BEE MANUAL. 299 
plants growing in meadows and pasture lands, is the certain 
production of a large number of vigorous seeds, as compared 
with the chance only of a few and weak seeds if self-fertilization 
were to be depended upon. In the case of meadow cultivation 
it enables the farmer to raise seed for his own use or for sale 
instead of having to purchase it ; while, at the same time, the 
nutritious quality of the hay is, as we shall see further on, 
improved during the process of ripening the seed. In the case 
of pasture lands, such of those vigorous seeds as are allowed 
to come to maturity and to fall in the field will send up plants 
of a stronger growth to take the place of others that may have 
died out, or to fill up hitherto unoccupied spaces, thus tending 
to cause a constant renewal and strengthening of the pasture. 
The agriculturist himself should be the best judge of the 
value of such effects. 
The beneficial eftect of the bees’ visits to fruit trees has been 
well illustrated by Mr. Cheshire, in the pages of the British Bee 
Journal, and by Prof. Cook, in his article upon “ Honey Bees 
and Horticulture,” in the 4merican Apiculturist. In fact, even 
those who complain of bees cannot deny the services they 
render ; what they contest is the assertion that bees do no harm. 
CAN BEES HARM THE SOIL, OR THE CROPS ? 
Is then the question to be considered. The agriculturist 
may say, ‘ Granting 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 fur- 
nished 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 1s 
appropriated by bees, either from the nectaries of flowers or as 
honeydew from the leaves, it no longer constitutes a part of 
