138 



I^IFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



diploma; there was left $600 unused of 

 that fund. How could we use it to the 

 best advantage to get people to use 

 more honey? 



I was three years holding that fund 

 before I decided how I was going to 

 use the balance of that $600 to do 

 somebody some good. 



I was requested to use it for an- 

 other display of honey in Chicago; I 

 could not see that the display that wu 

 made sold any honey. I was censured 

 for not using it. Finally I took it 

 for these honey booklets. I figured 

 that, if they had helped me in my sales, 

 why not buy $600 worth of those book- 

 lets and give them to the producers. 



I submitted the proposition to the 

 publishers, to learn what they would 

 furnish me those books for, until I got 

 the price down very low, and I bought 

 nearly $600 worth of them, to be given 

 to bee-keepers if they would pay the 

 postage on those books from me to 

 them. 



Another thing: Some of us were 

 anxious to get our portion and have the 

 books distributed right — so that when 

 I made that offer I asked, when they 

 applied for books, that they give me 

 the number of colonies of bees they 

 had. 



One of the first letters I got was 

 from a business firm from this city — 

 with $25.00 included, and they didn't 

 own a swarm of bees. They wanted 

 $25.00 worth of those books. 



In a way it would look wrong and 

 unjust to send a man $25.00 worth of 

 those beeks when I was not going to 

 allow anyone to have very many of 

 them. 



I at first thought, he cannot have 

 any — wherein will it do good? 



But — he is selling more honey than 

 any producer I know of; I guess he 

 had better have part of them, so I 

 sent him a few books, and the rest of 

 his money back; I divided the rest out 

 among the bee-keepers. To get down 

 to an individual case: A man in Iowa 

 received twenty-five copies. He wrote 

 me and said: "I have those books — 

 and I have all my honey; I cannot sell 

 it." 



"Oh," I said, "Mr. Strong, you put 

 your light under a bushel. Do your 

 neighbors know you have those books? 

 You have not done your part." 



'Say, at the suggestion of my bet- 

 ter half, I am going to say something. 

 She says, let your family take on page 



so and so; and on page so and so, and 

 try that recipe in their baking. Try 

 recipe on page so and so in putting up 

 fruits and preserves with honey; try 

 making candies sweetened with honey. 

 Let your wife make those and invite 

 in your neighbors and have a social 

 evening, and, if you don't do anything 

 else, you will have a bigger social 

 neighborhood — and feed them honey 

 and baking made with honey." 



The result? Seven 5-gallon cans of 

 honey went out of that house and a lot 

 of small packages. But the best of 

 all. He had the Sunday School su- 

 perintendent there, and the next week 

 was Christmas week. The superin- 

 tendent of the Sunday School asked: 

 "What will you charge to cut a lot of 

 honey up in square tubes — one for ev- 

 erybody at the Christmas tree?" And 

 this he did and he was cute enough to 

 put Mr. Strong's name with it. He fed 

 the whole Sunday School — and others 

 said: "We want some of that," and he 

 sold' out his honey and wrote to me — 

 "where can I buy some honey?" That 

 was sold out, until he bought 8,000 

 pounds besides his own product. 



When we educate the people that 

 honey is worth something, and demon- 

 strate it by producing the actual goods,, 

 then they will want some. 



Just along that line — I want to get 

 home, if ^-ou please, take the after- 

 noon train tomorrow and be in time 

 for a meeting of the agriculturists,, 

 where France will furnish a bush(>l of 

 apples; I will gladly donate them be- 

 cause I expect to sell about 20 bushels 

 afterwards. 



Mr. Miller — I appreciate the talk 

 that the President has made abovit 

 educating the people to eat honey, but 

 it seems to me that, while these in- 

 dividual cases sell lots of honey, there- 

 are not enough of them. 



It seems to me that the most .ef- 

 fective way to do that is to commence 

 at the head of the educational de- 

 partment and work down through all 

 the people. 



I don't believe that my paper was 

 clear enough about that. 



I am going to tell you what we are 

 going to do: 



There are a thousand school teach- 

 ers that teach cooking in all its de- 

 partments; they teach the relative 

 food values of all of these articles 

 that go into the high schools and 

 graded schools of the state. Each one 



