434 FRUIT BLOSSOMS 
(7) 
The pollination of cultivated fruits can 
be controlled with certainty only by the aid 
of honeybees. This has been repeatedly 
pointed out in the preceding pages. It is 
confirmed by the practical experience of 
hundreds of fruit-growers. As these are 
essentially similar and all agree that hon¬ 
eybees are a necessity, it will be sufficient 
to give a few examples. In a remarkable 
statement of Albert Repp of Repp Broth¬ 
ers, owners of an 800-acre fruit farm at 
Gloucester, N. J., he says: 
“I could not do without bees. I never 
take a pound of their honey. All I want 
them to do is to pollinate the blossoms. 
I’d as soon think of managing this orchard 
without a single spray-pump as to be with¬ 
out bees. I’ve got 50 colonies now, and 
am building up the apiary each year.” 
About nine miles north of the plant 
where this work is published is a 50-acre 
apple orchard operated by J. L. Van Rens¬ 
selaer. This orchard for a number of years 
had been neglected in that it had not been 
sprayed nor pruned. Mr. Van Rensselaer 
finally leased it, sprayed and pruned the 
trees, and asked the publishers to put some 
bees on the place, which was done. The 
first year, 16,000 bushels of perfect apples 
were harvested, when, prior to that, scarce¬ 
ly 500 bushels were obtained. Every year 
since that, f^om 10,000 to 15,000 bushels 
have been secured. Mr. Van Rensselaer 
enthusiastically says the bees play a very 
important part in securing these results. 
The apple-growers of the country are 
waking up to the fact that there must be 
bees in the orchards; and beekeepers are 
now having a considerable demand from 
the large fruit-growers for bees for this 
purpose. 
The editors of the various fruit journals, 
among them The Fruit-grower, of Roches¬ 
ter, N. Y., and Better Fruit, Hood River, 
Ore., have a number of times published 
strong editorials in favor of putting bees 
in orchards. Among the leading agricul¬ 
tural journals is the Rural New-Yorker, 
whose editor makes the following state¬ 
ment: “I have seen the certain results of 
the good work of the honeybee in a neigh¬ 
bor’s orchard. Those bees break the trees 
down just as truly as tho they climbed on 
the trees by the million and pulled on 
them. The appearance of those trees after 
a few years of beekeeping would have con¬ 
vinced any fair-minded man that our little 
buzzing friends are true partners of the 
fruit-grower.” 
It is the unanimous opinion of all pro¬ 
gressive fruit-growers that honeybees and 
fruit culture are inseparable. 
( 8 ) 
Besides pollination the fruit crop is in¬ 
fluenced by the weather, the temperature, 
the condition of the soil, and the age of the 
trees. Insect pests, fungous growths, dis¬ 
eases, and spraying the trees while in 
bloom, are also injurious. Cold rainy 
weather, by preventing the flight of in¬ 
sects, interferes with the proper pollina¬ 
tion of the blossoms. 
