1901 



(JLEANINCiS IN BEE CULTURE. 



903 



NOTES OF TRAVEL. 



Another Bee=keepers' Paradise, in Arizona ; some 



Peculiar Conditions as we Find them in the 



Tropical West. 



BV E. R. ROOT. 



In my remarks concerning' the bee-keep- 

 ers' paradise of Central Texas I spoke of 

 ■the desert-like appearance of the country 

 for miles and miles; of the vast tracts of 

 sand; low shrubbery, and how utterly im- 

 possible it seemed that such a countrj' could 

 produce so many carloads of mellifluous 

 sweetness from such land and such plant- 

 life. On leaving- Uvalde Co., Texas, and 

 riding- all one day and one uig-ht and the 

 next da}', I saw thousands and thousands 

 of acres of just such land as I had seen in 

 that paradise — land totally undeveloped, 

 ■without animal life, except, perhaps, the 

 jack-rabbit and the cayote, and without in- 

 habitants except here and there small set- 

 tlements along the railroad. So far as I 

 •could see. all of this country, or at least a 

 g-reat portion of it, would support bee-life. 

 for there were mesquite and catclaw by the 

 square mile. As civilization pushes on, we 

 shall find bee-keeping-, probabh% following 

 in its wake. 



On and on I rode into Arizona, and still 

 there was a desert-like countrj', until I 

 came to Maricopa Countj', and then I began 

 to see irrigation and the evidences of tropi- 

 cal vegetation. On the one side of the rail- 

 road, I mig-ht see ranch after ranch of al- 

 falfa, and on the other a perfect desert of 

 thorns, sage brush, and mesquite. On ar- 

 riving- at Tempe. where there was an uncle 

 of mine living, the delightful aroma of new- 

 mown hay, of the well-known alfalfa, greet- 

 ed me for the first time, in all its perfec- 

 tion. Along the irrigating - ditches, and 

 ■wherever irrig-ation went, in fact, there was 

 the most beautiful and luxuriant growth of 

 all kinds of vegetation. 



At the train I was met by my uncle, Mr. 

 J. H. Root, my father's youngest brother, 

 and a tj'pical Root he is. Indeed, it seem- 

 ed as if I were shaking- hands and looking 

 into the face of my father as he looked ten 

 years ago, for Uncle Jess is a younger man. 

 It was not long before one of the principal 

 t>ee-keepers of the place, Mr. Wm. Rohrig-, 

 drove up to the residence of my uncle. I 

 explained that my time was limited, and 

 that I desired to make the most of it, and 

 both of the gentlemen kindly offered to help 

 me make it go as far as possible. We got 

 into Mr. Rohrig's carriag-e with scarcely a 

 moment's delaj', and drove out to the first 

 apiary — that of Mr. J. Webster Johnson, a 

 short distance from Tempe. All the way 

 along I was struck with the beautiful trop- 

 ical veg-etation. All was new and interest- 

 ing, and I kept my uncle and Mr. Rohrig 

 busy answering questions about as fast as 

 I could ply them. Arriving at the Johnson 

 residence we found our friend away; 

 but he soon returned. He is now Secretary 

 and Manager of the Arizona Honej' Ex- 



change, a flourishing organization that han- 

 dles a larg-e part of the honey of this Ar- 

 izona paradise. Of this org-anizatiou I 

 will have more to say later on. I requested 

 him to sit out in his front yard close to one 

 of the century-plants that g-row so luxuri- 

 antly (a ver}' common "weed" for that 

 countr}'), where I might take his picture, 

 and thus give the readers of Gleanings 

 something of an idea of what I saw. Here 

 is the result. 



Mr. Johnson sits in a chair, painfully 

 close to that species of cactus with its sharp 

 spines sticking out in every direction. I 

 have not forgotten the exquisite pain I felt 

 when I stepped back of him in order to size 

 up the position of the camera, for just then 

 I backed up against three or four of those 

 needle-like spines which you can see in the 

 picture. Posing Mr. Johnson, I went back, 

 touched the shutter, and the effect is here 

 reproduced. 



But one picture was not enough, so I re- 

 quested our friend to step in front of anoth- 

 er big plant — one of those magnificent over- 

 spreading palms. This he did, in the full 

 glory of the sunshine; and while he stood 

 there, ag-ain the shutter clicked — there, you 

 can just see him fairly wreathed in the 

 splendor of the plant, for it is a most beau- 

 tiful thing-. 



I have seen these palms 50 or 60 feet high; 

 but when so tall thej' lose inuch of their en- 

 chanting- beauty. The older the tree, the 

 higher the branches. The palm before us 

 is not so very old — just how old, I will not 

 venture to say, as my guess would be wide 

 of the mark. 



I produce both of these pictures, not be- 

 cause they are directly related to bee-keep- 

 ing, for they are not, but because thej' il- 

 lustrate better than any thing else that I 

 can show the wonderful fertility of some of 

 the lands in Arizona, which can be and 

 are being reclaimed by irrigation — lands 

 which are destined to be the garden spots 

 of the United States, equaled only by 

 some portions of California. No wonder, 

 then, that in this portion of Arizona alfalfa 

 grows the most luxuriantly of any place in 

 the United States. I have seen this cele- 

 brated honey-plant in California, in Utah, 

 and in Colorado — States whei'e it is gf-rown 

 so extensively, and where it is such a valu- 

 able htiy crop; but in none of the States 

 does it g'-row as rank as it does in Arizona. 

 But the trouble now is the want of water 

 for irrigation purposes. There is no lack 

 of water, if I understand aright, because 

 there are millions of barrels of it going to 

 waste from the melting snows down the 

 mountain-sides; but at present there are no 

 appropriations from State or nation to pro- 

 vide for the building of great ditches where- 

 by this water can be carried into lands that 

 will yield as abundantly as do those now 

 under irrigation. 



Thousands of people have been flocking- 

 to Phoenix and Tempe from the East and 

 North, away from the long- bleak cold win- 

 ters — away from the damp bone-chilling- at- 



