EGe Bay of he Band 
the roads, or else these are the patches that have no 
deepness of earth, where the seed of the winds’ sow- 
ing can get no hold, for I have had to sow these my- 
self. As I go up and down I carry a pocketful of 
sweet clover seed, — melilotus, —and over every waste 
and sandy place I scatter a few of the tiny seeds, 
when, lo! not two blades of grass where one grew be- 
fore, but a patch of tall white flowers, breathing the 
sweetness of heaven into all the air, and humming in 
the July sun with the joyous sound of my honey bees. 
All this, and for season after season, where nothing 
grew before! 
Along with melilotus in the gravelly cuts and burnt 
woodlands grows the fireweed, a tall showy annual 
that waves its pink, plumed head throughout July. 
Farther north and west, this striking flower, like the 
melilotus, yields a heavy flow of delicious honey, but 
it does not attract the bees in this locality. Neither 
do my bees get any nectar from the fat little indigo- 
bush that takes possession of the unfarmed, sandy 
fields in July, though the wild bumblebees are busy 
upon it as long as it remains in bloom. 
But this is not the native land of the honey bee, and 
it is sheer luck that the white clover, the basswood, 
158 
