PASTURAGE. 297 



esteem. Its drooping blossoms protect the honey from 

 moisture, and they can work upon it when the weather is 

 so wet that they- can obtain nothing from the upright 

 blossoms of the clover. As it furnishes a succession of 

 flowers for some weeks, it yields a supply almost as lasting 

 as the white clover. The precipitous and rocky lands, 

 Where it most abounds, might be made almost as valuable 

 as some of the vine-clad terraces of the mountain districts 

 of Europe. 



" Dr. Bevan suggests the use of lemon-thyme as an edging for 

 garden walks and flower beds. No material good, however, can be 

 done to a large colony by the few plants that can be sown around a 

 bee-house. The bee is too much of a roamer to take pleasure in trim 

 gardens.* It is the wild tracts of heath and furze, the broad acres 

 of bean-fields and buckwheat, the lime avenues, the hedge-row 

 flowers, and the clover meadows, that furnish her haunts and fill 

 her cells. To those who wish to watch their habits, a plot of bee- 

 flowers is important, and we know not the bee that could refuse 

 the following beautiful invitation of Professor Smythe : 

 " ' Thou cheerful Bee! come, freely come, 

 And travel round my 'woodbine bower ; 



Delight me with thy wandering hum, 

 And rouse me from my musing b^ur : 



Oh ! try no more those tedious fields ; 



Come, taste the sweets my garden yields : 



The treasures of each blooming mine, 



The buds, the blossoms — all are thine ! 



And, careless of this noontide heat, 

 I'll follow as thy ramble guides, 



To watch thee pause and chafe thy feet, 

 And, sweep them o'er thy downy sides ;. 



Then in a flower's bell nestling lie, 



And all thy envied ardor ply 1 



Then o'er the stem, though fair it grow, 



With touch rejecting, glance and g(), 



* I shonld almost as soon expect, fr§m a small grass-plot, to famish fbod for ■ 

 herd, of cattle, as to provision tees from garden plants. * 



13* 



