ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION". 



45 



Mr. Williams of Indiana and it is certainly 

 a good hobby, but it will take money fo 

 push it forward. I believe it ought to be 

 considered whether we can do anything 

 or not. 



The President — I would suggest that you 

 receive the report and dismiss the com- 

 mittee, or take it up again and reappoint it 

 if you want to. Let us get rid of this 

 question one way or another. 



A Member — ^^I suggest the same commit- 

 tee until they get a report. They have not 

 got any yet. 



The President — Do you make that as a 

 motion? 



A Member — Yes. 



The motion was seconded by Air. Kil- 

 dow. 



A Member — I should like to ask who 

 this committee is. 



The President — The same men. King, 

 Baxter and Withrow. Are you ready for 

 the question? 



The motion was carried. 



COMMITTEE ON PEEiNIIOIS, STATE 

 FAIR. 



The President — Dr. Baxter, what have 

 you done? 



Dr. Baxter — I took up the matter of 

 raising the premiums on some and dis- 

 carding them on others, at the State Fair, 

 soon after our meeting last year. The 

 premium on comb honey, extracted honey 

 and canned honey was raised $5 on each 

 premium. Several of the premiums, such 

 as the different samples of honey were 

 discarded. The premium on wax, which 

 consisted of two premiums, one for 50 

 pounds of wax and one for designs in wax, 

 were consolidated and made one at prac- 

 tically the same amount of money that was 

 paid for the two premiums. A man in 

 order to get a premium for wax must have 

 designs. The premiums for various races 

 of bees were discarded except for the 

 leather colored, the dark Italians and 

 golden Italians. The committee thought 

 that it was better to instruct people in re- 

 gard to one type of bee, for instance, to 

 confine the premium list to the Italian bee, 

 as we really thought that was the best bee. 

 The premium was raised on a colony of 

 bees from $5 to SIO. 



We went rather exhaustively into the 

 premiums at the various fairs, and we 

 find that our premium list is really higher 

 than at most of the fairs in the country. 

 We always hear cited the Minnesota 

 Fair with their wonderful premium list, 

 but we find that they charge the exhibitors 

 5 cents a square foot for exhibiting, and 



really, when a man has paid his exhibit 

 fee and even won all the premiums, he is 

 not as far along, as far as his finances are 

 concerned, as he is here. 



The Fair Board has been very liberal 

 with us and has done everything, practic- 

 ally, that we wanted them to do. Prac- 

 tically, the general amount paid for 

 premiums is the same as it was before. 

 All they have done is to raise the premium 

 on a few of the exhibits and discard some 

 that we considered worthless. We dis- 

 carded especially the one on the various 

 samples which consisted of Aiississippi 

 lioney, Alabama honey, Hawaian honey 

 and a few honeys that we did not know 

 anything about. It was simply a matter, 

 in that case, not of a man's ability to 

 produce a honey, but how much money he 

 had and how many samples he could buy. 



The premium list at the present time I 

 think is about as good as it can be, the 

 finest at the disposal of the State Board 

 of Agriculture. Possibl.y when the new 

 board comes in and takes charge of the 

 Fair, it will be under the direction of the 

 Department of Agriculture, which will 

 have charge of the Fair after the Centen- 

 nial exhibition this coming year. We 

 might get the premium list raised again at 

 that time. At the present it is impossi- 

 ble to increase the total amount of the 

 premiums. 



The report was received and the com- 

 mittee continued. 



The President — I will make another 

 suggestion. We have a Committee on 

 Buildings, and as it is out of the question 

 to expect a building under present condi- 

 tions, war times, for several years to 

 come, probably it would be a good idea 

 to instruct the Premium Committee to 

 see about the exhibition room. Have you 

 anything to say, Doctor? 



Dr. Baxter — In regard to the building, 

 if you will remember, at the last meeting 

 I talked to you about a plan for a building 

 at the fair ground. We went before the 

 Legislature this last winter in regard to 

 this building. There was practically no 

 opposition to the building. It seems as if 

 all the appropriation committees were in 

 favor of the building, but the financial 

 condition of our State, due to the change 

 in the various departments from the old 

 loose system of 119 various departments 

 to nine bureaus, the finances of the State 

 were so tied up that our new Governor 

 asked iis not to present the bill for the 

 appropriation, as it was impossible for 

 him to pass the bill, he would have to 

 veto it, on account of the amount of appro- 

 priations asked for. There was about 



