BEE PASTURAGE. 59 
CULTIVATION OF HONEY PLANTS. 
In all localities there will probably be found intervals during tne 
working season when bees will find very little or even nothing to 
gather, unless supplied by cultivation. When possible it is always 
best to fill in such intervals with some honey-producing plant which at 
the same time furnishes some other product—fruit, grain, forage, green 
manure, or timber. The attempt to cultivate any plant for its honey 
alone has not thus far been found profitable, in practice, however 
promising it may seem theoretically. Catnip (Nepeta cataria), mother- 
wort (Leonurus cardiaca), globe thistle (Hchinops spherocephalus), 
figwort (Scrophularia nodosa), bee balm (Melissa officinalis), borage 
(Borago officinalis), Rocky Mountain cleome (Cleome serrulata), meli- 
lot or sweet clover (Melilotus alba), and linden (Tilia americana) have 
all been recommended repeatedly and tried here and there somewhat 
Fig. 45.—Wagner's flat pea (Lathyrus sylvestris wagneri). 
extensively. But thus far the hope of securing a sufficient increase in 
the crop of honey to pay for the cultivation of these plants has in all 
eases had to be abandoned. With the appreciation in value of agri- 
cultural lands the prospects for the profitable cultivation of any crop: 
for honey alone are still further removed. Yet the writer is fully con- 
vineed that in the future, especially in the older portions of our country, 
eminent success in bee raising will require much more attention to the 
furnishing of artificial pasturage for the bees, a close study, in fact, of 
the bee flora of one’s locality, and a systematic effort to supply the 
deficiencies by sowing self-propagating honey plants, and such as may 
be cultivated with profit for other reasons besides their honey yield. 
Among those plants which have just been mentioned as having been 
cultivated at various times for their honey alone, the linden for shade 
