224 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



THE TINY INSECTS INDISPENSABLE 



GROWERS. 



TO FRUIT 



R. FRANK BENTON, in Insect Life, takes up the 

 question that bees are indispensable to fruitgrowers as 

 follows : Bee keepers have never complained but that 

 the growing of fruit in the vicinity of their apiaries was a 

 great benefit to their interests, hence their position has 

 been merely a defensive one, the battle waxing warm 

 only when poisonous substances were set out to kill off the 

 bees, or when fruit growers sprayed their orchards with poisonous insecticides 

 during the time the trees were in blossom, or again when efforts were 'made to 

 secure, by legislation, the removal of bees from a certain locality as nuisances. 



Fruit growers first relented when close observation and experiment showed 

 that wasps bit open tender fruits, birds pecked them, they cracked under the 

 action of the rains, and hail sometimes cut them, bees only coming in to save the 

 wasting juices of the injured fruit. The wide publicity 

 given to the results of the experiments made under the 

 direction of the United States entomologist, and published 

 in the report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1885, 

 have no doubt contributed much to secure this change 

 among fruit growers. But now it would appear that the 

 bees have not only been vindicated, but that in the future 

 fruit growers are likely to be generally regarded as more in- Fi<; 554.— Drone. 

 debted to bee keepers than the latter are to fruit growers, for the amount of honey 

 the bees secure from fruit blossoms comes far short of equaling in value that part 

 of the fruit crop which many accurate observations and experiments indicate is 

 due to the complete cross-fertilization of these blossoms by bees. The obser- 

 vations and researches of Hildebrand, Muller, Delpino, Darwin and others, as 

 well as the excellent explanation of the subject in Cheshire's 

 recent work have gone far to prove how greatly blossoms 

 depend upon the agency of bees for their fertilization and 

 hence for the production of seeds and fruits. The facts they 

 have brought forward are gradually becoming more 

 widely known among fruit growers and bee-keepers, and 

 additional evidence accumulates. A case illustrating very 

 clearly the value of bees in an orchard has recently come to 

 the notice of the writer, and its authenticity is confirmed 

 Fn.. 555. — Queen, by correspondence with the parties named, who are gentle- 

 men of long and extensive experience in fruit growing, recognized in their locality 

 as being authorities, particularly in regard to cherry culture. The facts are these. 



