72 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



pursuits of the beekeeper. We might dwell upon this phase of the 

 subject with due profit to the person who could undertake beekeep- 

 ing, yet, even greater profits are in store for the person who can 

 wisely use bees in his horticultural pursuits. Bees yield the bee- 

 keepers of the United States from twenty to twenty-five million 

 dollars annually; but their profits to the seed grower, vegetable, 

 fruit, and nut grower defy calculation. With unquestioned cer- 

 tainty, while usually well repaid for his labor and investment, the 

 beekeeper secures only the minor income offered by bees. Honey- 

 bees are of greater value to agriculture generally than to apiculture 

 in particular; it is to their pollination services as pollen bearers, 

 that mankind is indebted over and above their recognized value in 

 honey and wax production. Honey-bees, therefore, should find 

 unrestricted favor among all who grow seed, fruit, and vegetable 

 crops. 



Pollination. 



The story of pollination, the act, its purpose, and result should 

 be common knowledge to everyone. Pollination is affected differ- 

 ently in different flowers; its effects differ only accidentally. It is 

 an act of sex, the enabling of offspring through the seed only being 

 possible in most cases among higher plants, through a union of a 

 male (pollen grain) and female (egg Or ova) cell.^ Some plants 

 demand a cross in this act of pollination; others suffice with self 

 or close pollination. Science and experimentation of late teach 

 that cross-pollination results, in most of our fruits, in something 

 better and even more salable, even in those apples for instance, 

 which will set fruit with their own pollen and are self -fertile. These 

 diversities and intricacies are apart from our present purpose and, 

 in a measure, are in the field of botany, where voluminous informa- 

 tion on the many phases of pollination are available. For us it is 

 more a question of practical necessities and results than the opera- 

 tions of the plant machinery. 



' What is believed to be the first announcement in recognition of sex in plants was made 

 in 1682, by Nehemiah Grew, famous botanist, who explained that pollen must reach the 

 stigma or summit of the pistil in order to insure a fruit. For the existence of the plant it 

 thus became a question of cross pollination, in order to afford strength, vigor, and adapta- 

 bility to its environment. 



