The growing of trees for bee pasture is too slow to arouse much enthusiasm. Although, from time to time, various persons proposed the planting of trees for this purpose, A. I. Root is about the only one who attracted much attention to his effort. Early in his beekeeping experience, when enthusiasm was running high, he planted a grove of basswoods. In October, 1892, he reported in Gleanings that the project had not proved very satisfactory, as the following brief quotation will indicate:

Our own basswood plantation has been out now twenty years. The ground is some of the poorest in the state. Notwithstanding this, however, many of the trees are a full foot in diameter. They have not blossomed as profusely, as yet, as some other basswood trees planted about the same time on the streets of our town.

Despite the efforts put forward by the beekeepers to extend the area of bee pasture, but little result has been shown except in the case of the clovers and alfalfa. Alfalfa was mentioned in the bee magazines in the early years, but seems to have made but little headway for a long time. After it had been fully established in the irrigated regions of the West it gradually found its way eastward. It was not until after 1900 that it was grown to any extent in the humid regions of the eastern states. When it was found that the soil must be innoculated with the peculiar bacteria with which it is associated the proper conditions were soon provided, and alfalfa became a common farm crop over most of the northern states.

One of the interesting attempts to establish new bee pasture was that of Dr. J. L. Gandy, of Humboldt, Nebraska. Doctor Gandy was an energetic man interested in numerous enterprises, and as is so often the case in a new and growing community, accumulated much property. Among other things, he engaged extensively in beekeeping.

In 1902 he wrote an article for Gleanings, telling of his system of management and of his success with bees. In telling of the ideal beekeeper he stated that he would have twenty-five acres of catnip and an equal acreage of sweet clover for his bees.

So much interest developed in his story of an average of 400 pounds of honey per colony, that E. R. Root and W. Z. Hutchinson visited him to see for themselves what he was doing with artificial bee pasture. The doctor explained that he did not claim to have twenty-five acres of catnip, but only said that the ideal beekeeper would have such an acreage. Root reported evidence that catnip had been planted along the roads for miles in the vicinity of Humboldt, but seemed of the opinion that his large crops were more the result of his large hives and normal forage than from the catnip which he had planted. Gandy had a clause in his leases requiring tenants to sow a certain amount of catnip.

In the Review, Editor Hutchinson wrote extensively of his visit to Gandy and told about his bloodhounds, his extensive farming interests, and other things of interest about a man who was at the moment very much in the beekeeping limelight. His conclusion, like that of Root, was that artificial pasturage did not contribute much to the result.