22 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



count of 25 to 40 per cent, according- to 

 the amount purchased.'' 



THE "combine" is SIMPLY A COMBINE 



"on paper." 



Now there is a discount for early 

 cash orders commencing- with lo per 

 cent, in September and decreasing as 

 the dull months pass bj', until finally 

 in March the net price is reached. 

 Some dealers quote a scale of prices 

 ten cents per hive lower than above 

 quoted, beginning- with one hive at 

 $1.75 and ending with 92 cents as a 

 carload price. These are printed 

 prices and the wise bee-keeper knows 

 that all he has to do to g-et a less price 

 is io write to half a dozen dealers or 

 manufacturers and tell them he will 

 g-ive his order to the lowest bidder, 

 and he will get as many different 

 quotations as he do s replies. How 

 do I know ? Only last month a reput- 

 able firm which turns out thirty to 

 forty thousand dollars worth of bee 

 hives and supplies a year and which 

 publishes prices at the highest rates, 

 named me a price of 85 cents per 8- 

 frame I'z story hive and $2.98 for No. 

 1 sections. 



Only last year at our St. Louis meet- 

 ing I was asked for prices by one of 

 our leading members. I quoted him 92 

 cents for an 8-frame lyi story hive, and 

 had the sand completely taken out of 

 me by his firm and positive assurance 

 that my pricrs were away too high — 

 that he couUl do very much better down 

 home in New York State. 



Where is the bee-hive trust ? Where 

 is the combination among manufactur- 

 ers when such a state of affairs exists ? 

 Like that other g^host that haunts the 

 path of the poor, deluded bee-keeper — 

 the artificial comb honey lie — the trust 

 does not exist, or exists only in the im- 

 agination of some demag-ogue who is 

 bent on deception and fraud. Never- 

 tlieless, the vast army of bee-keepers 

 are paying the long price for their sup- 

 plies and receiv ng the short price for 

 their honey; but they are the bee-keep- 

 ers who do not take a bee journal and 

 who do not belong to an organization 

 of bee-keepers; they are the people who 

 wait until the last moment, and rush to 

 the nearest bee-keeper or dealer for a 

 hive into which to hive the bees that 

 swarmed before the bee-keeper thought 

 of procuring a hive. 



The vast amount of ignorance in con- 

 nection with bee-keeping may be illus- 

 trated by the true story of the darky 



boy employed at a dairy, who came to 

 me one September evening about 

 twenty-five years ago with the news 

 that "our bees didn't have anything 

 else to do so they thought they would 

 g"o to swarming — yes mister, they be 

 hanging on a limb waitin' for dat hive 

 now." Neeelless to say, he consented 

 to pay $2.50 for a bee hive, which, by 

 the way, he never did. And this 

 brings me to an important part of my 

 argument. 



THE CREDIT SYSTEM. 



The present credit system is respon- 

 sible for a large part of the increase in 

 price. When the elder Root estab- 

 lished the mail oreler cash-with-the- 

 order system of suppl3'ing this class of 

 goods, it was a cash sj'stem. Today 

 the middle man buys for credit — not 

 thirty or sixty days, but long time. 

 He will pay the manufacturer for the 

 supplies when he has sold them. 

 Allow me to quote from page 10 of Col- 

 lateral on Merchandise Accounts under 

 the heading- of 



protection oe proeits. 



RISK in credits. 



Profit is the ultimate object of all 

 commercial enterprise, and a reliable 

 conserver of profits is therefore of incal- 

 culable value to general business. As 

 long as goods are sold on credit, the 

 risk of loss through insolvency of cus- 

 tomers is constantl}' impending". The 

 gravity of this risk is appreciated when 

 one considers how little a dispenser of 

 mercantile credit positively^ knows 

 about the actual financial condition of 

 each of his customers and the inside 

 facts of their business. And thii.k of 

 how many accounts are outstanding all 

 the time, each involving- risk of loss 

 through the incompetence, inexperi- 

 ence, lack of capital, unwise credits, 

 neglect, extravagance, competition, 

 crop failures, strikes, money markets 

 and speculation, which may cause the 

 insolvency of customers. It is not sur- 

 prising that the losses through insolv- 

 ency exceed the losses by fire in the 

 United States." 



The above refers to general business. 

 The merchants referred to are those of 

 regular trade— dry goods, groceries, 

 hardware, etc. — all of which are rated 

 and reported by Dunn and Bradstreet, 

 with whose assistance it would seem 

 that a comparatively close estimate 

 could be made of a man's financial 

 standing. Nine out of ten of the people 



