73 



CAN BEES HARM THE SOIL OR THE CROPS ? 



Is, then, the question to be considered. The agriculturist may say, " Grant- 

 ing that the visits of bees may be serviceable to me in the fertilisation of 

 my fruit or my clover, how will you prove that I am not obliged to pay 

 too high a price for such services ? " For the answer to such a question 

 ■one must fall back upon the researches of the agricultural chemist, which 

 will furnish satisfactory evidence to establish the two following facts : First, 

 that saccharine matter, even when assimilated and retained within the body 

 of a plant, is not one of the secretions of vegetable life which can in any way 

 tend to exhaust the soil, being made up of constituents which are furnished 

 everywhere in superabundance by the atmosphere and rain-water, and not 

 ■containing any of the mineral or organic substances supplied by the soil 

 ■or by the manures used in agriculture ; and, secondly, that in the form in 

 which it is appropriated by bees, either from the nectaries of flowers or as 

 honeydew from the leaves, it no longer constitutes a part of the plant, but 

 is in fact an excrement, thrown off as superfluous, which if not collected 

 by the bee and by its means made available for the use of man would cither 

 be devoured by other insects which do not storj honey, or b3 resolved into 

 its original elements and dissipated in the air. 



The foregoing statements can be supported by reference to authorities 

 which can leave no doubt as to their correctness — namely. Sir Humplirey 

 Davy in his "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry," written more than 

 seventy years ago, and Professor Liebig in his " Chemistry in its Appli- 

 ■cation to Agriculture and Physiology," written some ten years later, 

 and the English version of which is edited by Dr. Lyon Playfair and 

 Professor Gregory. These works, which may be said to form the founda- 

 tion of a rational system of agriculture, were written with that object alone 

 in view, and the passages about to be quoted were not intended to support 

 any theory in favour of bee-culture or otherwise ; they deal simply with 

 ;scientific truths which the layman can safely follow and accept as true 

 upon such undeniable authority, although he may be incapable himself of 

 following up the processes which have led to their discovery or which prove 

 their correctness. 



SACCHARINE MATTER OF PLANTS NOT DERIVED FROM THE 



SOIL. 



Liebig, \vhen describing the chemical processes connected with the 

 nutrition of plants, informs us (at page 4*) that — 



There are two great classes into which all vegetable products may be 

 :arranged. The first of these contain nitrogen ; in the last this element 

 is absent. The compounds destitute of nitrogen may be divided into those 

 in which oxygen foims a constituent (starch, lignine, &c.) and those into 

 which it does not enter (oils of turpentine, lemon, &c.). 



* The edition to which reference is made is the fourth, published in 1847. 



