THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



as 



chief defect is that they commence 

 work from the top down, whereas it 

 should be done from the bottom up. 

 The marketing associations already 

 existing should form the nucleus of a 

 National affair. They are in the busi- 

 nef-s; they know what it is by experi- 

 ence. Then other locfll associations 

 should be organized, and in their turn 

 make tlieir local requirements and ex- 

 perience the basis of their Influence 

 on the policy of a National marketing 

 company. To do all this demands and 

 requires that the National marketing 

 board of directors should be made up 

 of representatives, in the true business 

 sense, of the local marketing associa- 

 tions. But the proposed by-laws would 

 give us an external, foreign alifair, 

 with no particular hold on the con- 

 fidence of producers. They would 

 make the National marketing board a 

 creature of the present National board 

 of twelve directors. Now, who are 

 those twelve directors? They are 

 very good men, no doubt, but, from 

 the nature of the case, they cannot be 

 our representatives from a marketing 

 point of view, nor are they competent 

 to choose our representatives. They 

 may fitly represent us in the present 

 objects of the National Association, 

 but marketing is different. It is busi- 

 ness, commerce, and special business 

 at that. The National Association, as 

 it is at present, is so largely Inexperi- 

 enced, and will remain so largely in- 

 experienced at that kind of work, that 

 to put that business crudely into its 

 hands will surely result in ineffic- 

 iency. There is too much of these In- 

 defniite assumptions that the work is 

 easy enough and can be done by any- 

 body Avho is popular with bee-keepers. 

 Thoy must represent bee-keepers in 

 sp;^cial work, not general work. Pro- 

 ducers must be represented by large 

 producers, business by business men, 

 special business by special men. The 

 editor of the American Bee-Keep':'r, 



who usually sees to the bottom of 

 things, has suffered himself to fall in 

 with the customary slip-shod view, by 

 assuming that anyone of the popular 

 Eastern bee-keepers, who are general 

 business men, could draw up a satis- 

 factory and workable scheme of ac- 

 tion. That doesn't follow at all. No 

 doubt, the code of management that 

 will be finally adopted, because suc- 

 cessful, will be very simple, and will 

 seem to the future producer nothing 

 but a collection of almost axiomatic 

 principles. But every one of those 

 principles must and will be the out- 

 come of experience. Our own mar- 

 keting association violated one of the 

 fundamental laws of co-operation dur- 

 ing the first year of its existence. It 

 diu.n't know any better. It found out 

 by experience. Therefore, let us by 

 all moans base our start on the special 

 experience of both principles and men. 

 "The gist of Mr. Daggitt's article is 

 implied in these words: 'Now let the 

 farmers combine into big farming cor- 

 porations.' He draws a Aery enticing 

 picture of combination farming under 

 the managements of experts, and 

 shows how very gloomy the present 

 state of things is in comparison. It 

 is nearly all true. That portion of the 

 article which may be misleading and 

 dangerous implies his belief in the 

 common ownership of land; a state of 

 things decidedly dampening to indi- 

 vidual energy, now being revolted 

 against in Russia for that reason, 

 Avhere it has long been the rule among 

 the peasants, and has been found 

 wanting. All the good things for 

 which he contends may be brought 

 about in other ways than that. For 

 the rest there need not be the slightest 

 loss of individualism in most of the 

 system he describes, but on the con- 

 tiary, a great and strong and more 

 .iust and universal development of the 

 hidividual. But, there is a hitch In 

 his scheme after all. He closes In 



