CONSIDERATIONS. 151 



With this intelligence and industry the bee-keeper 

 has an occupation as pleasant, as certain, and as 

 profitable as almost any business that can be named. 

 14. Bee-keeping is a business which can be de- 

 veloped to a very large extent indeed. It may be 

 made a great industry like grain-growing and stock- 

 raising. There are but few neighborhoods in the 

 whole country where bees enough are kept to 

 gather the honey which the flowers of field, forest, 

 orchard, and swamp now produce. Prof. Cook, of 

 the Michigan Agricultural College, says that at a 

 low estimate each township in the State of Michigan 

 could produce every year honey worth $1,000. Ex- 

 tending this calculation over the whole country makes 

 the honey-producing capacities of the Union more 

 than $23,500,000 a year. I know that there are now 

 not a few bee-keepers, who have from 50 to ?oo 

 hives, who realize not less than a thousand dollars 

 a year from their bees. These men work with intel- 

 ligence and energy. Let similar intelligence and 

 energy be given to the business, by a dozen men in 

 every township in the Union, and the honey pro- 

 duct would be immense, giving profitable work to 

 large numbers, and a healthful, delicious, and beau- 

 tiful article of food to the whole world. 16 



15. The losses from wintering, from the bee-moth, 

 and from disease, have, hitherto, served to make the 

 business very uncertain. This uncertainty is fast 



