106 



FIFTEENTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



more of our capital stock, it is high 

 time that we pay attention to it. The 

 system of properly wintering indoors 

 or outdoors is nicely cared for in this 

 paper. 



President France — I am going to 

 take the privilege to vary a little fur- 

 ther in our program, as some of the 

 busy people are hard to get and keep 

 them long. 



Although it is not the hour assigned 

 for this paper: We have the privi- 

 lege of having Mr. Burnett with us. I 

 know Mr. Bull will stay with us 

 through the Convention and we will 

 have his paper later; and I am going 

 to favor Mr. Burnett at this time and 

 follow with his paper. 



Mr. Burnett — Mr. President, you and 

 I have never had any difRculty that 

 I know of — and why he should want 

 to make a martyr of me on this occa- 

 sion, I cannot quite understand, and 

 through his energetic and unassail- 

 able Secretary — here I am. 



Now what you can make of me on 

 this subject I do not know. I am of 

 the opinion that if this question was 

 assigned to each member here it 

 could be answered to their own satis- 

 faction. I cannot do it. 

 • I suppose that this question has been 

 asked me a great many times. I think 

 up until this time I have been able 

 to give some kind of an answer; what 

 it was, I cannot now recall, but it de- 

 pended upon the individual who asked 

 it. 



If it was asked by a man whose in- 

 telligence was sufficient to answer 

 that question himself, I presume I 

 simply smiled at him. I don't know 

 that I can do much better now. 



Mr. Wheeler — What is the question? 

 President France — Why the low 

 price of honey? 



Mr. Burnett — That is a poser and 

 don't you forget it. 



I see some of my old friends here, 

 wiseacres, smiling at the fact that 

 they all know. 



People come in and ask me the ques- 

 tion and know I cannot answer it, but 

 they want to see how it works on me. 



It does not work well, but I am in- 

 deed sorry that this question has been 

 assigned to me, inasmuch as the gen- 

 tleman who has just preceded me, and 

 whom I have never had the pleasure 

 of meeting or listening to before, was 

 master of his subject. 



That places me in an embarrassing- 

 position. 



Of course^ I might say, and I have 

 jotted down a few reasons why: 



That too much competition is one 

 reason. 



Now if Mr. Wheeler here, for in- 

 stance, had the selling of all the 

 honey, there would be no low prices. 



The trouble is honey is not a self- 

 seller. 



I think it is all of a quarter of a 

 century ago when bee-keepers' con- 

 \entions were in their infancy, that 

 we had Mr. Heddon here and the man 

 who, I believe, founded the American 

 ]pee Journal, and Doctor Miller, then in 

 his prime, and quite a lot of fellows — 

 Mr. Hoffman — 



And the question came up in Con- 

 vention: What was honey? Was it a. 

 staple — was it a necessity — was it a 

 luxury? 



There was quite a lot of discussion, 

 and I had not said anything, but Mr. 

 Heddon jumped up and said: "There 

 is a man here who ought to know how 

 to answer that question." 



I made very much the same reply 

 as I do here today. It depends on the 

 individual — what he considers is a ne- 

 cessity — what he considers a luxury 

 or a staple article. His opinion is- 

 biased but it governs that very largely. 



However, I think that the idea of 

 the third question there, that of lux- 

 ury, holds good today, for it is one 

 of the things that people will cut out 

 from their table when the times are 

 hard and money coming scarce; they 

 consider honey a luxury. 



Then there is another difRculty. 

 Most of the people try to undersell 

 the other fellow. 



That is a very difficult thing to 

 overcome. The great reason, or, I 

 . might say, the frequent reason given 

 is oversupply of honey. 



An oversupply of anything will makfe 

 low prices. I think this is a fact that 

 none of us cares to dispute. 



Then comes the question of under- 

 consumption. If the consumption was 

 sufficient to take care of the supply 

 and the price of the commodity was 

 fixed when the season opened, why, it 

 would be a fair remuneration for 

 everybody concerned. 



And then there are too many in the 

 business. Now which one of you will 

 drop out? No answer. 



A member — Why quit? It is not a 



