hon:eybees and honey production. 57 



throughout all of the western Mountain and Plateau States 

 and the central and northern plains, along irrigation ditches 

 and in waste lands, wherever moisture is sufficient. It is 

 also common in aU of the Central States eastward to the 

 Atlantic coast, bordering the steam and wagon roads, and 

 is an important honey plant in many sections there and in 

 the black lands of Alabama and Mississippi, especially where 

 cultivated as a forage plant. 



The mountain sages of California produce a type of honey 

 of much importance commercially and by common consent 

 one of the finest of aU in color (white), density, and flavor. 

 The sage honeys possess, in addition to other virtues, the 

 important one of not granulating readily. Honeys from the 

 desert plants other than sage are as a rule good; many are 

 excellent and rarely are they of poor quality. 



Orange honey ranks high among the commercial honeys, 

 being produced in large quantities in California, and to a less 

 extent in Florida, Arizona, and a few of the Gulf Coast 

 States. When produced under favorable atmospheric con- 

 ditions, as a rule, it is of fine appearance, body, and flavor, 

 and is ranked as one of the very best. 



Other sources of favored western honeys are few, but 

 among them fireweed, which follows fires on cut-over lands 

 in western Washington and Oregon, as well as in the northern 

 fringe of the Eastern States, is unexcelled. Vine maple is 

 important in Oregon. 



California, the leading honey State, owes its preeminence 

 to four principal sources of supply — the alfalfa of the valley 

 sections, the wild sage and the wild buckwheat shrub of the 

 southern hills and mountains, and the citrus groves. 



Of the Texas crop, second in importance, roughly two- 

 fifths is produced in south Texas from the wild horsemint 

 and from the mesquite, catsclaw, guajilla, and other desert 

 trees and shrubs, a scant fifth in the western section of the 

 State beyond the Pecos River from alfalfa and desert plants, 

 and most of the remaining two-fifths in the black waxy soil 

 belt and the prairies of central Texas, principally from 

 cotton, though a considerable quantity is from horsemint 

 and some from mesquite. Rattan, huckleberry, and holly 

 supplement cotton and horsemint in the eastern part of the 

 State. 



