bee was designed for this work and acts well its part, I will call your attention to the fact that they never visit different kinds of flowers on the same trip, or you never see them pass from the willow to the maple, from the cherry to the plum, or from buckwheat to heartsease, etc. They seem to understand that to do this would result in a general conglomeration of all nature. A friend of mine, who was engaged in growing strawberries, said to me that he did not believe that bees were any benefit to fruit, b cause he never saw them work on the strawberry.

Now, if we could just get the bees to work on the strawberry and pass from it to the milkweed, we might soon enjoy the luxury of strawberries and cream from the same plant; but alas, the Author of Nature did not intend that we should reap so rich a harvest from one source. But this most useful of all insects, true to the laws of nature, performs a necessary work which would otherwise be left undone.

But someone says, "I want to grow fruit, but I cannot," or "do not want to keep bees." Then you should in every way possible encourage your bee keeping neighbor. Sow your pasture and waste land to those clovers which will give his bees a rich harvest. Plant your lawns to basswoods and maple. Don't complain if your neighbor's bees annoy you somewhat about your watering tanks. Don't spray your fruit trees while in bloom and poison your friends, but be assured that whatever inconvenience they are to you they compensate you therefor a hundred fold. And as the birds are God's insecticide, so are the bees God's pollenizers, and are an indispensable adjunct to successful fruit growing.

J. H. M. EDWARDS: Think they are an important adjunct to orcharding Useful insects as these are on the decrease and I think deserve more attention for the vast amount of good they do. Fertility of bloom and pollinating depends upon them.

G. F. FRITCH: I differ; do not think bees necessary for perfect pollination of bloom. Fruit was created first and bees later. How did these things get started?

J. H. M. EDWARDS: I think bees are necessary and only a little careful observation is necessary to convince any one. I think we need make use of our senses of observation as well as work in here some scientific or theological explanations. I do not claim that the honey bee does work on the strawberry bloom, but some insect does, and a glass over a bloom will reveal lots of small ones at work.

MRS. M. R. STERN: I am glad Mr. Edwards has found some use for bees. I have not, but yet while I can not be about them, I think they are useful.

REV. SAUNDERS: In large areas of territories, as in California, the fruit growers having extensive orchards condemned whole apiaries, and they were bought up and ordered destroyed or moved, and large areas were made beeless, and they certainly ought to know what they were doing out there.

J. H. M. EDWARDS: But later A. J. Cook said they called in the apiaries again and were glad to have honey producers return to their territory; they were anxious to get rid of them under a mistaken notion.

SOME PHASES OF HORTICULTURE.

BY W. GREENE, DAVENPORT.

I have tried to show in preceding papers from disinterested witnesses something of the climatic conditions found in the state, and now I hope to give you from an equally unbiased source something of the condition of fruit growing in Iowa, as shown by the census reports; then will leave you draw your own conclusions after hearing all the evidence in the case.

The record is not as encouraging as we could wish, but its pages are luminous with facts that should receive thoughtful consideration by every fruit grower.

The only record we have of the number of fruit trees growing in the state and the number of bushels of fruit they produced annually is that returned by the census enumerators.

I have prepared maps showing the distribution by counties of the different varieties of fruit trees in bearing in the sta e The number of bearing trees do not fluctuate so much as the number of bushels of fruit produced annually would, so they form a more stable ba is for comparison in determining the progress that has been made in growing fruit in the last ten years.

In 1884 there were 64,722 bearing peach trees in the state that produced 1,356 bushels of fruit. In 1894 the number of bearing trees had increased to 97,893, and these bore 1,726 bushels of peaches.

The map shows the distribution of bearing peach trees in the state and where they succeed the best.

You will notice that Scott county is very near the northern limit of successful peach culture in the state, and that, too, in a very limited way, Then the line of over 1,000 bearing trees drops down through Muscatine Louisa, Henry, Jefferson, Wapello, Appanoose and Wayne counties, to reappear on the Missouri slope in Fremont and Mills counties.

The peach industry is confined to the southern third of the state, and those living north of that zone cannot hope for financial success in peach culture, although the trees may be grown in any county in the state by giving them some protection during severe winters.

Pears are not so sensitive to cold as peaches but are more exacting as to soil conditions; they, too, are confined to the southern half of the state. The pear industry has increased from 13,522 bearing trees and 4,132 bushels of fruit in 1884 to 16,478 bearing trees and 4,522 bushels of pears in 1894.

Blight, the greatest enemy of the pear orchard, is a vegetable organism subject to climatic conditions for its development, and when a suitable host plant is provided which contains within its structure the necessary

nutriment the germ thrives remarkably well in the climatic conditions that prevail in Iowa, although there seems to be a few localities where the soil either affects the climatic conditions so that the spores do not germinate readily, or the trees do not contain sufficient nutriment on which the blight germ can live and so die without doing any serious injury to the trees. No method of sanitation has been discovered by which blight can be controlled without injury to the trees. In 1884 Scott county reported 1,094 bearing pear trees; Franklin, 543, and Cherokee, 186; but in 1894 all of these counties reported less than 100 bearing trees.

Lee county is the banner county for pears as well as peaches.

It is interesting to watch the increase and decrease of the different varieties as reported by the enumerators every five years. New localities out of the zone of greatest production appear, and old ones disappear, with each enumeration, which shows what efforts were made to establish the industry in new localities, and with what success they were attended. The record on the cherry industry is not favorable.

In 1884 there were 461,005 bearing cherry trees in the state and they produced 151,024 bushels of fruit that year. In 1894 there were only 274,322 trees and 80,560 bushels of cherries; a decrease of almost one-half in both trees and fruit. A few counties have gained in the number of trees, but a great many more have lost. The gain has not been in proportion to the increase of population in the counties where an increase is noted, for it includes such counties as Pocahontas, Pottawattamie, Cass and Mills, while the loss occurs in many old and thickly settled counties, such as Polk, Dallas, Muscatine, Fremont, Page and many others.

The report on apples is not any better than on cherries.

In 1884 there were 4,833,696 bearing apple trees in the state which produced 4,113,591 bushels of fruit; while in 1894 there were only 2,397,793 bearing trees and 2,599,848 bushels of apples. This shows a very decided decrese in the apple industry for the period under consideration, and must confess that I was astonished at it, and inclined to discredit the report, at first, but it is substantiated by the record in 1890; and after further investigation am now convinced that the reported decrease in apple and cherry production is correct.

By comparing the number of bearing trees in each county in 1884 and 1894 you can get a better idea of the decline, and perhaps some of the causes which lead to it, than from any statement that I can make.

The decline in trees not in bearing, also, shows a wonderful falling off in the planting of young trees for the same period. In 1884 there were 4,199,268 trees that had not borne fruit, and in 1894 there were only 1,944,403 trees reported that had not produced fruit. Nurserymen must have suffered severely during this period.

These are cold, stubborn facts, and are not pleasant to take, sugar coat them as we may. We are forcibly reminded of the truth of the old maxim, that the dollars and cents which are back of every commerical enterprise determines the success or failure of the venture. It is evident from this showing that we must give more attention to some of the causes which have brought about this decline in two of the leading industries in fruit culture, and if possible remove them, or avoid in the future a repetition of practices that have proven disastrous in the past.