138 



SIXTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



President Miller — There are some 

 ' people in our town who advertised in 

 the papers a long time — comb honey, 

 fifteen cents, delivered on the place. 

 I tried to buy all he had and he would 

 not take less than fifteen cents a pound 

 for it; he was a farmer bee-keeper. 



Mr. Bruner — Mr. France said he had 

 a market for from twenty -five to 

 thirty-five thousand pounds of honey 

 a year. 



I presume that is true. By the time 

 I have been in business as long as he 

 has, I would hope to have that much 

 of a market, and I think I would want 

 about two and one -half the price he 

 gets. 



I run an "ad" as an experiment, 

 quoting honey at $1.25 for five pounds, 

 between two "ads", one quoting ten 

 pounds for $1.20 and the other $1.35, 

 and it paid me. 



Mr. Wheeler — Paid you in sales, you 

 mean ? 



Mr. Bruner — Yes, the price does not 

 sell honey necessarily. 



Lots of people will buy when the 

 price is high that would not buy when 

 the price is low. 



Mr. Bruner — ^Have confidenoe in your 

 goods and you will inspire confidence 

 In somebody else. 



A member — There is a great deal 

 said about price. The point is how to 

 sell poor honey. One year I was de- 

 livering to a man in Milwaukee. I 

 sold out all the honey I considered 

 good marketable honey; he wrote for 

 more. I sent him two barrels and told 

 him he might sell that for what he 

 could get; that I would be satisfied 

 to take what he got. He sold the 



honey and remitted me $ more 



than for the best honey I had; this 

 honey was sour. I bought up more 

 sour honey when he wanted more and 

 sold it to him. 



Mr. Bruner — There is a gentleman 

 who is a business man; he had a trade 

 established and he took care of it. 



Mr. Stewart — Will that kind of busi-, 

 ness hold out? That kind of business 

 will not hold in this country. 



A member — I did not tell him it was 

 good honey. This fall one of my 

 neighbors came to me to buy honey, 

 where there was plenty of it to select 

 from. He selected a ten pound pail 

 and asked the price. I said, "six cents,'' 

 and he said, "What makes honey so 

 high?" I told him to taste it and see 



if he liked it; he liked it; it was honey 

 dew that had been candied and boiled, 

 both. 



President Miller — Has any one a 

 suggestion as to how to dispose of 

 poor honey — dark honey? 



A member — Sell it to bakers. 



Mr. Bruner — Most of the bakers I 

 know want the best honey I have. 

 When you are making mild flavored 

 cakes you want good honey. 



A member — Honey is not poor be- 

 cause it is dark. 



President Miller — That is true but a 

 great many people who do not know 

 consider dark honey poor honey. 



President Miller — We will now hear 

 the result of this vote. 



Mr. Bull — This is wholesale price, 

 sold in lump: 



Extracted honeys- 

 Average 9% cts. 



Highest price 11 cts. 



Lowest price . .' 8 cts. 



Comb honey — wholesale — 



Sold at an , average of 16 cts. 



To retailers, extracted was sold at 

 an average of 14% cents. 



The highest being 15 cents, and the 

 lowest 13. 



Comb honey was sold at average of 

 16% cents. 



The only difference between whole- 

 sale and retail, two-thirds of a cent 

 per pound on comb honey. 



To users — 



Average price, extracted honey, 19 

 cents; highest, 25 cents; lowest, 10 

 cents. 



Somebody is losing a lot of money. 



A member — There may be a differ- 

 ence on account of the container. 



Mr. Bull — There cannot be a great 

 difference. 



Comb honey to the user, average of 

 20% cents. 

 ■ Highest, 25 cents; lowest, 12 1^ cents. 



I think it is time some of us woke 

 up and that a lesson was taken from 

 some of those figures. 



Mr. Baxter — I sell to the consumer 

 as low as ten cents where they take 

 fifty pounds. As high as twenty-five 

 cents where I deliver in small bottles. 



Mr. Bull — Even at that I notice these 

 wholesale figures average nine and 

 one-half cents. 



I sold a can to a neighbor and got 

 a little , over twelve cents, and that is 

 cheap; I should have charged him 

 fifteen cents. 



