68 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



whether he is a farmer or a backlotter, to grow all the fruit 

 he can, as well as honey. 



At this point it is pertinent to ask how the beekeeper can 

 make more and better fruit. I do not need to say to some of 

 the farmers facing me to-day that it is necessary both to spray 

 and prune the trees in order to get the maximum of fruit. 

 It is necessary to spray to kill the codling moth and the 

 San Jose scale. It is necessary to prune and prune so that 

 fruit may be grown instead of firewood. In other words, the 

 energies of the tree should be concentrated on the fruit and 

 not on the wood. But that is not all. The little honeybees, 

 which I have the honor to represent to-day, perform a most 

 important part in pollinating fruit blossoms in early spring. 

 What do I mean by pollinating? I mean this: There are cer- 

 tain plants and trees that need cross-fertilization the same as 

 some of our live stock. That simply means this: That the 

 pollen of one blossom must by some means — wind, rain or 

 insects — be conveyed to the blossoms of another variety. A 

 perfect flower has male and female organs. Some flowers have 

 only the male and others only the female organs; and in many 

 and most cases where both sexes are represented in the same 

 blossom, a better fruitage is secured when the pollen of several 

 varieties are mingled together. 



Professor F. A. Waugh, one of the greatest authorities on 

 fruit growing in the United States, and a professor at your 

 Agricultural College at Amherst, has repeatedly made the 

 statement that but little pollination is effected by means of 

 wind and rain; that most of it is effected by insects, mainly 

 the honeybees. There are certain legumes — the clovers (white, 

 red, peavine, alsike and sweet) — that cannot develop seed 

 without the agency of the bees. Experiment stations have 

 shown everywhere that when limbs or whole trees of certain 

 varieties of fruit are covered with mosquito netting before 

 coming into bloom, but very little fruit will mature. The ex- 

 periment is more striking when a single limb of a tree is cov- 

 ered with mosquito netting. Where the variety is sterile to 

 its own pollen, only about 2 per cent of fruit will mature on 

 the covered limb, while the rest of the tree will have the 

 normal amount. As there are very few insects flying in early 



