194 



June, 1916. 



American TUse .Journal 



A SHORT TRIP INTO TEXAS 



The First of a Series of Articles By the Editor, Giving His 

 Impressions of Texas Beekeeping 



A SEVERE critic told me that a 

 magazine devoted to bees is a 

 technical journal, and that noth- 

 ing in the way of travel experiences is 

 proper in such a publication. But hun- 

 dreds of readers appear to have enjoyed 

 the account of my trip to Europe, 

 which was surely anything but techni- 

 cal. Even some Europeans whose 

 homes I visited seemed to delight in it. 

 So I have concluded to follow a simi- 

 lar path and now give warning to the 

 solemn lover of exclusively technical 

 beekeeping discussions to stop right 

 here and pass on to another article. 

 Neither will I take it for granted that 

 any of you have ever visited Texas, but 

 will speak of it as if it were a newly dis- 

 covered spot. 



A cold Sunday morning, early in 

 March, when the thermometer stood at 

 20 degrees, and Cooper Lake, in front 

 of our ho ne, still had a coat of ice 8 or 

 10 inches thick, wife and I took the 

 train for San Antonio. Our tickets 

 were bought by way of St. Louis and 

 the Iron Mountain railroad. 



The ground was covered with snow, 

 but we fully expected to see this white 

 mantle disappear before we reached St. 

 Louis, 180 miles south. We were dis- 

 appointed. There was still more snow 

 at St. Louis than at home, but the tem- 

 perature was already milder. The next 

 morning when we awoke, we were in 

 Texas and much of the shrubbery along 

 the tracks showed green buds, ready to 

 come out in leaves. A few peach trees, 

 around farm homes, were in full bloom. 

 But we were yet far from the end of 

 our journey. Texarkana, the last city 

 in Arkansas, before reaching the Texas 

 line, is just a little over half way be- 

 tween St. Louis and San Antonio. 



Did you ever try to measure the State 

 of Texas, as compared to other States 

 of the Union ? Placing them end to 

 end, four such States could not find 

 room, from east to west, on the map of 

 the United States. Another State, of 

 the same size, placed north of Texas, 

 would reach into North Dakota. Since 

 we were going into the south central 

 part of the State, the reader can under- 

 stand why we traveled in Texas from 6 

 a.m. to 8 p.m., on the " Sunshine Spe- 

 cial." We crossed the Red river and 

 understood its name. It is red, with 

 emphasis. 



We were going towards the sun- 

 shine, indeed, and soon found it out. 

 Th,! temperature slowly raised during 

 the day, until at 2 p.m. the thermometer 

 marked !)0 degrees in the I'ullman 

 coach. Wife protested that if this were 

 Texas winter temperature she wanted 

 none of it. She proposed to return 

 home as promptly as possible. 



The nature of the landscape changes 

 along the way. Hills change to plains. 

 Brush and pines change to immense 

 fields cultivated for corn and cotton. 

 After passing Austin, the capital, we 

 begin to see the cactus and the "chap- 



arral," composed of scrubby live oak 

 and dozens of sorts of shrubbery. I 

 had already seen this, in a previous trip 

 to Texas, but had not fully compre- 

 hended that such lands as these were 

 the best honey-producing sections of 

 Texas, for many of these shrubs are 

 honey producers. 



The weather was dry, the dust and 

 the heat made the trip tiresome. But 

 we nevertheless watched the landscape. 

 Once in a while we saw an apiary, in 

 the brush. We found that some people 

 in Texas know how to advertise, for as 

 the, train sped along we read a sigil, in 

 large letters: "B. Robinson, Taylor, 



A Maguey Plant (Century Plant)— Old 

 Spanish Mission in the Distance 



Tex., Honey for Sale," just in front of 

 a fair-sized apiary. Good ! That is the 

 way to succeed. 



The sun at last went down, to our 

 great relief, and the " Sunshine " 

 reached San Antonio station at 8 p.m., 

 where Mr. Le Stourgeon and his wife 

 awaited us. Look at the cheerful face 

 shown herewith and imagine how glad 

 you would be to have the owner of it 

 welcome you at the end of an 1100 

 mile trip. They accompanied us to 

 our hotel, putting themselves at our 

 command for the following day. But 

 we needed rest and thought we would 

 certainly have to get some summer 

 clothes before we began our visits. 

 This was Monday, and the first bee- 

 keepers' meeting was set for Thursday, 

 at Pearsall, in Frio county. So we had 

 ample time before us. 



The night was pleasant, so was every 

 night of our stay, as the Gulf breeze 

 blows over the land. The next day was 

 warm, but not as torrid as we had an- 

 ticipated, from the previous day's ex- 

 perience, and we found our clothes 

 very endurable. We became reconciled 

 to the climate and cheerfully agreed to 

 the continuation of our peregrinations. 

 There was a very decided advantage to 

 the climate. We both had left home 

 with colds. They had entirely disap- 

 peared during that hot day's ride and 

 did not come back. No wonder tour- 

 ists come to San Antonio for lung 

 troubles. 



We expected to rest for an entire 

 day. But we counted without our hosts. 

 About 3 p.m., friend Le Stourgeon came 

 with the president of the local bee- 

 keepers' association, Mr. Lewis Mav- 

 erick, an active lawyer and extensive 

 beekeeper, and invited us to ride in 

 Mr. Maverick's auto. How to refuse? 

 We accepted and visited the city, the 

 parks, the barracks from which a few 

 days later the soldiers were to start in 

 search of the villain Villa. We visited 

 an apiary and found that the brush, the 

 chaparral, was thriving even within 

 city limits. The mesquite (Prosopis 

 fflandulosa), a noted honey-producing 

 tree looms up everywhere in the open 

 land. The trees were just budding and 

 promised abundant bloom. They are 

 in appearance, at a distance, somewhat 

 like an ill-kept fruit tree ; that is, as long 

 as the leaves are not on. Wife wondered 

 why they did not plant their orchards 

 in rows. They did look like ill-kept 

 orchards, until we reached the real 

 chaparral, which is a wilderness. 



The mesquite is a dry season honey- 

 producer. I was told by a number of 

 apiarists, in different sections of Texas, 

 that the driest years are the best for 

 mesquite honey. Of course, there is a 

 limit. When we were there, they had 

 not had an honest rain for eight months 

 and they needed one badly. The mes- 

 quite has two distinct blooming periods, 

 one in March-April, the other in June- 

 July. The reason why dry weather is 

 favorable to honey-production from 

 that tree is not far to seek. In wet 

 weather it produces abundant stems 

 and leaves and only a little bloom. In 

 (Iry weather, like all suffering vegeta- 

 tion, it blooms abundantly. 



Discussing this matter, Mr. Le Stour- 

 eon said to me: "The provisions of 

 Nature are wonderful and her mosaic 

 fits together gracefully. I have always 

 mentioned this trait of the mesquite 

 shrub, when striving to point out her 

 wonderful adaptations. In wet or even 

 normal years, the rainfall produces 

 grass, corn, weeds and foliage for the 

 hungry fauna to feed upon, but when 

 the drouth comes and the long arid 

 summer stretches before them, the 

 mesquite mesas spring into bloom and 

 tons of the succulent and life-sustaining 

 mesquite beans hang within easy reach 



