THE RECOIL OF MAN'S INFLUENCE 515 



follow so tortuous a path. By his cultivation of the soil man 

 increases the number of Earthworms it contains : the earth- 

 worms of an intensively cultivated garden are more numerous 

 than those of a cultivated field, and those of a field far out- 

 number those in uncultivated wilds. Yet earthworms, by 

 penetrating and overturning the soil, render it more porous 

 to moisture and more loose for the penetration of the tiny 

 rootlets of plants, and by dragging leaves and decaying 

 vegetation into their burrows, they add to the fertile humus 

 of the soil itself. Man cultivates the earth for his own good, 

 and so doing increases the number of earthworms, which in 

 their turn add to the fertility of the soil, and to the abundance 

 of man's crops. 



Again, man introduced Hive Bees to Britain, or at any 

 rate multiplied their numbers far beyond the stock in natural 

 conditions, but do you think that the benefit he reaps is 

 measured only by the weight of honey he gathers from their 

 summer stores ? Do they not by scattering pollen from one 

 flower to another make his orchards fruitful, his garden and 

 his clover fields blossom to some purpose ? Darwin found 

 that a hundred heads of red clover (Trifolium pratense] 

 exposed to the visits of insects bore 69 grains weight of seeds, 

 or since 40 seeds weigh a grain, over 2700 seeds ; but that 

 a hundred heads from which insects were excluded by a net. 

 produced not a seed at all. And the Hive Bee is the chief 

 fertilizer of the wild white clover, which in recent years 

 has enormously increased the value of thousands of acres of 

 pasture. 



Its work, little though it be evident, is important in the 

 orchard. Mr Harold Bastin records a story of 1907, when, 

 following a cold and wet spring the apple crop was a general 

 failure. In a Huntingdonshire district where there are many 

 orchards, scarcely any fruit was to be found except in three 

 orchards and these stood close to an apiary of fifty hives. 

 The cold and wet weather restricted the journeys of the 

 bees so that they moved mainly on the trees nearest their 

 hives, and the fruit grower reaped where the bee-keeper had 

 unintentionally sown. 



The indirect benefit wrought by the bee is -no new or 

 fantastic notion. Fruit growers have accepted it as a matter of 

 course, and the absence of bees due to the ravages of "Isle 



332 



