BEES INDISPENSIBLE TO MODERN HORTICULTURE. 



Dr. Burton N. Gates, Amherst, Mass. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : The program, as 

 the Chairman has said, is more for the benefit of the fruit 

 growers, yet we find that the beekeepers are becoming fruit 

 growers, and the fruit growers are essentially or necessarily 

 becoming beekeepers. It is then, from the standpoint of 

 the two phases of agriculture that we will consider the sub- 

 ject this afternoon. 



I want first to dispose of the horticulturist's end of the 

 ^ question, the end of it which I shall treat, because Professor 

 Chenoweth will discuss the advantages of bees in fruits 

 more particularly. Now, there is one point of view which 1 

 want to bring forth when talking to beekeepers or horticul- 

 turists on the importance of bees in any horticultural pur- 

 suit — using the term in its broad sense — and that point of 

 view may perhaps differ somewhat from the point of view 

 taken by many, and is based on a certain broad psychololgi- 

 cal principle, if I may so term it. 



You know that some years, for instance — ^let's take this 

 city of Springfield, for example — there may be a pest of 

 house flies ; house flies may be extraordinarily prevalent, or 

 mosquitoes may be a pest in this section of the country. 

 Then, in the following year, the mosquitoes will be few in 

 that same locality. You know, if any of you are hunters, 

 that in some years game is plentiful and in the succeeding 

 year the same kind of game is scarce in that same locality. 

 The same with fish. If you are a fisherman, you know that 

 in different years the fish may be plenty or few. Two years 

 ago, for instance, lobsters were scarce and the price was 

 high ; and this last summer I believe they were more plenti- 

 ful. It is the same with plant life, — weeds for instance ; and 

 all this illustrates the point I want to bring out, namely, 

 that all animal life and plant life is subject to a fluctuation. 

 It will go up, then decline a little and perhaps come up again 

 and perhaps decline away down so that it is especially 



