618 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Bee men differ from other, common people, in that to properly discuss 

 a question they must know what they are talking about, and therefore I 

 ask: What is advertising? Well, a dozen women at a pink tea will come 

 as near doing it as anything I know of, but that is not what Webster 

 says about it. I read there that advertising consists in giving public 

 notice, or describe with a view to sale, and that covers the ground, but 

 since that definition was formulated there has been great changes in 

 advertising methods. In the good old days a few words on a brick wall, 

 a fence or a rock, or some circulars scattered broadcast sufficed to inform 

 the then scanty population of the small affairs of the time, in some cases 

 a bellman was all that was needed, while today the English language is 

 overworked to tell in newspapers, magazines, personal letters, catalogues 

 and postcards the merits of the things we have for sale. One big mail 

 order house today pays out more for advertising than the entire business 

 of the United States did 75 years ago. 



Now, let us consider this definition in its relation to honey. "To de- 

 scribe with a view to sale." "To make known," says Mr. Webster. 



I do not care to antagonize anyone in this matter, though wife de- 

 clares I am in hot water half the time from that cause, but I do think 

 I know a little about the art, "craft or science of ad writing," and I 

 state emphatically that honey is today just as well known as it ever will 

 be. It is, very likely, the oldest known sweet; it has been an article of 

 human diet for untold ages. So well known is it that city people, some 

 of whom never saw a cow, know that it is the product of the bee. A pretty 

 young girl from Chicago was visiting in the countryside, and coming to the 

 table for the first meal saw a big platter of honey. She looked at the pile 

 of sweet with a radiant smile. "I see you keep a bee," she said to 

 her hostess. 



Why spend money to make honey any better known to such as her? 

 Still, honey may be advertised to some benefit, and in this connection I 

 will mention two forms of advertising to show what may apply to our 

 goods. These are the continual and occasional ads, and if I am any judge, 

 only the occasional will do much with our goods, to producers, I mean, 

 and particularly the small ones. I take this stand because our supply is 

 not continuous and cannot be made so. Even if it was a perpetual thing 

 on the market is no sign it will do any good to advertise it, for like eggs 

 it may not need it. Four hundred million dollars' worth of eggs are sold 

 in the United States annually, and I hear no one proposing a national 

 campaign of advertising for hen fruit. Egg producers pay not one cent in 

 advertising. Biddy's cut-cut-cut-ca-doo is the first and only notice that 

 fresh eggs are on the market. You can search the world over and all 

 the advertising about eggs you will find will be the signs in the stores of 

 "eggs." Sometimes the sign will read "fresh eggs," and sometimes they 

 are fresh, and if it is not possible to profitably advertise eggs is it to 

 make honey known? I think not, for it is already known as well as eggs 

 are; in fact, I should not be surprised to learn that honey was used as 

 a food even before eggs were, for it is mentioned in the book of Genesis, 

 and was in common use among the ancients. When, in 1905, some ex- 

 plorers opened an ancient tomb in Egypt they found a jar of honey which 



