IHE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



597 



^ovxtspondtnu. 



This mark O indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near tue center ot tbe state named ; 

 5 north of the center; 9 south: O east; 

 ♦Owest; and this (< northeast ; x> northwest: 

 o» southeast; and 9 southwest of the center 

 of the State mentioned. 



ror tbe Aaiencan Bee JoumaL 



Legal aM Moral Cliecks in Bee-KeeDinE 



WM. F. CLARKE. 



I find little to dissent from in Mr. 

 Foster's article on page 535. He sum- 

 marizes the points of agreement be- 

 tween us exceedingly well, and accepts 

 my position that,"respect for the rights 

 of others and self-interest are the best 

 checks " to overcrowding of bee- 

 fields. I readily admit " that these 

 checks sometimes fails to operate." 

 So do legal ones. Everything human 

 is imperfect. 



Mr. Foster states very clearly a case 

 in which a bee-keeper may desire and 

 be entitled to control of territory on 

 other grounds than that of prior occu- 

 pancy, and says, " it seems impractic- 

 able " for me to allow this point. 

 But this is not so " impracticable '" 

 as it seems. I " allow " it, here and 

 now. If I have written anything in- 

 consistent with such an admission, I 

 withdraw and retract. I can do so 

 without shaking my position in the 

 least. For this case is one to which 

 a legal check cannot be applied. A 

 farmer who owned only a few " bee- 

 gums " would not want a monopoly of 

 the territory, and would have no right 

 to it, unless prepared to stock it. A 

 just law could not endorse and protect 

 any " dog-in-the-mauger " policy. I 

 have argued that prior occupancy, 

 giving a sort of pre-emptive right, is 

 the only ground on which law could 

 recognize a claim to exclusive posses- 

 sion of territory. It would be mon- 

 strous if a specialist could come into a 

 neighborhood and say to " one or two 

 farmers " owning a few " bee-gums," 

 ^' Take your bees out of this, 



' I am monarch of all I survey, 

 My right there is none to dispute,' 



this bee-territory is mine." More- 

 over it would be entirely unnecessary. 

 For, " one or two farmers who owned 

 a few 'bee-gums,'" would only 

 amount to a " fly on my horn " rivalry, 

 beneath his notice. 



Farmers have, before now, gone in- 

 to other lines of business beside bee- 

 keeping and given them up in dis- 

 gust, when " a well-managed monop- 

 oly would have saved them hundreds 

 of dollars." Hop-growing is one of 

 them, and others might be named. 

 Citizens of a free country would re- 

 sent legislation forbidding them to go 

 into any line of business at which 

 they were likely to lose money. To 

 .start a business without a knowledge 

 of it, argues a want of common-sense. 

 Law cannot supply that lack. The 

 President of a certain theological 

 college used to say to every new class 



of students, " Gentlemen, if you lack 

 knowledge we can supply you ; but if 

 you haven't common-sense, it is of no 

 use your coming here." There is no 

 need of any human legislation in fa- 

 vor of the " survival of the fittest." 

 The " higher law " everywhere in 

 force infallibly secures that, as a 

 matter of fact, what Mr. Foster de- 

 siderates, is actually realized. He 

 says : " The utilization of our honey 

 resources should be intrusted to those 

 who are best qualified to accomplish 

 it, without regard to priority." So 

 they are, and so they will be, under 

 the operation of natural forces and 

 independently of legislation. Sooner 

 or later he who lacks qualification 

 takes a back seat, and " those best 

 fitted " come to the front. 



Mr. J. O. Shearman, on page -537, 

 rushes into the arena of discussion in 

 a manner calculated to over-awe a 

 timid person. He claims that " no 

 one has come to any conclusion what 

 is best to be done." 1 have been 

 fluent, that is all. So is a Billingsgate 

 fish-wife, or a quack-medicine ped- 

 dler. He says that I have " shoved 

 Mr. Foster aside," a soft impeach- 

 ment to which I plead " not guilty." 

 If I have done any thing so uncivil as 

 that, I most humbly beg pardon. He 

 insists that I propounded nothing. 

 What I had to say was mere " flu- 

 ency," only that and nothing more. 

 Mr. Foster, he claims did at least 

 " break the ice." He proposed 

 " something to be done, even allow- 

 ing its possible impracticability." 

 Well, now, that is harder on Mr. 

 Foster than on me. I am patted on 

 the back for my " fluency," and Mr. 

 Foster for his " impracticability." 

 We can only be thankful for small 

 favors in the way of compliments, 

 and Mr. Foster for the smaller of the 

 two. 



But Mr. Shearman asks, " Did Mr. 

 Clarke get any farther or as far toward 

 a solution of the problem y" Mr. 

 Foster shows that I got as far as he 

 did, and I contend that I got farther. 

 I did certainly arrive at " a conclusion 

 what was to be done." It was to 

 leave the matter to respect for the 

 rights of others, and a wise regard for 

 self-interest. Does Mr. Shearman get 

 any farther, or as far V No. He pro- 

 poses half-a-dozen points of legisla- 

 tion, but not one of them touches the 

 question at issue. His " idea in re- 

 gard to legislation " has no bearing 

 whatever on exclusive right to the 

 occupancy of bee-territory. He would 

 prohibit hives of bees being kept with- 

 in 4 rods of a public highway without 

 a close fence S feet high between the 

 hives and the highway. All right, 

 Mr. S., but what has that to do with 

 what we are discussing? He would 

 have a conspicuous placard warning 

 people not to tie horses near hives of 

 bees. All right again ; but how does 

 this bear on the territory question V 

 He would protect owners of improved 

 strains of bees, by excluding " native 

 or grade bees,"— by the way, are not 

 " grade bees " improved strains V but 

 what has this to do with the main is- 

 sue? These amendments are out of 

 order. They are not relevant to the 

 issue. I move the previous question, 



Mr. S. does not see how any one can 

 be legally prevented from keeping 

 bees or anything else on his own 

 premises, except on the grounds of be- 

 ing a nuisance or a hindrance to pub- 

 lic improvement in some way. Nor 

 do I. So the matter must be left to 

 the moral checks for which I have 

 contended, though as I have said, 

 they are like the air-brakes on a rail- 

 way train, which do not always hold, 

 but, in the meantime, we have noth- 

 ing better. If regard for the rights of 

 others, and self-interest will not suf- 

 fice to prevent over-stocking, there is 

 no prevention for it. 



I am of the opinion that Mr. L. C. 

 Root's article on page -535 contains 

 one of the solutions of the difficulty 

 which will be adopted in the bee- 

 keeping of the future. The ground 

 he takes is what I have occupied ever 

 since I began to write about bee- 

 keeping. I have contended that 

 apiculture, like dairying, is a legiti- 

 mate part of farming ; that every 

 farm should have a few colonies of 

 bees on it, and is not completely 

 equipped without them. Bee-keep- 

 ing specialists put all their eggs into 

 a single basket. The past season has 

 been a bad one for the eggs, and its 

 relentless logic will convince many 

 that they had better combine some 

 other business with bee-keeping, so 

 that when the honey crop fails, they 

 may not be wholly " left." When 

 bee-keeping is carried on conjointly 

 with some other branch or branches 

 of husbandry, there will be an end to 

 over-stocking. 



Guelph, Ont. 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Coral-Berry or Indian Carrant, etc. 



O. N. BALDWIN. 



I send a sample of what we call 

 wild rice. What its true name is we 

 do not know, but submit the sample 

 for information. The bees (Italians 

 and hybrids) work on it constantly 

 from early in May, when it first com- 

 mences to bloom, till frost robs it of 

 its blooms and foliage. It grows in 

 great bunches 2 to 4 feet high, about 

 fence-corners, or, in fact, wherever it 

 gets root, and it is next to impossible 

 to get rid of it when once it is well 

 started. 



This plant blooms every year, and 

 has berries the shape of an inflated 

 balloon, of a pale red color, and 

 about the size of the slug in a No. 22 

 cartridge, with very few seeds nearly 

 the shape but about one-fourth as 

 large as a tomato-seed. The bloom is 

 a pale blue, tinted with pink, and 

 there are thousands of these on each 

 plant. Black bees hardly, if ever, 

 notice it, but bumble-bees, Italians 

 and hybrids can be seen upon it from 

 early dawn until late at night. 



There is not enough of the plant 

 hereto tell to a certainty what the 

 quality of the honey is, but from our 

 closest observation we think that it 

 will nearly, if not quite, equal white 

 clover. The drouth or floods have no 



