1883. J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



87 



My first proposition is, that plants only 

 si'crete nectar that they may attract insects. 

 And why this need of insect visits ? It is 

 lliat they may serve as " marriage priests " in 

 the work of fertilizing the plants. As is well 

 known, many plants like the willows and tlie 

 chestnnts, are diiecions. The male element, 

 the pollen, and the female element, the ovnles, 

 are on dillerent plants, and so the plants are 

 absolntely dependent upon insects for fertili- 

 zation. The |)ollen attracts the insects to the 

 staminate llowers, while the nectar entices 

 them to visit l.he pistillate bloom. Some vari- 

 eties of the .strawberries are so nearly dicecious, 

 that this luscious fruit, of which good old 

 Isaac Walton wrote : "Doubtle.ss God might 

 have made a better fruit tlian the strawberry, 

 but boubtless God never did," would incase 

 of some varieties be ban en, except for the 

 kindly ministrations of insects. Other plants 

 are nioncEcious; that is, the stamens and pis- 

 tils are on the .same flower, but the structural 

 peculiarities are such, that unless insects were 

 wooed by the coveted nectar, fertilization 

 would be impossible. Many of the plants 

 with irregular flowers, like the orchids, as 

 Darwin has so admirably shown, are thus 

 entirely dependent upon inBects to eflect 

 Iructification. In many of these plants the 

 structural modifications, which insure fertili- 

 zation consequent upon the visits of insects. 

 are wonderfully interesting. These have been 

 dwelt upon at length by Darwin, Gray, Beal 

 and others, and I will forbear to discuss them 

 further. 



But many of our flowers, which are so ar- 

 ranged that the pollen falls easily upon the 

 stigna, like the clovers, squashes and fruit 

 blossoms, fail of full fruitage, unless forsooth, 

 some insect bear the the pollen of one flower 

 to the pistil of another. As has been repeat- 

 edly demonstrated, if our fruit bloom or that 

 of any of our cucurbitaceous plants be screened 

 from insects the yield of seed and fruits will 

 be but very partial. Professor Beal and our 

 students have tried some very interesting ex- 

 periments of this kind with tlie red clover. 

 All of the plants under observation were cov- 

 ered with gauze that the conditions •.night be 

 uniform. Bumble bees were placed under the 

 screens of half of these plants. The insects 

 commenced at once to visit and sip nectar 

 from the clover blossoms. In the fall the 

 seeds of all the plants were counted, and 

 those from the .plants visited by the bumble 

 bees were to those gathered from the plants 

 which were shielded from all insect visits, as 

 2.36 : .5. Thus we see why the first crop of 

 red clover is barren of seed, while the second 

 crop, which comes of bloom visited freely by 

 bumble bees, whose long tongues can reach 

 down to the nectar at the bottom of the long 

 flower tubes is prolific of seed. This fact led 

 to the importation of bumble bees from Eng- 

 land to New Zealand and Australia two years 

 since. There w*re no bumble bees in Aus- 

 tralia and adjacent Islands, and the red clover 

 was found impotent to produce seed. When 

 we have introduced Apis chrsata into our 

 American apiaries, or when we have devel- 

 oped Ajns AmerUxina, with a tongue like that 

 of Bomhus. seven-sixteenths of an inch long, 

 then we shall be able to raise seed from the 

 first crop of red clover ; as the honey bees, 

 unlike the bumble bees, will be numerous 



enough early in the season, to perform the 

 necessary fertilization. Alsyke clover, a hy- 

 brid between the white and the red, has 

 shorter flower tubes, which makes it a favorite 

 with our honey bees, and so it gives a full 

 crop of seed from the early blossoms. 



In all these cases we have proof that nature 

 objects to close inter-breeding ; and thus 

 through her laws, the nectar-secreting organs 

 have been evolved, that insects might do the 

 work as cross-fertilization. As in the case of 

 animals, the bisexual or diwcious plants have 

 been evolved from the hermai)hroditic as a. 

 higher type ; each sex being independent, 

 more vital force can be cxpendi;d on the sexual 

 elements, and so the individnal is the gainer. 



It is sometimes contended by farmers, that 

 the visits of bees are detrimental to their 

 crops. I have heard farmers say that they 

 had known bees to destroy entirely their crops 

 of buckwheat, by injuring the blossoms. 

 There is no basis of fact for this statement or 

 opinion. Usually bees visit buckwheat bloom 

 freely. If for any reason the seed fail, as 

 from climatic condition and influence it occa- 

 sionally will, the bees are charged with the 

 the damage, though their whole work, as 

 shown above, has been beneficial and that 

 only. 



It is true, as I have personally observed, 

 that species of our carpenter bees [Xtjlncopa) 

 do pierce the flower tifbes of the wild berga- 

 mot, and some of our cultivated flowers, with 

 similar long corolla tubes, that they may xain 

 access to the otherwise inaccessible nectar ; 

 the tubes once pierced, and our honey bees 

 avail themselves of the opportunity to secure 

 some of the nectar. I have watched long and 

 carefully, but never saw the honey bee making 

 the incisions. As I have never heard of any 

 one else who has seen them, I feel free to say 

 that it is entirely unlikely that they are ever 

 thus engaged. 



My last proposition is, that though bees, in 

 the dearth of nectar secretion, will sip the 

 juices from crushed grapes, and other similar 

 fruits, they rarely ever, I think never, do so 

 unless nature, some other insect, or some 

 higher animal has first broken the skin. I 

 have given to bees, crushed grapes, from 

 which they would eagerly sip the juices, 

 while other sound grapes on the same stem — 

 even those like the Delawares, with teuderest 

 skin, which were made to replace the bruised 

 ones — were left entirely undisturbed. I liave 

 even shut bees up in an empty hive with 

 grapes, which latter were .safe even though 

 surrounded by so many hungry mouths. I 

 have tried even a more crucial test, and have 

 stopped the entrance of the hive with grapes, 

 and yet the grapes were unin.jured. 



In most cases where bees disturb grapes, 

 some bird or wasp has opened the door, to 

 such mischief, by previously piercing the skin. 

 Occasioually there is a year when an entire 

 vineyard seems to be sucked dry by bees in a 

 few hours. In such cases the fruit is always 

 very ripe, the weather very hot, and the 

 atmosphere very damp ; when it is altogether 

 probable that the juice oozes from fine natu- 

 ral pores, and so lures the bees on to this 

 Bacchanalian feast. I have never had an 

 opportunity to prove this to be true, but from 

 numerous reports I think it is the solution of 

 those dreaded onslaughts, which have so often 



brought down severe denunciations upon the 

 bees, and ius bitter curses upon their owners. 

 A. J. Conk in Tlic American ApicullurUil. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE CEREALS. 



Wheat ranks by origin as a degenerate and 

 degraded lily. .Such in brief is the proposi- 

 tian which this paper sets out to i)rove, and 

 which the whole course of evolutionary l>ot- 

 any tends every day more and more fully to 

 confirm. By thus from the very outset 

 placing dearly before our eyes the goal of our 

 argument, we shall be al)le the belter to un- 

 derstand as we go whether each item of the 

 emulative evidence ia really tending. We 

 must endeavor to start with the simplest 

 forms of the great grouj) of plants to wliii.-h 

 the cereals and llie other gra.s.ses Ixdong, and 

 we must try to see by what steps the primi- 

 tive type gave birth, first to the brilliantly 

 colored lilies, next to the degraded rushes and 

 sedget, and then to the still more degenerated 

 gra.sses, from one or the other of whose richer 

 grain man has finally develoiwd his wheat, his 

 rice, his mill(;t, and his barley. We shall 

 thus trace throughout the whole pedigree of 

 wheat from the time when its ancestors first 

 diverged from the common stock of the lilies 

 and the water-plantaius, to the time when 

 savage man found it growing wild among the 

 untilled plains of ])rehistoric Asia, and toitk 

 it under his special protection in the little 

 garden-plats around his wattled hut, whence 

 it has gradually altered under his constant 

 selection into the golden grain that now 

 covers half the lowland tilth of Europe and 

 America. There is no page in botanical his- 

 tory more full of genuine romance than this ; 

 and there is no page in which the evidence is 

 clearer or more convincing for those who will 

 take the easy trouble to read it aright. — Paji- 

 tdnr Science Monthly. 



THE FLOATING GARDENS OF MEXIcO 

 AND THE GARDENS OF BRAZIL. 



Through all their Arab-like waiulering, 

 wherever they abided for a time, the Aztecs 

 were wont to cultivate the soil : and when 

 settled— frequently environed by barbarous 

 enemies, as they were — in the midst of a great 

 lake where fish were remarkably scarce, they 

 devised the ingenious exiwdient of forming 

 floating gardens and fields and orchards on 

 the surface of the trancjuil waters. These 

 they wrought skilfully of the roots of the 

 aquatic plants woven together, wreathed and 

 intertwined with branches and twigs, till they 

 had secured a foundation of sulficicnt solidity 

 to support the soil, composed of earth sub- 

 stance from the bottom of the lake. 



Ordinarily the.se floating gardens were ele- 

 vated about a foot above the surface of the 

 water, and were of oblong shape ; and in due 

 time, were adorned with vegetation, com- 

 prising countless varieties of flowers, vines 

 and slu-ubs' presenting raft-like fields or glid- 

 ing gardens of marvelous beauty and luxuri- 

 ance. The.se famed chinapas, along the Viga 

 Canal, finally became attached to the main- 

 lauds comi)rising the grounds situated between 

 the two great lakes of C'halco and Tezenco, 

 Little trenches filled with water seem to sepa- 

 rate the gardens, and miniature bridges con- 

 nect them with the main land. The Indian 

 proprietor dwells in an bumble hut, situated 



