74 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[October 31. 
is also prolific in honey, but differs materially from the 
heath in that respect, the honey made from it and other 
hog flowers partaking more of the character of garden-made 
honey, while the purely heath-made has a flavour peculiarly 
its own, and is more highly prized at the table of the rich 
than the other sort. Our town friends may. therefore, be 
told that pure honey is not always alike, and though Mr. 
Pillbox may doctor his different from Mr. Gallipot, yet the 
standard of excellence in the pure article would be as diffi¬ 
cult to decide as in many other instances where taste is the 
critic. There is a sort of charm attached to the name heath 
which, I dare say, assists in giving the honey so made the 
preference, and the supposed idea of its purity, over the more 
domesticated honey of home growth; yet Mr. Quacksalver 
can easily give the latter the delicate pink hue of the former, 
and increase its quantity amazingly by foreign materials 
unknown to the simple yet industrious workers of pure 
honey. 
The enthusiast for ingenious contrivances will see little 
in the above to admire, and if his taste be purely a me¬ 
chanical one, he will feel offended at the absence of all 
intricacy; but the question is, do bees relish such toy¬ 
looking things, and how have these contrivances stood 
the test of trial ? Alas ! many a one can lament their 
misfortune of buying an expensive apparatus which pro¬ 
mised to furnish their tables with glass jars of honey in 
abundance, and with all the paraphernalia of cases for indi 
vidual colonies, and places to examine them, etc. But what 
is the result on an unfavourable season ? They barely keep 
themselves, and require feeding in the following winter; and 
on fine seasons the honey made and brought to table is 
much less than the poor cottagers’ homely-made straw hives 
produce. Such a state of things plainly assure us that 
hone 3 r , like other hardy fruit, is more under the influence 
of the seasons than assisted by any of our help; so that 
under the very best of management, there is only a season 
in five or six that is really prolific in honey. The most 
abundant year that I remember was IN'20, and, consequently, 
it set everybody keeping bees; but bad seasons following, 
reduced the number to those only who, looking more to the 
pleasure of attending them than to intrinsic matters, kept 
up a stock. And as I write the opinions of one who had 
kept bees on a very extensive scale for some 00 years, I 
think there are few but will allow such experience deserves 
more attention than the invention of yesterday, or, perhaps, 
of last year;—certainly I have not had much experience 
myself the last twenty years or more. The plan detailed 
above alludes to the practice prior to that time; but then 
has success ever exceeded what I have recorded, and when 
it is known that as much as 140 pounds of honey have been 
produced in one of these boxes with its two auxiliaries, and 
that about the beginning of the present century, may I ask 
where has that been exceeded? But turning to the question 
in a more serious way, I guess some one will pop the ques¬ 
tion, “ What profit is there in the long run ? ” That awkward 
question, evaded by many a speculator, was often asked of 
my venerable friend, and, with an ominous shake of the 
head, lie used to say, “ that lie had never kept regular 
accounts, but feared that if everything was fairly accounted 
for, that he had made very little money by bees during a 
long life-time, notwithstanding that on one particular season 
he cleared upwards of L'100 by his honey, and had an exten¬ 
sive stock left; but the ensuing season proving adverse, he 
had to feed very extensively the following winter, and the 
spring found him minus one-half his valuable stock he so 
much prized eighteen months before, although it had cost 
him T‘28 for sugar and other feeding materials, as, it must 
be remembered, he did not stint his favourites in their food. 
But such casualties are common in bee keeping aifairs ; a 
favourable season producing abundance of honey sets every¬ 
body on keeping them, and writing about them too, vainly 
imagining that it was by their measures that the honey was 
made. It may be unkind to contradict such good-natured 
notions, but the fallacy is generally detected the following 
season. 
Now, I do not wish to deter others from keeping bees by 
the above recital, I merely wish to restrain those novelty 
hunters in their enthusiastic course, and point out what has 
already been done. That bees by then’ industrious habits, 
&c., form a very interesting portion of animated nature, and 
are fit inhabitants of a garden, I certainly admit, and highly 
approve of every one keeping them having a taste and con¬ 
venience for doing so. But when we hear of those golden 
dreams of wealth they are said to bring in their train, I say, 
pause and consider; remember, by so doing, I do not mean to 
say they are a losing concern if economically managed, but 
let not their merits be injured by over flattery. In conclu¬ 
sion, let me again repeat the above remarks are from remi¬ 
niscences in early life; the venerable personage whose 
numerous stock I at that time assisted to manage, has long 
ago departed this life, but as bee-keeping seems rather a 
favourite topic, I thought the system he had pursued during 
a long life might assist in directing some less experienced 
persons in the right path.—H. T. 
NATIVE WILD BLOWERS. 
October. 
In recounting the wild flowers of September, we had 
reason to lament their scanty number, and the dreary 
aspect which our meadows and woods had generally as¬ 
sumed. How much more ought we to lament over the 
flowerless fields of October, when the green grass has 
scarcely a daisy to enliven its darkening hue, when every 
rustle of the cold wind among the dead leaves sounds the 
knell of departed summer, and bids us grieve o’er the forest’s 
faded verdure ? 
“ See the fading many-colour’d woods, 
Shade deepening over shade, the country round 
Imbrown’d ; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun, 
Of every hue, from wan declining green 
To sooty black. These now the lonesome muse, 
Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strewn walks, 
And give the season in its latest view.” 
As in every region of the globe, even the most inhospitable, 
“ man finds some plants to minister to his support and en- 
joyment,” so, in like manner, at every season some cheering 
blossoms appear in our northern land to cheer our hearts 
and cherish our love of nature. 
There is a class of plants which, although almost entirely 
neglected throughout the summer months, receive the atten¬ 
tions of the botanist at the present season; we mean the 
weeds—those vile things that annoy the cultivator, and, 
begrimmed with dust, grow rankly by the waysides, diffus¬ 
ing their seeds throughout the adjoining fields. It is not 
often that The CottaCxE Gardener lias a good word to say 
on behalf of such cumberers of the ground, but at this dull 
uninteresting season it may not be improper to draw atten¬ 
tion to a few of these despised plants, for they at present 
seem almost the only representatives of our native Flora. 
No plant is more common by the waysides and in waste 
ground than the Shepherd’s Purse ( Capsella bursa-pastoris), 
and to no one does the opprobrious epithet of weed seem 
more applicable. Mean aud uninviting in its aspect, worth¬ 
less in its qualities, and altogether unpoetical in its asso¬ 
ciations, this plant is universally despised by the British 
botanist. Yet the very commonness of this otherwise un¬ 
interesting plant present* one of the most interesting phe¬ 
nomena which geographical botany has to disclose. It is 
not in the British Isles alone that the Capsella abounds; it 
is found in almost every region of the globe—luxuriating in 
the heat of the tropics, and braving the rigours of the 
northern clime ; thus adapting itself to climatic conditions 
of the most adverse character. Thus, wherever the English 
traveller wanders, he finds, greeting him at every step, this 
little despised weed of his native land ; but which becomes 
more endearing to him than even the gay assemblage of 
tropical blossoms with which he may be surrounded ; it is 
one of the familiar things that dwelt beside his cottage- 
door, and brings to his recollection many a pleasing remi¬ 
niscence of home. 
The Docks are a more annoying family to the cultivator, 
and some of them may still be found in flower, or at least 
ripening their seeds. The broad-leaved Dock ( Rumex obtusi- 
folius), is the most common of all the species, and is often 
particularly abundant in waste stony ground in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of buildings ; indeed, we have met with it growing 
in the utmost profusion in the midst of the smoke and dirt of 
manufacturing towns, where even the London Pride pined 
out a miserable existence. The Curled Dock (JR. crispus), 
