The bees are up and at it before sunrise,
and it takes a brisk shower to drive them in. But the clover blooms
later and blooms everywhere, and is the staple source of supply of the
finest quality of honey. The red clover yields up its stores only to
the longer proboscis of the bumble-bee, else the bee pasturage of our
agricultural districts would be unequaled. I do not know from what the
famous honey of Chamouni in the Alps is made, but it can hardly surpass
our best products. The snow-white honey of Anatolia in Asiatic Turkey,
which is regularly sent to Constantinople for the use of the grand
seignior and the ladies of his seraglio, is obtained from the cotton
plant, which makes me think that the white clover does not flourish
these. The white clover is indigenous with us; its seeds seem latent
in the ground, and the application of certain stimulants to the soil,
such as wood ashes, causes them to germinate and spring up.
The rose, with all its beauty and perfume, yields no honey to the bee,
unless the wild species be sought by the bumble-bee.
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