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BEES AND PLANTS
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lasts only two or three years, it is perennial on rich, moist lands. It is a cosmopolitan plant and may be found in almost all regions of the temperate zones. It is an ideal plant for pastures and should be established everywhere on land not under the plow. It shows well its partnership with the bee by turning down its flowerets as soon as they are fertilised, and leaving those in need of pollen still erect. We have seen a head of white clover with a single floweret, erect and white, calling to the bees, while all of its sister flowerets were deflected and brown.

Among the medics we find the veteran of all clovers, the alfalfa, which has been under cultivation for twenty centuries, and came to America with the Spanish invasion. It was established in California in 1854, and has worked its way eastward. But it is only recently that it has been practicable to grow it in the East. This has been made possible by the discovery that it will grow on soil inoculated with its root bacteria. Alfalfa is a true perennial and may be cut for hay three times a season, and is of highest value as fodder or forage. It is a superb honey-plant, furnishing great quantities of light-coloured and excellent honey. It will support more bees to the acre than any other plant known. For artificial pasturage it is the most promising of all honey-plants.

Buckwheat is, in many localities, doubly profitable as a grain and as a honey-plant; especially is it so in middle and western New York, where the hills in autumn are made brilliant with great fields of the