262 June Honey Plants. 



some days after the raspberry. I think it is far less valua- 

 ble as a honey plant. Corn yields largely of honey as 

 well as pollen, and the teasel, Dipsacus fullonum (Fig. 

 166), is said, not only by Mr. Doolittle, but by English 

 and German apiarists, to yield richly of beautiful honey. 

 This last has commercial importance. In central New York 

 it is raised in large quantities. The spinous fruit head& 



Fig. 167. 



^ Common Locust, 



are used in preparing woolen cloth. The fragrant locust 

 (Fig. 167) Robinia pseuda-cacia opens its petals in June, 

 which, from its rapid growth, beautiful form and hand- 

 some foliage, would rank among our first shade trees, were 

 it not that it is so tardy in spreading its canopy of green, 

 and so liable to ruinous attack by the borers, which last 

 peculiarity it shares with the incomparable maples. Wash- 

 ing the trunks of the trees in June and July with soft 

 soap will in great part remove tbis trouble. 



In June the mammoth red clover, Trifolium pratense, 

 comes out in one mass of crimson. This, unlike common 

 red clover, has flower tubes short enough for even the 

 ligula of the black bee. It is pretty coarse for hay but 



