July and August often injures the honey flow. Many farmers keep a few colonies in nail-kegs and log gums, but honey production for market receives little attention. The bees are never fed in the fall, and receive no extra protection in winter. Modern hives are almost unknown; but five out of six seasons the beekeeper “gets enough to rob.”

The southeast lowlands offer much greater inducements than the Ozark region, and contain more colonies of bees than the rugged country directly north of it. Commercial beekeeping is very successful in some places, though the honey crop is uncertain over most of this area. It is a broad plain, the northern extension of the Mississippi Lowlands, sloping gently to the south, and comprising about 3000 square miles. The surface drainage is poor, and there are large areas of swamps and morasses. The soil, which consists partly of sandy and partly of clay loams, was brought down by the Mississippi and the other rivers which flow through this area. Very little of the land is subject to overflow, and thousands of acres have been reclaimed by dredging ditches. It was formerly covered with a forest of cypress, ash, and gum, with a mixture of elm, hickory, oak, and catalpa. On the northwest it is bounded by a line of bluffs running from Cape Girardeau to Ripley County on the south state line.

The honey plants of this region are willows, red maple, redbud, persimmon, dandelion, fruit bloom, white clover in spring and early summer; and in the fall cotton, heartsease, Spanish needles, goldenrod, and aster. There is an immense acreage of cantaloupes and watermelons, which are shipped to market by the carload. They yield a delicious honey, which is so white that it is almost transparent. Cow-peas are the source of a honey with a beanlike flavor. The odor of the newly gathered nectar is very noticeable in the evening, but both flavor and odor largely disappear with the ripening of the honey. White clover is abundant on the hills and alsike clover is grown in places; but until sweet clover is more generally grown there will always be a dearth of honey during the summer. The fall flow is almost always sure in the better honey-producing areas.

Three-fourths of the bees in this region have been in box hives and there are many wild colonies in the trees; but better methods of beekeeping, with modern equipment, are being promoted in this region more than in any other part of the state.

NORTH DAKOTA

Total area, 70,837 square miles; length, 320 miles; breadth, 210 miles. North Dakota is a vast fertile prairie bounded by the Red River on the east, and crossed by the Missouri River in the west, which enters the state 65 miles south of the northwest corner, and crosses the south boundary line near its center. The area drained by the Missouri River comprises nearly one-half of the state, or 20,000,000 acres. One hundred square miles near the center of the north boundary are covered by the Turtle Mountains, the only mountains in the state. There are no large bodies of water. The forest land, found principally in the Turtle Mountains and along the Missouri and Little Missouri rivers, comprises only 500,000 acres, consisting of scattered growths of cottonwood, box elder, bur oak, elm, poplar, and cedar. There is an area of waste or bad lands along the Little Missouri River in the southwest. The rainfall over the whole state is sufficient for growing grain crops without irrigation. In the eastern half it ranges from 18 to 24 inches, and in the western half from 15 to 18 inches; but in the southwest corner it is only 12 inches. Four-fifths of the total value of the crops are contributed by the cereals, and the remainder largely by hay and forage. More than twelve million acres of wheat, oats, barley, and flax are grown; but wheat is by far the most important crop. Out of every 100 farms, 80 grow wheat. As the winters are severe, the acreage of ap-