294 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE. 



that there are male and female elements in the vegetable organ- 

 isms just as in the animal organism. We know that if the sexes 

 in the latter are always excluded, the one from the other, repro- 

 duction is an utter impossibility. 



We have control over the sexual intercourse of the domesticated 

 animals. Cattle breeders, sheep farmers, agriculturists, orchardists, 

 horticulturists, and indeed everyone, whether engaged in the 

 culture of the soil or not, thoroughly understand this; but we 

 do not find the same knowledge of the methods of reproduction 

 in vegetable life amongst farmers and others. But agriculturists 

 and those engaged in vegetable culture do not as a rule know 

 that plants are reproduced on precisely similar lines as animals. 



Schools of Science are established to unravel the secrets of 

 Nature in the mineral kingdom, anatomical classes are open to- 

 students who intend to make a living by operating on other than 

 their own frames, and Veterinary Schools do the same for those 

 who desire to so work on the lower animals. All engaged in the 

 breeding of animals know exactly how to mate so as to produce 

 certain results. Sires are carefully bred, more carefully selected, 

 and most carefully reared. All know, if they take the haphazard 

 chances of permitting animals to breed according to their own 

 will, weedy and valueless ones of no market worth are the result. 

 In cattle they know how to cross-breed their animals so as to- 

 obtain the best results for the butcher or the dairyman ; or, if it 

 be sheep, they know how to breed for wool or meat; or, if it 

 be horses, they breed for strength or for speed. And all this is 

 done from the knowledge possessed of the procreative powers in 

 both sire and dam. Why is not a similar knowledge applied to 

 fruit or any other crop ? Because not one out of a thousand has- 

 sufficient knowledge of their occupation to understand that there 

 is a sexuality in plants and that fertilisation is as necessary in. 

 plants as in animals. 



I said just now that pollen is the fertiliser, and that this sub- 

 stance is possessed by all flowering plants. The one great aim of 

 all vegetable and animal life is to reproduce itself or to perpetuate 

 its species. 



Both sexes in all the higher orders of animals possess locomotive 

 powers that enable them to come together at certain seasons for 

 procreative purposes. At other seasons the sexes studiously avoid 

 each other, and in some gregarious animals they separate and form- 

 independent flocks, as amongst yellowhammers, chaffinches, wild 

 American turkeys, and deer. 



