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THE CHAPMAN HONEY-PLANT. 



As this plant has been very highly extolled, was landed by a special 

 committee selected to examine it, and has been widely distributed by 

 Government, it was considered a desirable plant with which to experi- 

 ment. 



Quite a large area was planted to this Eelrinops splicer ocephalus on two 

 successive years. The soil was clay loam. The ground was fitted as 

 well as for corn, the seeds sown in drills, and cultivated the first season. 

 The plants came well and grew remarkably well. They never blossom 

 until the second season, so there are no returns the first year. This is 

 the first serious objection to them as honey plants. The second summer 

 the plants blossomed full. They were very vigorous and the blossoms 

 very numerous. The bees seemed to visit the flowers very freely. Mr. 

 Th. W. Gowan, a celebrated apiarist of England, said to me some 

 years since regarding this plant : " The bees hang around it persistently, 

 but I could never see that the gain in honey in the hive was ever per- 

 ceptible." I found the same true here. Actual weighing showed very 

 little gain, nor was our honey crop superior to that of our neighbors 

 with no Echinops within range of their bees. The plants blossom from 

 July 20 to August 20, at a good time and for a long season, if they were 

 of any value. 



In the winter we cleaned the seed. Although previously warned, 

 and consequently protected by veils and gloves, the barbed awns sought 

 out our eyes and skin everywhere. The pain caused was intense. All 

 who aided in cleaning the seed were in agony for several days. Even 

 this alone would or should preclude this plant from general use. To 

 my disappointment, these plants seemed to exhaust themselves this first 

 season. The next year there were almost no blossoms, but new plants 

 came up very thickly from seeds scattered the previous autumn. This 

 failure of the plants to afford blossoms the third season from planting 

 I know is not always true, as I have had blossoms for four years from 

 plants on sand. It is probable that when the plants are very luxuri- 

 ant and are allowed to seed we can only count on a single crop of blos- 

 soms. This season, the fourth from planting, we had a rather feeble 

 growth of plants. The grass and weeds fought with the Echinops for 

 the land and succeeded in so far that we secured a very meager quantity 

 of bloom, and apparently no valuable results in our honey crop. Thus 

 the failure to blossom the first year, the failure to secrete any large 

 amount of nectar, the failure in many cases to bloom the third year, 

 and the inability to compete with grass and other iveeds without expen- 

 sive aid, makes it certain that if any plants will pay for honey alone 

 this is not one of them. 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEE PLANT. 



This plant ( Cleome integrifolia) has again been tried for the third year. 

 That it is a very superior honey plant and blossoms at just the rigrht 



