HONEY. 49 



■whose fields were much visited by bees. So convinced 

 was this old farmer that the bees robbed his fields, that 

 he trod to death aU he could put his feet upon, and even 

 threatened to drag the horse-roller over them. The late 

 Dr Lindley said, " this old farmer was a great blockhead." 

 Honey in the flower may be said to be a volatile oil, 

 which is constantly passing into the atmosphere by eva- 

 poration. Ungathered by bees, this substance "wastes 

 its sweetness on the desert air." Hundreds of thousands 

 of tons of honey are thus wasted in England every year, 

 for want of bees to collect it. If bees collect the contents 

 of a flower in the morning, a second visit in the afternoon 

 will find it as full as ever. A land flowing with milk is, 

 in one sense, a land flowing with honey. Honey-flowers, 

 like cows, will bear milking twice and thrice a-day, and 

 be none the worse for it. The farmer will not find that 

 the five or six pounds of honey per acre extracted from 

 the flowers of white clover affect the produce of his dairy 

 in the smallest degree. 



