ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEES' ASSOCIATION". 153 



found, I will speak first of the resources of the peninsular from the 

 standpoint of nectar. 



The spring flow starts off at willow, maples, elm in abundanjce, 

 dandelion, wild cherry, and occasionally fruit bloom; in the older 

 settlements there is fruit bloom, because that is not such a wild place 

 as we might think it would be. But then those, of course, are auxiliary 

 honey flows that simply help to bring the colony up into first class 

 shape for the main honey flow, which begins along in the latter part of 

 June, the 25th of June, about, which is red raspberry. 



Now, that northern country is the natural home of at least three 

 of our most important northern honey plants — ^red raspberry, alsike 

 clover, and epilobium, or fire weed. 



The red raspberry grown on all of the heavier ground. Those 

 of you who have not been up there doubtless know that northern 

 Michigan, back in the beginning of things, at some time or other, was 

 passed over by one of the great glaciers, and it is cut into strips of 

 clay and strips of sand, alternating over the whole upper peninsular. 

 There will be a strip of the finest ground you ever saw, excellent clay 

 and some other alluvial soil, and then there will come a sand barrens, 

 as we might call it, a place that is absolutely no use on earth, unless it 

 is good for making glass, I don't know, but it is of no value to a bee- 

 keeper whatever. Now, between those sand plains there lies a soil of 

 excellend nature. I must say that with the exception of the rocky 

 parts of the upper peninsular, there seems to be good soil everywhere 

 excepting in the sand plains. 



Now, this raspberry is naturally all through this country, the 

 same as it is in the lower peninsular, say north of a fine drawn from 

 Grand Rapids east and west. All the land north of that is a natural 

 raspberry country, and being a new country, the raspberr}^ is there in 

 abundance. Wherever the timber has been cut off or partlj?" cut off, 

 so that the sunshine comes in somewhat, there th^^ild raspberry grows 

 in wonderful profusion. In those sections, of course, where it has been 

 plowed up once, the wild raspberry is gone, but in its place comes 

 alsike clover in such abundance as I never saw before. I had heard 

 of it, I received letters telling me about alsike clover, and one of my 

 old professors at the agricultural college. Professor Jaffrey, some of 

 you people are acquainted with him, told me stories of alsike clover 

 growing almost to his hips. 



Now, you know I wanted to believe Professor Jeffrey, I thought 

 he was a good man, but when he told me such tales as that is raised 

 doubts in my mind and I had to go there and see it, and I did. It is 

 there. It was there last summer. And, as I say, it grows in such 

 profusion as I have never seen before. And it is a weed, it grows wild 

 through the woods, through the thinly timbered lands, under the rasp- 

 berry bushes frequently. 



The upper peninsular is a wonderful hay country, Chippewa 

 County and Mackinac County are two counties of the upper peninsular 

 where alsike hay is one of the chief products, and bee-keepers who are 

 in those localities are getting a good flow from it. Now, I need note 

 distinguish any between the different parts of the upper peninsular 

 in regard to the sources of nectar. There is the epilobium, the fire weed. 



