THE BEEKEEPERS' REVIEW 383 



Florida orange blossom honey is a trifle better flavored even than 

 your best from the Golden Gate ; but honestly and truly I do think 

 it. I base this assertion on ten years of tasting of the honeys from 

 both sources. I am supposing, of course, that I get your best Cal- 

 ifornian honey, when I receive samples of it from the Redlands sec- 

 tion ; I have done so, getting honey from Mr. Lef ler, and others, and 

 there is just a wee bit something lacking of the exquisite aroma, 

 the boquet of the blossoms, that I do find in our honey. But we 

 won't quarrel over this. And, after we have said all we have, is it 

 not odd, that in Denver, for example, and in many other sections, 

 the trade will not stand for orange honey? They soon tire of it; 

 why I know not, unless for the same reason, that a man can't eat 

 quail for a month in succession — too rich ! The best yield I ever 

 had from this source alone was something over 200 pounds. 



Then take a side step with me, and stop down along the east 

 coast. We begin about the 29th parallel, say about Daytona, and pass 

 along the Indian River, on down toward the southeast point of the 

 state, and on around the Keys, up along the western shores as far 

 as Tampa. This is the land of the Black Mangrove. We may get 

 into our launch, for all the time we are in salt water. For the Man- 

 grove must have its feet near enough the sea to get its daily salt 

 bath. It grows only on the shores, marshes, lagoons and inlets, 

 hammocks, and lake-shores, anywhere that the brine of the ocean 

 makes brackish the waters about its roots. It is the Avicennia 

 Nitida, or Black Mangrove, not the red, which latter produces no 

 nectar. They are both the greatest land formers known, gather- 

 ing the floating debris along shore and making it fast, till it final- 

 ly extends the shore line further and further out to sea. It was 

 frozen down in the "Big freeze" of 1894-95, and it is but now ap- 

 proaching once more to its old-time dimensions, not yet quite hav- 

 ing become a tree. It is now, in the neighborhood of Daytona, as 

 high as 14 and 16 feet tall ; further south, it was not frozen, for a 

 slight distance along the southern coast, and giants .30 feet tall 

 may still be seen there. Odd as it may seem, it never has yielded 

 in the south or on western shore as it has on the east coast, and 

 near the northern limits of its habitat, at that. Here, say from 

 Daytona south to Titusville, is where the largest records ever record- 

 ed were secured. Here it was that 600 pounds were obtained 

 from Mangrove and Palmetto in one season, from a single colony! 

 Think of that, you who boast your great yields. It is but now begin- 

 ning to count once more among our sources of nectar. Last year, 

 I may say, it was practically a failure all along the coast. We look 



