388 PASTURAGE. 



Buckwheat furnishes an excellent Fall feed for bees ; and 

 often enables them to fill their hives with a generous supply 

 against Winter. The honey being gathered either in the 

 early part of the day, or when the atmosphere is moist, is 

 often quite thin ; the bees sweat out a large portion of 

 its moisture, but still they do not exhaust the whole, 

 and in wet seasons, it is somewhat liable to sour in 

 the cells. Honey gathered in a dry season, is always 

 thicker, and of course more valuable than that gathered in a 

 wet one, as it contains much less water. Buckwheat is un- 

 certain in its honey-bearing qualities ; in some seasons, it 

 yields next to none, and hardly a bee will be seen upon a 

 large field, while in others, it furnishes an extraordinary 

 supply. The most practical and scientific agriculturists 

 agree that so far from being an impoverishing crop, it is on 

 many soils, one of the most profitable that can be raised. 

 Every bee-keeper should have some in the vicinity of bis 

 hives. 



The following facts respecting the cultivation of buck- 

 wheat, were communicated to me by Mr. A. Wells, of 

 Greenfield, Mass. He had a piece of land so exhausted by 

 successive crops of corn and rye, that it would produce 

 nothing but buckwheat, which he cultivated upon it for 

 twelve or thirteen successive years. At the end of this time 

 the land had recovered sufficiently to produce good corn ! 

 Each year, the weeds and self-sown buckwheat, which grew 

 upon it, were plowed under, in seeding for the new crop, 

 and the result proves, how erroneous arc the common notions 

 respecting the exhausting effects on the land, of this grain. 



Dzierzon says : " In the stubble of winter grain, buck- 

 wheat might be sown, whereby ample forage would be se- 

 cured to the bees, late in the season, and a remunerating 

 crop of grain garnered besides. This plant, growing so 



