1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



229 



a new law authorizing the co-opera- 

 tive form of corporation. Many 

 States now have such laws. They 

 greatly facilitate the working out of 

 co-operative marketing plans. The 

 writer expects to discuss this sub- 

 ject in detail in His next article. 

 Chicago, 111. 



A Month in Florida 



By the Editor 



A month in Florida! Why, many 

 beekeepers go to Florida for the en- 

 tire winter! 



This is true, but there are only 

 a few hundred of them, and bee- 

 keepers who never went to Flor- 

 ida, and never will go there, can 

 be counted by the thousands, so per- 

 haps many of our subscribers will en- 

 joy reading the experiences of a 

 winter month spent in the South. 



I will not mention our stop in St. 

 Louis, or at Nashville. The winter 

 was just ending there, for it was near 

 the end of February, but there was 

 still ice on the Mississippi, opposite 

 our home, almost thick enough to 

 cross on, while at Chattanooga, when 

 we arrived there, the second day of 

 our trip, the fruit trees were opening 

 their buds. We visited the his- 



torical spots celebrated as the head- 

 quarters of the Federal and Confed- 

 erate armies on the hills back of the 

 city, the camp at Chickamauga and 

 Lookout Mountain, from the top of 

 which we looked down 1,700 feet on 

 the city and on the moccasin-shaped 

 Tennessee River making a sharp 

 bend at the foot of the mountain. 



The following day, for we traveled 

 only in the day time, we passed 

 through Georgia and began to realize 

 that we were reaching southern 

 countries; the fruit trees were in full 

 bloom, the peach trees being already 

 out of bloom. 



On the fourth day of our trip we 

 left Jacksonville, Fla., which, by the 

 way, we do not admire as a city, and 

 traveled in a southwesterly direction. 

 At noon we reached the country of 

 oranges. The trees were in bloom 

 and the odor of orange blossoms per- 

 vaded our car. The small saw pal- 

 metto that we had seen all the way 

 from Southern Georgia, was now 

 accompanied by the .cabbage pal- 

 metto, a tall tree, and the landscape 

 assumed a tropical appearance, but — 

 what swamps! How much white sand 

 throughout Georgia and Florida, a 

 plain, flat country, covered mainly 

 with small pines and live oaks, to 



Th'e Cabbage Palmetto 



in their native soil. 



which hang the long festoons of 

 southern moss. 



In the evening we reached St. 

 Petersburg and realized that we were 

 indeed in a country of perpetual 

 summer, for around the hotel all 

 sorts of flowers were in full bloom. 

 St. Petersburg has fine streets, de- 

 lightful walks, a beautiful bay- 

 Tampa Bay — good fishing. It is a 

 city of tourists, one of the finest 

 spots in which to spend the winter 

 nionths. It rains there so little dur- 

 ing the winter that the daily paper, 

 the Evening Independent, is given 

 free to its subscribers on every day 

 of absence of sunshine. They say 

 they had 56 such days in seven and 

 a half years. 



The white sand is the worst fea- 

 ture in this land of sunshine. Ordi- 

 nary crops cannot grow. A joint 

 grass stretches its stems, creeping 

 over the ground like the legs of a 

 spider, 30 or 40 feet in all directions, 

 and makes a sort of network over the 

 sand. Then leaves gather in this 

 grass and in the course of time it 

 makes a little soil. 



I hunted for beekeepers, as I do 

 wherever I go. W. H. Plunkett, who 

 hves in St. Petersburg, is a native of 

 Florida and owns an apiary eight 

 miles from the city, in one of the rare 

 fertile spots of the country. He took 

 me to it in his automobile. An apiary 

 of some SO colonies, hidden behind 

 live oaks, cabbage and saw palmettos, 

 and drooping moss on the trees, made 

 a wonderfully wild looking sight. 

 The bees were gathering a little 

 honey, but the crop from palmetto 

 blossoms had not yet begun. That is 

 the main source near St. Petersburg. 

 Mr. J. J. Wilder, our well-known 

 contributor, who spends his winters 

 in Bradentown, only 30 miles from St- 

 Petersburg by water, came to see us 

 and urged us to visit the city in 

 which he lived. We agreed. A few 

 days later Mr. Wilder met us at the 

 Bradentown landing, accompanied us 

 to the hotel and the next morning 

 brought half a dozen beekeepers witK 

 him with two automobiles, to wel- 

 come us and take us around. We 

 were already aware of the hospitality 

 of beekeepers in general. This was 

 another evidence of it. Mr. J. R. 

 Notestine, a northerner who has lived 

 in Florida for five years, took us 

 with him, his daughter driving, and 

 together we visited the most interest- 

 ing plantation in the country, the At- 

 wood Grapefruit Ranch, across the 

 Manatee River, near Palmetto, a 

 farm of 170 acres of fine grapefruit 

 trees about 20 years old, many of 

 them still bending under the weight 

 of fruit up to S l / 2 inches in diameter. 

 They were picking the grapefruit and 

 packing them in the warehouse, situ- 

 ated on the Manatee River, at the end 

 of a private dock. We saw the washing 

 of the grapefruit and the sorting and 

 boxing. Their largest crop is 100,000 

 cases, or about 160,000 bushels. 



They utilize bees in fertilizing the 

 bloom and Mr. H. L. Christopher, an 

 old and experienced beekeeper, keeps 

 two apiaries there, in different parts 

 of the orchard, at the request of Mr. 

 A. H. Brown, the manager. We sam- 



