LUTHER BURBANK 



a humming-bird can fathom. These are sure to 

 provide pollen-carriers of a bulky character which 

 only humming-birds or large insects like the moth 

 could transport. Mechanisms may even be pro- 

 vided to exclude from the nectar chamber bees 

 and other small insects that could be of no service 

 to the flower. 



But such cases, while in the aggregate numer- 

 ous, are on the whole very exceptional. In general 

 the plants with which the horticulturist deals, and 

 particularly the plants of the temperate zone, have 

 contented themselves with a much more simple 

 arrangement, whereby the pollen-bearers are so 

 arranged that any small insect that visits the 

 flower is sure to go away laden with pollen. 



In particular, provision has been made by the 

 vast majority of flowers of the orchard and garden 

 to attract a single species of insect, the bee. 



This familiar insect, the one member of its 

 vast tribe that is directly helpful to man as a 

 producer of food, is the indispensable coadjutor 

 of the most importiant varieties of cultivated 

 plants. Bees of one species or another are the 

 universal distributors of pollen in orchard and 

 garden. The beautiful flowers that the apple and 

 plum and cherry put forth, and the perfumes they 

 exhale, are primarily designed as advertisements 

 for the bee and the bee alone. 



[208] 



