It requires considerable skill to make foundation successfully, and those who use but a small amount will do better to purchase their supply. The high quality of nearly all of the foundation thus far supplied in this country has also justified this plan. Should the practice of adulterating wax become as common among comb-foundation manufacturers in this country as on the continent of Europe no doubt many more would procure machines and make their own foundation. CHAPTER VI. =BEE PASTURAGE.= Bees obtain their food from such a variety of sources that there are few localities in our country where a small apiary could not be made to yield a surplus above its own needs. Even in the center of our larger cities bees placed on the roofs of stores and dwellings have often furnished quite a surplus gathered from the gardens of the city and its environs. Again, in regions where the soil is too light, rocky, or wet to admit of profitable cultivation, it is often the case that honey-producing plants abound; indeed, waste land is frequently far more profitable for the honey-producer than fields that have been brought under cultivation, especially when the latter are mainly devoted to grain or potato raising, for insignificant weeds in field or swamp often yield honey abundantly, and among the best yielders are certain forest trees, whose blossoms, by reason of their distance from the ground and in some instances their small size, escape notice. Showy flowers made double by the gardener's skill, such as roses, dahlias, chrysanthemums, etc., have rarely any attraction for our honey bees. Moreover, the small number of these ornamental plants usually found in any one locality renders the honey yield, even in case they are abundant secreters of nectar, so slight that they are of little value. The novice who is seeking to determine the honey resources of his locality should therefore not be led into error by these. He should compare the flora of his locality with reliable lists of honey-producing plants, and, if possible, consult some practical bee-master familiar with his surroundings. And all information on this score should be fully accepted only after careful verification, as it is very easy for anyone to be deceived regarding the sources of given honey yields--plants which produce abundantly one season not always yielding the next, or those that produce honey freely in one portion of the country not yielding anything in another. Soil and climate, the variations of successive seasons, and all other conditions affecting plant growth--conditions which even the most skillful scientific agriculturists admit are exceedingly difficult to understand, and in many respects, as yet unexplainable--influence the amount and quality of nectar secreted by a given plant.