62 SOURCES OP HOKET. 



perience will not permit me to speak positively concern- 

 ing it. Yet, during some of our large harvests of honey, 

 I could easily have believed that the honey was furnished 

 from some hidden source, more abundantly than was pos- 

 sible from the blossoms alone. From information gleaned 

 from various sources, I am inclined to think that leaves 

 may, at times, secrete honey, but it has never been my 

 good fortune to discover it, and Mr. Quinby was alike 

 unfortunate, during two-score years of close observation. 

 It is evidently peculiar to certain localities only. Prof. 

 Cook relates an interesting and convincing case of it, 

 which he observed in California. 



DO BEES INJURE GRAIN' AND FRUIT ? 



Many people contend that bees are an injury to Buck- 

 wheat, by taking away the substance that would be form- 

 ed into grain. What are the facts ? The flowers open, 

 and honey is secreted. If the bee does not gather it, it is 

 wasted. Now, what is the difference to the plant, whether 

 the honey is lost in this way, or is collected by the bees ? 



If there is any difference, the advantage appears to 

 be in favor of collection by the bees, for the reason that 

 it thus answers an important end in the economy of na- 

 ture, consistent with her provisions in ten thousand dif- 

 ferent ways in adapting means to ends. 



Abundant authority may be cited to show that, in- 

 stead of being a hindrance to the perfect development of 

 grain or fruit, bees are indispensable, in the aid they give 

 in fertilization. Those who have only the most super- 

 ficial knowledge of plants, are aware that with many, 

 some of the flowers possess only stamens, and others 

 only pistils, and that the pollen from the staminate blos- 

 soms is necessary to fertilize the pistillate. This is done 

 in some cases by the wind, which wafts the pollen from 

 the stammate to the pistillate flowers, but in the ma- 



