In all localities there will probably be found intervals during the working season when bees will find very little or even nothing gather, unless supplied by cultivation. When possible it is ah best to till in such intervals with some honey-producing plant which at the same time furnishes some other product--fruit, grain, forage, green manure, or timber. The attempt to cultivate any plant for its honey alone has not thus far been found profitable, in practice, however promising it may seem theoretically. Catnip (_Nepeta cataria_), motherwort (_Leonurus cardiaca_), globe thistle (_Echinops sphærocephalus_), figwort (_Scrophularia nodosa_), bee balm (_Melissa officinalis_), borage (_Borago officinalis_), Rocky Mountain cleome (_Cleome serrulata_), melilot or sweet clover (_Melilotus alba_), and linden (_Tilia americana_) have all been recommended repeatedly and tried here and there somewhat extensively. But thus far the hope of securing a sufficient increase in the crop of honey to pay for the cultivation of these plants has in all cases had to be abandoned. With the appreciation in value of agricultural lands the prospects for the profitable cultivation of any crop for honey alone are still further removed. Yet the writer is fully convinced that in the future, especially in the older portions of our country, eminent success in bee raising will require much more attention to the furnishing of artificial pasturage for the bees, a close study, in fact, of the bee flora of one's locality, and a systematic effort to supply the deficiencies by sowing self-propagating honey plants, and such as may be cultivated with profit for other reasons besides their honey yield. [Illustration: Fig. 45.--Wagner a flat pea (_Lathyrus sylvestris wagneri_).] [Illustration: Fig. 46.--Dwarf Essex or winter rape (_Brassica napus_).]