Posted on 03/06/2018 10:02:43 AM PST by mairdie
>Honey-dew - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeydew_(secretion)
No sure how much of Wikipedia I can quote here so I’ll just include the first paragraph.
“Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids and some scale insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the aphid. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis.[1] Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew.[2] Honeydew can cause sooty mold — a bane of gardeners — on many ornamental plants. Honeydew is also secreted by certain fungi, particularly ergot.[citation needed]”
Ergot, if memory serves produces a chemical that is very similar to LSD. I recall a book relating a town that consumed moldy rye in their bread resulting in everybody tripping out by accident.
Forgot to include that the Wiki article includes a few lines from Kubla Kahn, the last two being...
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Let me also take time to mention that I am always impressed by the high quality of the wordsmithing that was present back then, or for that matter even in work from a mere century ago. It seems to me that most modern prose is quite mundane in comparison.
Here’s my joke or real story. Many years ago in the pages of the Old Farmer’s Almanac I read an account of a practice from years past that was reputed to increase the amount of blooms on apple trees. In early Spring the arborist and others in his company were to run around the tree three times while smacking it on the trunk with a stick or rolled up bundle of twigs or straw. It was further specified that this be done during a full moon, while naked.
My first thought was something like farmer John sees his neighbor, farmer Jack and his wife romping around, asks what’s going on and this is the answer farmer John came up with off the top of his head to explain away a little fun and games that were intended to be private.
My second thought was to speculate as to just what experimental processes were involved in determining such things as clockwise or anti-clockwise, three times, not two or four, full moon or no moon, naked or clothed.
Imagine my surprise many years later when I read that a new study suggested that trees produce more fruit if their trunks were stimulated mechanically when they were coming out of dormancy in Springtime. No mention of doing things in the buff but it appears the basic concept had a ring of truth.
The huge chook egg weighed 176 grams, more than three times the size of an average egg. ... With 3000 hens in the pen where the astonishing egg was discovered, it will make pinpointing the chicken responsible impossible.
.................
Just look for the one that can’t sit and walks with a limp.
So You advise I stop licking my trees?
Well, when you say it like that, it's almost romantic.
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