June 8, 1871. ] 



JOUPiNAL OF HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



405 



jaws. It feeds throngh the winter, becoming a pupa in March, 

 the flies appearing in H«.y or Jane to deposit their eggs, which 

 usually do not hatch nntU August. These, singular to say, are 

 frequently deposited in dung, and by means of this introduced 

 unwittingly into gardens, where the larvae perforate the earth 

 diligently as they increase in size, feeding greedily on the roots. 

 They also infest the flower garden, doing at times consider- 

 able damage to beds of Eiuunculus. The males and females 

 of the St. Mark's Fly differ considerably from each other in 

 appearance, the females having larger wings and very stout 

 legs.— J. E. S. C. 



VALUE OF HONEY BEES IN FRUIT CULTURE. 



HoNTiT and wax Iiave ever been two most useful articles in domestic 

 economy, and from the earliest times tlie honey bee has been the com- 

 panion of man. "What an addition to a farmer's house is a bee hive 

 nestling among the Apple trees with its hundreds of busy inhabitants, 

 some settling about the door, or flying lightly above the roof, others 

 darting off in quest of new supplies of food, and still others returning 

 on labouring wings laden dorra with their " baskets " filled with crude 

 pollen. What a scene of industry and system is bee life ! This is an 

 every-day picture. But honey and was are not indispensable. The 

 hunting of the sperm whale and the discovery of petroleum have done 

 away with the need of wax, and the Sugar Cane and Beets give sweets 

 in new and convenient forms, "What use, then, is the bee ? your 

 readers will ask. The answer will occur to but a few. The grand nse 

 in nature of the bee is the securing to the farmer or fruit-raiser a good 

 crop and the permanence of the best varieties of fruit. 



Gardeners have always known that bees fertilise Squash, Melon, and 

 Cucumber flowers by conveying the pollen from one plant to another, 

 thus insuring not only the complete fertilisation of the seed by the 

 male pollen and thus impronng the fruit, but actually causing the 

 production of more Squashes. Melons, and Cucnmbers by causing 

 certain flowers to set that would otherwise have dropped to the ground 

 sterile and useless. This has been proved by fertilising the flowers by 

 hand ; a very large, indeed aD unnaturally abundant crop, being thus 

 obtained. It has been noticed by a few, though the many have not 

 appreciated the fact, that fruit trees are more productive when a swarm 

 of bees is placed among them, for when the bees have been removed 

 by disease or other means the fruit crop has diminished. 



On this subject I wrote as follows to a correspondent in the "Ameri- 

 can Naturalist," a monthly illustrated magazine of natural history, pub- 

 lished by the Peabody Academy of Science, at Salem, Massachusetts. 

 *' In answer to the question of J. J. Gould (Wenham, Mass.), whether 

 bees are in any way injurious to fruit or lessen the quantity or quality, 

 I would reply that all the evidence given by botanists and zoologists, 

 who have specially studied the subject, shows that bees improve 

 the quality and tend to increase the quantity of the fruit. They aid 

 in the fertilisation of the flowers, thus preventing the occurrence of 

 sterile flowers, and by more thoroughly fertilising flowers already 

 perfect, render the production of sound and well-developed fruit more 

 sure. 



"Many botanists think if it were not for bees and other insects 

 (such as certain two-winged flies, moths, wasps, &c.), many plants 

 would not fruit at all. The whole subject of the great office of bees 

 and other insects perform in the fertilisation of plants has been fully 

 discussed in the May, July, and October (1S67) numbers of the 

 'American Naturalist,' and by Professor Asa Gray in the 'American 

 Agriculturist,' beginning in May, 1866. ' It is alleged that bees do 

 injury in some way by estracting honey from flowers. What is the use 

 in nature of honey ? ' The best observers will tell you that it is secreted 

 by the plant for the verj' purpose of attracting bees to the flower, other- 

 wise it is of no use to the flower or fruit." 



This was written before Samuel Wagner printed an article on the 

 same subject in his well-known and useful " American Bee Journal." 

 His testimony so well confirms my statements made above, and is so 

 important to fruit -raisers, that I reproduce it in part : — 



''In 1774 Count Anthony, of Torrings, Seefield, in Bavaria, Presi- 

 dent of the Academy of Science at Munich, striving to re-iutrodnce 

 bee culture on his patrimonial estate, found in this generally prevalent 

 prejudice {i.e., that the bees injure the fruit by their visits to the 

 flowers) the chief obstacle to success. To overcome this, he laboured 

 assiduously to show that bees, far from being injurious, were directly 

 beneficial in the fructification of blossoms — causing the fruit to set, 

 by conveying the fertilising pollen from tree to tree and from flower to 

 flower. He proved, moreover, by official family records, that a century 

 earlier, when bees were kept by every tenant on the estate, fruit was 

 abundant ; whereas then, when only some kept bees, and none of those 

 had more than three colonies, fruit was scarcer than ever among the 

 tenantry." 



At the Apiarian General Convention, held at Stuttgard, in Wurtem- 

 berg, in September, ISoS, the subject of honey-yielding crops being 

 under discussion, the celebrated pomologist Professor Lucas, one of 

 the directors of the Hohenhein Institute, alluding to the prejudice, 

 ■went on to say : — 



'' Of more importance, however, is the improved management of our 

 fruit trees. Here the interests of the horticulturist and the bee-keeper 

 combine and run parallel. A judicious pruning of our fruit trees wiU 



cause them to blossom more freely, and yield honey more plentifully. 

 I would urge attention to this on those particularly who are both fruit- 

 growers and bee-keepers. A careful and observant bee-keeper at Pots- 

 dam writes to me that his trees yield decidedly larger crops since he 

 has established an apiary in his orchard, and the annual crop is now 

 more certain and regular than before, though his trees have alivays 

 received due attention. 



" Some years ago, a wealthy lady in Germany established a greenhouse 

 at considerable cost, and stocked it with a great many kinds of choice 

 native and exotic fruit trees, expecting in due time to have renumerat- 

 ing crops. Time passed, and annually there was a superabundance of 

 blossoms, with only very little fruit. Various plans were devised and 

 adopted to bring the trees to bearing, but without success, till it was 

 suggested that the blossoms needed fertilisation, and that by means of 

 bees the needed work could be effected. A hive of busy honey-gatherers 

 was introduced next season ; the remedy was effectual, there was no 

 longer any difficulty in producing crops there. The bees distributed 

 the pollen, and the setting of the fruit followed naturally." 



From these convincing facts we learn the value of the honey bee to- 

 agriculture. Blot them out and we must go almost entirely without 

 fruit and vegetables. Besides being a source of profit for their wax^ 

 the bees actually bring to onr doors loads of fruit and vegetables 

 and other productions of the farm. — A. S. Packard [of American 

 2^aturalist). 



FLORIDA. 



In the way of gardening (St. Augustine, Florida, March 11th), 

 there is not much of interest. The Orange trees suffered more 

 from the cold of last December here than on the St. John's 

 Eiver; this is owing to the effects of the wind from theses, 

 which frequently amounts to a gale. It requires the protection 

 of walls, screens of evergreens, &a., to ensure success, even in 

 favourable seasons. From what I can learn, the climate in less 

 favourable for the Orange than formerly. Before the great frost 

 of 1835, which killed nearly all the Orange trees in Florida, 

 there was one tree here, as we learn from good authority, which 

 bore as many as twenty thousand Oranges in one crop. This, 

 at the moderate price of 20 dols. per thousand, would amount 

 to 400 dols. The Fig is quite at home here. Some very old 

 trees, perhaps one hundred years old, are to be seen in the' 

 gardens. In one place we found five trees of the Black English 

 Mulberry of immense size, fully 5 feet in diameter of trunk, and 

 73 to 80 feet in height. I have never seen any to equal them, 

 even in Europe. 



All species of the Mulberry seem to thrive remarkably well. 

 We see many large trees of the famous Multicaulis. We are 

 told that at one time many persons all over the State embarked 

 in silk-growing, but failed — we suppose because it involved 

 some labour, which people here are averse to. 



There is not a garden in ten around the city that has the- 

 slightest appearance of vegetation in it. They appear as though 

 they were abandoned, and yet they might be teeming with 

 luxuries as ours are in July. 



The Rose blooms here superbly, especially the Tea, Bourbon, 

 and Noisette varieties. The garden of Dr. Oliver BronsoDf 

 which contains a large and fine collection, is just now a splen- 

 did exhibition. A Tea Eose with a stem 4i inches in diameter 

 and 10 feet high, bearing fully a thousand flowers at one time, 

 is one of. the garden curiosities. The beautiful Spirsa Eeevesi, 

 double, is in bloom, and appears even fairer, I think, than I 

 have seen it in the north. The Wistaria is also in bloom, atd 

 attains great perfection here. I should think it would bloom 

 nearly the whole season. The Oleander attains the dimensions 

 of a tree, and although it suffered much from the December 

 frost (14° or 15'^ of frost), it is putting out new leaves, and will 

 recover. 



The Date Palm is considerably planted and is a noble tree. 

 Some specimens are fully 30 feet high. The Sago Palm stands 

 well ; there is an old plant in a garden here with a trunk fully 

 5 feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The Magnolia 

 grandiflora flourishes, and there are some fine specimens around. 

 The Lagerstrosmia, or Crape Myrtle, is much planted, and we 

 see some very old specimens. The common street tree here,, 

 as elsewhere in the south, is the "Pride of China," (Melia 

 Azedarach). The Oak, however, is fast taking its place. 



It is a curious fact that the Peach trees were in blossom & 

 month or more ago, and are yet. We were shown a plantation 

 composed of trees from the north, which do not blossom till 

 May. There they stand as if dead all throngh the winter, with- 

 a temperature equal to our summer. Is it not strange ? When 

 we first heard this we could not believe it. 



None of our northern fruits succeed well. Grapes are said to 

 do very well in soils of sufficient depth and dryness. In th& 

 gardens we find only the foreign varieties. I have seen only 



