THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



255 



gathering honey in a field where 

 several honey plants are in bloom 

 at the same time. If, for instance, 

 as may have been seen in many 

 places during last season, honey is 

 being gathered from clover, dande- 

 lion, and thistle blossoms in the 

 same field, the observer can satisfy 

 himself that each bee restricts itself 

 to one sort of blossom for the time. 

 It will go from clover to clover, from 

 dandelion to dandelion, or from 

 thistle to thistle, but will never go 

 from clover to dandelion, or from 

 clover to thistle, and so on. It 

 performs its appointed work me- 

 thodically, in accordance with the 

 instinct implanted in it by an all- 

 wise Creator ; and it may be fairly 

 asserted that, when it .carries oH" 

 the honey from any blossom which 

 it has visited, it is merely taking 

 with it the fee or reward provided 

 by nature for that special service. 

 The important assistance to be 

 obtained from bees in fruit growing 

 is well illustrated in the lecture of 

 Mr. Frank A. Cheshire, published 

 in the British Bee Journal, and 

 quoted at page 94 of our first vol- 

 ume. All the assertions made 

 above as to the advantages of cross- 

 fertilization will be found to be 

 supported by the authority of 

 Professor A. J. Cook in his arti- 

 cle upon '^Honey Bees and Horti- 

 culture," published in the Ameri- 

 ccm Ajncidturist, and which has also 

 been reprinted at page 96 of the 

 first volume of this Journal. Un- 

 questioned authorities on this sub- 

 ject are Sir John Liibbock and 

 Darwin. The latter in his work on 

 "Cross and Self Fertilization of 

 Plants" gives the strongest evi- 

 dence as to the beneficial infiuence 

 of bees upon clover crops. At page 

 169, when speaking of the natural 

 order of leguminous plants, to 

 which the clovers belong, he says : 

 — "The cross seedlings have an 

 enormous advantage over the self- 

 fertilized ones when grown together 



in close competition ; and in chap. 

 X, page 361, he gives the following 

 details of some experiments, which 

 show the importance of the part 

 played by bees in the process of 

 cross-fertilization : — " Trifolium 

 repens (white clover). Several 

 plants were protected from insects, 

 and the seeds from ten flower-heads 

 on these plants and from ten heads 

 on other plants growing outside 

 the net (which I saw visited by 

 bees) were counted, and the seeds 

 from the latter plants were very 

 nearly ten times as numerous as 

 those from the protected plants. 

 The experiment was repeated in 

 the following year, and twenty 

 protected heads now yielded only 

 a single abortive seed, whilst 

 twenty heads on the plants outside 

 the net (which I saw visited by 

 bees) yielded 2290 seeds, as cal- 

 culated by weighing all the seeds 

 and counting the number in a 

 weight of two grains. Trifolium 

 pratense (purple clover). 100 

 flower-heads on plants protected 

 by a net did not produce a single 

 seed, whilst 100 on plants growing 

 outside, which were visited by bees, 

 yielded 68 grains weight of seeds, 

 and as 80 seeds weighed two 

 grains the 100 heads must have 

 yielded 2720 seeds." 



Here we have satisfactory proof 

 that the effect of cross-fertilization, 

 brought about b}' bees, upon the 

 clover and other plants growing in 

 meadows and pasture lands, is the 

 certain production of a large 

 number of vigorous seeds, as com- 

 pared with the chance only of a 

 few and weak seeds if self-fertili- 

 zation were to be depended upon. 

 In the case of meadow cultivation 

 it enables the farmer to raise seed 

 for his own use or for sale instead 

 of having to purchase it ; while, at 

 the same time, the nutritious qual- 

 ity of the hay is, as we shall see 

 further on, improved during the 

 process of ripening the seed. In 



