



With these skilled artisans at your command, it is for you to 

 study their characteristics, and instruct the people in this manage- 

 ment, show how to derive the greatest profit from their labors, and 

 by increasing and cheapening the production of honey help to sub- 

 serve the public good and solve the problem of a successful agri- 

 cultural system by adding another means to those already employed 

 in securing comfort and contentment, happiness and prosperity, 

 among our rural classes. What tenth that carries blessings and 

 benefits to others, should be doubly dear to our own hearts and as 

 we grapple with the common foe — ignoiance — we should strive to 

 make the road to success so plain, that the blind might see, and 

 the most obtuse understand it. 



In a state like ours, distinguished for abundant natural vegeta- 

 tion and diversified culture, it is almost impossible to overstock 

 any locality particularly after the importance of intelligent man- 

 agement and necessary conditions for profit are understood and 

 appreciated. Minnesota could sustain 10,000,000 colonies just as 

 well as the 150,000 she now has. In Russia and Hungary 4,000 or 

 5,000 colonies in a single apiary are not uncommon. According 

 to statistics there were 600,000 colonies in the province of Lunen- 

 berg or 141 to the square mile, and a German writer says the im- 

 portance attached to bee culture accounts for the fact that the 

 people of this district (so barren that it has been called the Arabia 

 of Germany) are almost without an exception in easy circum- 

 stances. 



In Corsica the product of honey has averaged 1000 lbs. per 

 square mile annualy for many years, and the island of Cyprus far 

 exceeds this amount. 



In some provinces of Greece the number of colonies will average 

 500 and the product of honey 15,000 lbs. per mile and in Fries- 

 land 1,200 square miles sustains 2,400,000 colonies or 2,000 each. 

 Compare this witu the less than two colonies per square mile here. 

 Unlike our friends of the Horticultural Society who struggle vali- 

 antly againt the obstacles imposed by adverse circumstances and 

 have overcome with skill and perserverance the climatic conditions 

 nature has supplied, we have but to reach out and grasp the treas- 



