The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1882-10-03
The bee Pastures Of Mount Shasta.
JACKSONVILLE, September 18. 1882

JACKSONVILLE, September 18, 1882
Some writer, in extracting from the conclud-
ing paper in the Century, by John Muir, ON the
" Bee Pastures of California" calls Mount Shasta,
California the Paradise of the bees A good
deal of practical interest has been manifested in
Florida in bee-raising, mainly for its commercial
profit as one of our rising industriesg One ex-
pertinent seems to have stimulated another, and
one announcement of success has developed the
fact of other instances here and there which but
for the innocent rivalry fostered by these Incl
dents might have been much less known to the
public.
From the poetic style of Mr.. Muhr's descrip-
ton, one might think Mount Shasta the grimeval
apiary, where bees and bee-beds rose in The mys-
terry and majesty of spontaneous generation.-
Seldom has more beautiful thought been ex-
pressed, or thought been more beautifully ut
tered than that of the grand result of the evolu-
ton of time contained in the second paragraph of
the extract, the Outburst of the milky way of
snowy petals and wings, girdlng the rugged
mountain like a cloud, as if the vivifying sun
beams beating against its sides had broken into
a foam of plant bloom and bees" II God
brcathed into the nostrIls of dust the breath of
life, how easy to imagine the same creative
breath to fill the world with sweetness girdling
the rugged mountain like cloud" CD.
Shasta, as we have already suggested, is fire.
mountain, created by succession of eruptions
OF ashes and molten lava, which, flowing over
the lips of its several craters, grew outward and
upward like the trunk of a knotty exogenous
tree. Then followed strange contrast. The
glacial winter came on. loading the cooling noun
tain with ice which flowed slowly outward in
every direction, radiating from the summit in the
form OF one vast cOnical glacier a down-crawl-
ing mantle of ice upon a fountain of smoldering
fire, crushing and grinding for centuries its brown
f1inty lavas with incessant activity and thus de-
grading and remodeling the entire mountain
When, at length, the glacial period began to
draw near its close the ice-mantle was gradually
melted of around the bottom, and in receding
and breaking into its present fragmentary condi-
ton, irregular rings and heaps OF moraine matter
were stored upon its fanks. The glacial erosion
of most Of the Shasta lavas produced detritus
composed of rough, subangular bOulders of
moderate size and porus gravel and sand, which
yields freely to the transporting power of run
ming water. Under Natures management, the
next marked geological event made 10 take place
in the history of Mount Shasta was water-fiood
of extraordinary magnitude, which acted with
sublime energy upon this prepared glacial detri-
tus sorting ii out and carrying down immense
iting it in smooth, delta-like beds around the
base; and it is these hOod-beds of moraine soil,
thus suddenly and simultaneously laid down
and joined edge to edge, that now form the main
hOney-ZOne.
Thus, by forces seemingly aniagOnistic and de-
structive, has Mother Nature accomplished her
benefcent designs-now a food of fire, now a
food of ice, now food of water; and then an
Outburst of organic life, milky-way of snowy
petals and wings, girdng the rugged mountain
like cloud, as II the vivifYing sunbeams beat
ing against its sides had broken into a foam of
plant bloom and bees.
In this lovely wilderness the bees rove and
revel, rejoicing in the bounty of the sun, clam
bering eagerly through brambe and buckle
bloom, stirring the clustered bells of the manza-
nia, now humming aloft among polleny willows
and frs, now down on the ashy ground among
gilias and butter-cups, and anon plunging deep
into snowy banks of cherry and buckthorn.
The Shasta bees are perhaps better fed than any
others in the Sierra. Their field work is one
perpetual feast but, however exhilarating the
sunshine or bountiful the supply of flowers, they
are always dainty feeders. Humming- and
humming birds seldom set foot upon q flower,
but pOise on the wing in front of it. and reach
forward as if they were sucking through straws
But bees. though dainty as they. hug their
favOrite flowers with profound cordially, and
push their blunt, pOlleny faces against them like
babies on their mothers bOeOms,