870 



Popular Science Monthly 



An Alibi for the Bee in 

 the Orchard 



THAT bees injure fruit is a 

 common belief in some 

 quarters, but investigations re- 

 cently carried out in Italy prove 

 it to be without foundation. 

 Bees cannot perforate the skin 

 of fruit, and the damage attrib- 

 buted to them is really due to 

 birds, wind, ?iail, hornets, wasps, 

 and certain other insects. Bees 

 are, in fact, of much benefit to 

 the orchardist, because they 

 effect the cross-pollination of 

 fruit trees. 



A^ 



Chinese women cleaning the cab windows of a Southern 

 Pacific Raihoad locomotive in Oakland, California 



Chinese Women Working on Rail- 

 roads in California 



IT is well known throughout the country 

 that the people of the Pacific coast 

 states take anj^thing but kindly to Orien- 

 tal labor. But at the present time there 

 is such a serious shortage of white labor 

 throughout the United States that even regular door, 

 our Western brethren have 

 had to down their preju- 

 dices and accept the inevi- 

 table. The Chinese coolie 

 has long been a factor in 

 the labor market of the 

 West, but as a rule his 

 consort has held aloof from 

 manual labor. Now, how- 

 ever, a change has been 

 wrought. 



Nothing could better in- 

 dicate how serious is the 

 shortage of white labor in 

 that part of the country 

 than the fact that Chinese 

 women are now employed 

 by some of the railroads 

 on the western coast. 



Mexican Corn Bins Look Like 

 Old-Fashioned Sugar Loaves 



T first sight the objects 

 that form the subject of 

 our illustration look as though 

 they were the twin spires of a 

 sunken church. As a matter of 

 fact they are corn bins on the 

 Hacienda St. George, in Coahui- 

 la, Mexico. They are construct- 

 ed of adobe or sun-dried bricks, and are 

 plastered on the outside. On the plaster 

 landscapes are painted in bright colors. 

 One of the bins, it will be noted, is sur- 

 mounted by a cross. 



The corn is introduced through the 

 little doors in the apex of the cones, and 

 is taken out as required through the 



Corn bins on a Mexican hacienda, shaped like sugar loaves, 

 but made of adobe or brick, and brightly decorated 



