312 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVI. No. 40Q 



^ear, and also that we get no honey till the second season from 

 the seed. 



Another serious difEculty is the chance that the seeds may not 

 come. I planted five acres of seed this spring. The seed 

 seemed excellent, the ground was in fine condition, and we had 

 frequent and abundant rains; yet so few of the seeds came, that I 

 ploughed all up, and sowed to buckwheat. 



We see, then, that the special planting for honey alone, of the 

 JEchiiiops, is not encouraging. The fact that the plant is a bien- 

 nial, that it is so terrible to thresh, that the seed is likely to fail 

 to germinate, and the fact, if we may judge from analogy, that 

 the plant may not always secrete nectar even though it bloom 

 profusely (our experiments do not prove or refute this point), — all 

 would tend to make the wise bee-keeper hesitate before he grew 

 this plant. It seems more than probable that it will never pay to 

 f do so. 



The Rocky Mountain Bee-Plant. 



1 had previously learned that to grow Cleome we must plant in 

 autumn. Spring-sown seed will rarely germinate. So in the fall 

 of 1888 I sowed eight acres of Cleome. The seed was procured 

 fresh from Colorado. To my great disappointment, the seed did 

 not germinate well. In many places the plants were exceedingly 

 scattering. These plants were on sandy land. Other seed was 

 planted on clay, and did not germinate nearly as well as that sown 

 on sand. The blossoms commenced to open the 6rst of July, and 

 continued to bloom even into Septeoiber. The season was very 

 dry, the excessive drouth reaching from July till late autumn, — 

 just the time for a Colorado plant to show its virtues. The plant 

 grows from one to three feet high, the foliage is smooth, the leaves 

 compound, and the flower an umbel. The flowerets commence to 

 open below, and continue for a long time. 



To my great disappointment, the flowers seemed to furnish 

 very little nectar. The bees worked on the plants only occasion- 

 ally, and then not excessively. Thus there were two disappoint- 

 anents, — failure of the seeds to germinate, and failure of the flow- 

 ers to secrete. 



We sowed in 1889 tliree acres with seed of our own raising, 

 which failed almost entirely to germinate. We left three acres 

 uncultivated where the plants were thickest in 1889, to see if the 

 plants would self-seed the ground. Here, too, we were disap- 

 pointed. There were so few plants, even though the season 

 seemed exceptionally favorable, that both piecss — the one planted 

 and the one supposed self-sown — were ploughed up. 



Thus these plants, Hke the Ecliinops, two as promising species 

 «s we could hope to find, promise little in the way of special 

 iplanting exclusively for honey. The expense and labor; the doubt 

 of growing a crop even though we plant ; the chance that the season 

 may not be propitious, and so there be little or no nectar secreted, 

 even though the plants do grow and bloom, — all this makes the 

 prospects for profit in such planting not encouraging. 



Melissa. 



The Melissa is an annual. We planted it for two successive 

 years. It did well, blossomed freely, and was visited very gener- 

 ally by the bees. It grows well on both sand and clay, and, by 

 sowing early, will commence to bloom early in July, and continue 

 in bloom for a month or more. I regret to say that it will not 

 self-seed, and must be planted annually. This is expensive, and 

 it is doubtful if it will pay. It is to be said, however, that Me- 

 lissa, in common with the other mints, seems to attract the bees at 

 all times of bloom, whatever the season: so I am of the opinion, 

 that, if any plant will pay exclusively as a honey-plant, it will be 

 some mint Many of these are perennial. As the three acres of 

 Melissa last season ivere singing with bees all through the time of 

 blossoming, and as our bees swarmed in early August, a Ibing 

 unprecedented in Michigan, it gives reason to hope, that, with a 

 large average, we might secure a honey-crop each year despite the 

 season. 



Thus I believe our experiments indicate that special planting 

 for honey alone is of doubtful practicability; that Eehinqps and 

 Cleome, at leasts are not the plants for such special planting, if it 



is ever to be a success; and that while Melissa, or bee-balm, is 

 not profitable, as it is an annual, it is possible that the perennial 

 mints are the plants, if any such there be, that will pay us to 

 grow exclusively as honey-plants. 



Unless Cleome will seed itself, it is not the plant even for way- 

 side planting. I think we must look to some of the persistent 

 mints, or, more probably, to some plant valuable for other pur- 

 poses even, to plant on the roadside and in waste places. 



I hope next to try Melilot, or sweet clover, not so much to find 

 whether it is a valuable honey-plant, as we know that now, but 

 rather to find if this luxuriant and vigorous clover may not have 

 other important uses, possibly for silage. I shall also hope to 

 plant small beds of promising mints, in hopes for hints of some 

 plant that will pay just for nectar, and nothing else. 



A. J. Cook. 



THE EELATION OF GROUND WATER TO DISEASE. 



At the meeting this year of the Royal Meteorological Society, 

 held on Nov. 19, the president, Mr. Baldwin Latham, delivered 

 an address on the above subject. 



The pages of history show that when the ground waters of our 

 own or other countries have arrived at a considerable degree of 

 lowness, as evidenced by the failure of springs and the drying-up 

 of rivers, such periods have always been accompanied or followed 

 by epidemic disease. In all probability, ground water in itself, 

 except under conditions where it is liable to pollution, has no 

 material effect in producing or spreading disease. As a rule, it is 

 only in those places in which there has been a considerable amount 

 of impurity stored in the soil that diseases become manifest; and 

 the most common modes by which diseases are, in all probability, 

 disseminated, are by means of the water-supplies drawn from the 

 ground, or by the elimination of ground air into the habitations 

 of the people. It is found that the periods of low and high water 

 mark those epochs when certain organic changes are taking place 

 in the impurities stored in the ground, which ultimately become 

 the cause, and lead to the spread, of disease. Mr. Latham defines 

 "ground water" as all water found in the surface soil of the 

 earth's crust, except such as may be in combination with the 

 materials forming the crust of the earth. It is usually derived 

 from rainfall by percolation, and it is also produced by conden- 

 sation. In dry countries, ground water is principally supplied 

 by the infiltration fi-om rivers as, for example, in the Delta of the 

 Nile. 



The absence of water passing into the ground for a long period, 

 naturally leads to the lowering of the free ground water-line, find 

 may lead to the drying of the ground above the water-line; and 

 it is curious to note, with reference to small-pox, that the periods 

 marking the epochs of this disease are those in which there has 

 been a long absence of percolation, and a consequent drying of 

 the ground preceding such epidemics. On the other hand, small- 

 pox is unknown at such periods as when the ground has never 

 been allowed to dry, or is receiving moisture by condensation or 

 capillarity. 



The study of underground water shows that certain diseases are 

 more rife when waters are high in the ground, and others when 

 the water is low. The conditions that bring about and accompany 

 low water, however, have by far the most potential influence oa 

 health, as all low-water years are, without exception, unhealthy. 

 As a rule, the years of high water are usually healthy, except, as 

 often happens, when high water follows immediately upon marked 

 low water, when, on the rise of the water, an unhealthy period 

 invariably follows. 



Mr. Latham has found that those districts which draw their 

 water-supplies direct from the ground are usually more subject to 

 epidemics and disease than those districts in which the water-sup- 

 ply is drawn from rivers supplied from more extended areas, or 

 from sources not liable to underground pollution. In the case of 

 Croydon, one portion of the district (under three-fourths) is sup- 

 plied with water taken direct from the ground, whilst the remain- 

 ing portion is supplied with water from the river Thames. It is 

 curious to note, that, even so recently as 1885, the zymotic death- 

 rate in the districts supplied with underground water was twice as 

 great as in that part of the district supplied from the Thames; and 



