The Canadian Horticulturist. 113 



Species," Cheshire's " Scientific Beekeeping," and many other excellent 

 works may be profitably consulted.) We are at present considering the 

 work of bees as friends of the fruit-grower, and shall confine ourselves 

 to their operations on his behalf. The trees and plants from which our 

 fruit are taken bear bi-sexual flowers, and woutd be capable of self-fer- 

 tilization if an all-wise Providence had not designed their flowers so that 

 in-and-in breeding is prevented, and cross fertilization with all its advan- 

 tages secured. The bee being made the complement of the flower is the 

 chief agent employed in bringing this about. That this may be the more 

 surely effected, her food (pollen and honey) is found over and in the flower. 

 The nectar glands that secrete the honey usually lie around and in close 

 proximity to the ovary. On alighting upon a flower to collect pollen or sip 

 honey, her head, legs and body get liberally dusted with pollen. This she 

 carries to the next flower visited, into which she thrusts her head ; when, if 

 the stigma be in a receptive condition, the pollen, borne from flowers pre- 

 viously visited, will be dislodged and adhere to the sticky stigmatic surface, 

 where it remains and accomplishes the work of impregnation. In this she 

 acts the part of a discriminating hybridist, for bees as a rule only visit one 

 class of flowers while out on a foraging tour. 



Owen Sound. A. McNIGHT. 



STAKING YOUNG TREES. 



"JUST AS THE TWIG IS BENT, THE TREE'S INCLINED." 



THE above heading may seem at first thought to be too insignificant 

 under which to write an article for the public eye, but when we take 

 into account the results of rightly training young trees, or the neglect 

 of it, the topic becomes one of no little importance. When I pass an 

 orchard of bearing trees, and see some leaning one way and some another, 

 and many of them with a bias of fifteen or twenty degrees to the south-east 

 from the force of the north-west winds, I come to the conclusion that they 

 were poorly cared for when young, and allowed their own way of growing 

 under adverse circumstances until too late to remedy their ill condition. 

 Young trees Uke young minds must be rightly started in their course 

 to prove profitable and present a shapely appearance, and this thought will 

 have its importance in our minds, just in proportion as we are careful to 

 note the results of right or wrong management. In point of profit, a one 

 sided tree, leaning at an angle of forty-five degrees, cannot carry more than 

 two-thirds as much fruit as a straight, well-balanced tree, without danger of 

 breaking down entirely, or greatly increasing its deformity, and the chances 

 are that the fruit will not grow so large, or ripen as evenly as on a straight 

 tree upon which the sun's rays act in an even, unhindered freedom. In 



