54 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



ADULTERATION STORIES. 



To What Extent do They Effect the Sale 

 of Honey ? 



There has been a great deal said and 

 written about the sale of honey being 

 greatly lessened by the stories about 

 its adulteration, and it may be well to 

 at least consider another view of the 

 matter. Mr. G. M. Doolittlc, in Glean 

 ings, in one of those '"conversations" 

 of his, brings np one phase of the mat- 

 ter that has not received much atten- 

 tion. Here is what he says: 



"Say, Doolittle." 



"Yes, Clark." 



"You remember that qiiestion from 

 the question-box at Syracuse before 

 the Onondaga Co. Bee Convention of 

 three days ago, regarding hoi ey sell- 

 ing slowly this fall and winter ?" 



"Yes." 



"What was the conclusion in the 

 matter? I had to come away before 

 the discussion had fairly comnenced." 



"I could not stay until the discussion 

 was ended; but one of the ideas that was 

 advanced was that adulteration had 

 largely to do with the matter, in that 

 it made the common people suspicious 

 of all honey : consequently tt.ere was 

 an under-consumption of our product 

 through this suspicion." 



"Do you believe that ?" 



"I do believe that there is an under- 

 consumption of honej', and quite agree 

 with the idea brought out — that, with 

 less than half a crop of honey in the 

 United States tbe past year, honej' 

 rarely ever sold as slowly as it has 

 been doing for the past three months." 



"Yes, that part I agree with. But 

 do }'ou think that the cause is the adul- 

 teration of honey, or, rather, that there 

 are stories in circulation to the effect 

 that honey is largely adulterated ?" 



"I think that this may have some- 

 thing to do with the matter. Don't 

 you?" 



"Do you remember when there was 

 such a great cry a few years ago in 

 the agricultural papers about oleomar- 

 garine, and how the markets would be 

 ruined for butter, and the dairymen 

 out of employment, unless the 

 thing was stopped ?" 



"Yes, I remember how the papers 

 were filled with the subject of oleo- 



margarine, and about the great in- 

 jury it was, and would likely become, 

 unless there was some law passed re- 

 garding the matter." 



"Well, did the oleomargarine matter 

 cause butter to sell more slowly ?" 



"But there was a law passed that 

 caused oleomargarine to be sold for 

 what it was, and not for butter." 



"Correct. But was there an under 

 consumption of butter during the oleo- 

 margarine scare ?" 



"I do not fully remember." 



"If you will study up I think 3'oii 

 will find that there was no less butter 

 on the tables in the homes and hotels 

 of the country during those times than 

 there was before or since, in propor- 

 tion to the means with which the peo- 

 ple had to purchase. So far as my 

 memory serves me, the cry of adulter- 

 ated butter cut no figure as to making 

 the people use less butter." 



"That is something I had not 

 thought about in my reasoning that 

 the adulteration scare had to do with 

 a lack in the call for honey." 



"Then look at the liquor business. 

 All admit that the larger share of 

 the whiskey drank is adulterated with 

 the rankest poison, and some of it to 

 such an extent that there is little if any 

 pure whiskey about it. Yet statistics 

 tell us that the consumption of liquors, 

 per capita, is greater today then it 

 ever was before. Does the cry of adul- 

 terated liquors cause a slowness of 

 their sale ?" 



"If you state the case correctly, it 

 would seem seem not." 



"It looks to me that this laying of 

 the trouble of a lack of an energetic 

 call for our honey to an adulteration 

 scare is far fetched, and that it is not 

 a reasonable ground for such bee-keep- 

 ers as Doolittle, House, Betsinger, 

 Kinyon — yea, and the bee papers gen- 

 erally to take. Facts in other matters 

 show that the cry of adulteration does 

 not scare consumers of other products 

 quite so easil}'. " 



"Aren't you coming out pretty 

 strongly in this matter ?" 



"Possibly so; but I like to see people 

 reasonable in the position they take — 

 3'es, more; I like to have them dig 

 deep enough into a thing to know for 

 certain whereof they iiltirm before they 

 make an assertion " 



"Without stopping to argue further 

 along the adulteration line, allow me 

 to ask how you account for this slow_ 

 ness in sale of our honey; for we al 



