20 
0. S. U. Naturalist. 
[Vol. 1, No. 2 
the season by cattle and horses it is true, does damage perhaps only 
as the consumption of an excessive amount of almost any kind of 
dry and comparatively innutritions vegetable matter might do. It 
is said to be especially binding, and the constipation no doubt was a 
factor in bringing about the fatal results that were cited. While 
stock will eat the plant when at hand they take but little of it if 
nutritious grasses can be found. A very intelligent and observant 
farmer, however, was seen cutting and burning the plants which 
covered his pastures to save his stock — his neighbor by carelessness 
in this respect, he averred, having lost some valuable horses. 
On the other hand this White Heath Aster is an important bee- 
plant. Bees will “ work on it the whole day,” and the plant is in 
bloom from middle or late summer to late autumn. The honey made 
is white, and has a strong tendency “ to turn to sugar.” One 
farmer who has two hundred and fifty stands of bees, now that this 
Bee-plant is well established as a sure crop, will sow no more buck- 
wheat for his bees. 
I have said this species is becoming excessively abundant in 
some ( hilly) portions of southern Ohio. It can well be regarded as “a 
great boon ” merely because it is a soil-binder of marked efficiency. 
It prevents the destructive washing of the hillsides in the Fall, open 
winter and early spring. Such a plant would not be needed to a 
great extent, were methods and habits of cultivation perfect or in a 
high state of development; but this phase of the economic aspect of 
the case must at present be insisted on. 
Finally it may be said that as a fertilizer this Steel-weed takes 
a high rank. It is regarded by observant farmers as but slightly 
inferior to a crop of clover. It does not decompose when turned 
under as quickly as clover, but that it yields plant-food and an- 
swers well the mechanical purposes of a coarse fertilizer, testimony 
is unanimous and apparently conclusive. 
Explanation of Plate 3. — Aster ericoides pilosus, reproduced from photographs taken 
late in November. Figures 1 and 2 show plants with abundant, and Figure 3, with few young 
shoots close to the ground. Plants shown in Figures 1 and 2 had the tops removed in summer. 
Figure 3 shows the common appearance at the end of the growing season of undisturbed plants. 
