22 



TBE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



blades of grass grow where only one grew be- 

 fore ' — all very fine; but, alas, those two 

 blades of rank grass pinch out the white clo- 

 ver so that it has no place to spread its crys- 

 tal banquet for the l)ee. Then, indeed, the 

 bee-keeper begins to wonder how his good 

 prototype, ' Lo, the poor Indian ' is getting 

 aloug out west, auyhow. But civilization is 

 not done with her incursions. The relent- 

 less jade whispers to the farmers that so 

 niany fences are expensive and useless, and 

 directly three-quarters of them disappear. 

 No more the face of nature is mapped off 

 with latitude lines and longitude lines of 

 nodding wild flowers. Tb.e fence-rows were 

 the Indian reservations of our bees, and the 

 cruel white woman takes them away. To 

 make a clean sweep she whispers again to 

 the farmer, and says, ' No \- the fences are 

 out of the way, why not slick up the road- 

 sides, and exterminate the weeds that grow 

 there?' 'Sure enough,' says the submis- 

 sive farmer, and proceeds to run his mowing 

 machine up and down the roads two or three 

 times each summer, while the bee-keeper 

 looks on with impotent wrath. 



What are we going to do about it, brethren? 

 go on the warpath with knives and toma- 

 kawks ? pull out the axle pins of the car of 

 progress, and break the axle ? What shall 

 we do ? Shall we think to restore matters 

 by scattering seeds, and introducing new 

 honey plants ? Where shall our new honey 

 plants find a place to grow, pray tell, when 

 the commons and pastures are all under 

 plow ? Shall we find a honey plant with vim 

 enough to grow in the farmer's cultivated 

 fields in spite of him ? If we find it, will we 

 be wicked enough to introduce it ? If we 

 are wicked enough to introduce it, will not 

 the dogs of the law be after us ? In regard to 

 botanical efforts of all sorts. I think the faith 

 of intelligent apiarists is getting weak. We 

 have accomplished but little, and that little 

 is spoken against ; and in the immediate 

 future we are likely to accomplish still less. 



Is it giving away seed of alsike and buck- 

 wheat that we will place our hopes upon ? 

 Too costly : and our profits, either present 

 or prospective, are not equal to the require- 

 ments. Moreover, while one bee-keeper can 

 largely increase the amount of buckwheat 

 raised in a particular neighborhood, bee- 

 keepers as a whole cannot very largely in- 

 crease the buckwheat average as a whole. 

 The laws of demand and supply are going to 

 regulate that in spite of us. And immense 

 areas of country find buckwheat a plant 

 which yields very little honey, save in ex- 

 ceptional years and at long intervals. In re- 

 gard to alsike, matters are on a somewhat 

 different basis. Alsike reciprocates with 

 common clover — the more alsike the less 

 clover — and it could be very largely increas- 

 ed if an advantage could be proved. Where 

 farmers find alsike much the more advanta- 

 geous of the two they will raise it — but 

 Where's that, pray ? The clovers are wanted 

 mostly as manure plants — nitrogen traps — 

 and alsike can hardly compete with red clo- 

 ver in the amount of roots which it furnishes 

 to rot in the soil ? 



Shall we look to the red clover as our help, 

 and hope to modify its tubes, and so secure 



its treasures of nectar ? That scheme is in- 

 deed alluriug, and my name lias been asso- 

 ciated with it more or less. But I for one am 

 not getting on very fast ; and I hear of no 

 one doing any better. I have a clover that 

 bees can probe to the bottom, but it almost 

 totally refuses to bear seeds ; and the seed- 

 lings, when I get them, most of them back- 

 slide and become mere ordinary clovers. 

 Furthermore, we don't know whether the clo- 

 ver insects are going to hold the fort like the 

 potato bug, or whether they will let up after 

 a while. They seem capable of preventing 

 any honey, or any bloom either, on the clo- 

 ver. At best our hope from this source is 

 slender and distant. 



Then how about alfalfa ? No go, is to be 

 feared, for moist climates — grows poorly, 

 and the blossoms have no honey in them. 

 Shall we look forward to the time when pub- 

 lic and private plantations of trees will have 

 to be made, and try to have honey trees pre- 

 ferred ? Long while to wait. When the 

 time comes it looks as though the pine would 

 be planted rather than the basswood and tu- 

 lip, the oaks rather than the maples and gum 

 trees, and the black walnut rather than the 

 wild cherry. Agitation at the right time, by 

 the right persons, might avail somethiiig to- 

 ward having the right kind of trees planted ; 

 but how often is the proper time and proper 

 influence let slip I This anchor is rather too 

 much like an anchor in Amsterdam, when 

 the good ship is drifting on the rocks near 

 by. 



What else have we to look to ? There are 

 the roadsides. We might get some bass- 

 woods planted aloug the roads if we tried 

 hard ; but not many, I fear, now the new 

 methods have come in ; be in the way of the 

 farmer's mowing-machine, and shade his 

 border. 'The blues.' did I hear the editor 

 say ? Yes. this is a blue article ; but when a 

 fellow looks for a few moments through blue 

 spectacles why not have them as blue as ever 

 he can. You, Canadians, up there are one 

 tribe, and we down here in ( )hio are another 

 tribe. Y'our tribe has not as yet suffered as 

 much from the incursions of the 'white wo- 

 man ' as ours has ; but your turn is right at 

 hand. She'll never be 'asy' till she has the 

 last hon-ey weed exterminated and the last 

 white clover supplanted bv some better for- 

 age plant. And she'll hardly make haste to 

 plant a basswood tree till she has the last old 

 one down. There's no peace for us unless 

 we flee to the mountains, where she cannot 

 run her plow, else go to the alfalfa regions, 

 else do — something desperate. Shall we do 

 something desperate then ? The ' to bee ' 

 and ' not to bee ' seems a trifle inclined to 

 hover around that iiuestion. 



E. E. Hasty. 



RiCHABDS, Ohio. Nov. 7th, 1892." 



There is truth as well as poetry in the fore- 

 going. It may be an unpleasant truth, and 

 that is why it is so ignored. We never ad- 

 mit an unpleasant truth until forced to do so. 

 Men who have made a grand success of bee- 

 keeping in years past and gone, still cling to 

 it in the same loved spot long after the bass- 



