298 AUSTRALASIAN 
rational principles, he should be able, upon reflection, to see 
that such ideas were entirely groundless. Nevertheless the 
complaint is sometimes made, in a more or less vague manner, 
by persons who ought to know better ; and even bee-keepers 
appear occasionally to adopt an apologetic tone, arguing that 
“bees do more good than harm,” instead of taking the much 
higher and only true stand by asserting that bees, while con- 
ferring great benefits on agriculture, do no harm whatever, and 
that the presence of an apiary on or close to his land can be 
nothing but an advantage to the agriculturist. 
BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF BEES ON AGRICULTURE. 
We have already, in Chapter III., dwelt upon the value of 
the intervention of bees in the cross-fertilisation of plants, and 
can here only refer the reader for further information to the 
works of Sir J. Lubbock and of Darwin. The latter, in his 
work on ‘Cross and Self-Fertilisation of Plants,” gives the 
strongest evidence as to the beneficial influence of bees upon 
clover crops. At page 169, when speaking of the natural 
order of leguminous plants to which the clovers belong, he 
says, “The cross-seedlings have an enormous advantage over 
the self fertilised ones, when grown together in close competi- 
tion ;’ and in Chapter X., page 361, he gives the following 
details of some experiments, which show the importance of the 
part played by bees in the process of cross-fertilisation :— 
“< Trifolium repens (white clover).—Several plants were protected from 
insects, and the seeds from ten flower-heads on these plants and from 
ten heads on other plants growing outside the net (which I saw visited 
by bees) were counted, and the seeds from the latter plants were very 
nearly ten times as numerous as those from the protected plants. The 
experiment was repeated in the following year, and twenty protected 
heads now yielded only a single abortive seed, whilst twenty heads on 
the plants outside the net (which I saw visited by bees) yielded 2,290 
seeds, as calculated by weighing all the seeds and counting the number 
in a weight of two grains. Trifolium pratense (purple clover).—One 
hundred flower-heads on plants protected by a net did not produce a 
single seed, whilst one hundred on plants growing outside, which were 
visited by bees, yielded sixty-eight grains weight of seeds; and as 
oy ae weighed two grains, the hundred heads must have yielded 
,720 seeds.” 
Here we have satisfactory proof that the effect of cross- 
fertilization, brought about by bees, upon the clovers and other 
