NUTT'S COLLATERAL HIVE. 6i 



severely criticised, and it does appear almost incredible 

 that the weight of honey which he names could have 

 been produced in one season. But as in the district 

 where he lived there is grown an immense quantity 

 of mustard seed — the flowers of which afford excel- 

 lent forage for bees — the honey harvests there would, 

 doubtless, be very large. If Mr. Nutt has given his little 

 favourites too much praise, it will be only charitable now 

 to account for his statements by an excess of zeal and 

 enthusiasm in this his study of bee-culture. It may be 

 that the golden harvests he spoke and wrote of have 

 been so far useful that they have induced many to com- 

 mence bee-keeping, some of whom, whilst they con- 

 demned his statements, have themselves written really 

 useful and practical works on the subject, which other- 

 wise might possibly never have appeared. As the monks 

 of old kept the lamp of religion burning, however dimly, 

 until a more enlightened age, so Thomas Nutt may have 

 assisted in a somewhat similar manner by energetically 

 propounding his views, and thereby causing other api- 

 arians to rise up, whose names are now as familiar to us 

 as household words, and whose works posterity will 

 value. The writer of these pages hcis often accom- 

 panied Mr. Nutt on his visits to his patrons in the 

 neighboiirhood of London, and seen him perform his 

 operations regardless of the anger of the bees, and free 

 from all fear of their stings. He often expatiated on the 

 cruelty of the brimstone match and suffocation, denounc- 



