THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



189 



The iilan of melting tlie cappings as fast 

 as they fall from the knife involves 

 considerable expense, to say nothing of 

 the discomfort of working right over 

 a two-burner gasoline stove when the 

 weather is already too hot to work to 

 the best advantage. 



"Then, moreover, it has not yet been 

 detinitely determined that the separa- 

 tion by heat does not affect the flavor 

 of honey in all cases. Our tests last 

 summer seemed to show that the cap- 

 ping-melter did not' darken or mar the 

 quality of the honey. 



"Friend L.'s plan is so simple and 

 easily tried that we hope some produc- 

 ers will try it and report." 



Advantages of Co-operation. 



Wesley Foster, of Boulder, Colo., has 

 this to say in June A. B. J. regarding 

 co-operation : 



'T wish that we might go to sleep fof- 

 a hundred years or so, if by so doing 

 we could waken with minds freed from 

 warped conceptions of the righteous- 

 ness of the competitive system. And 

 still we need not go to sleep, either, for 

 we have examples right before us of 

 co-operative associations which are 

 proving the wastefulness of a half- 

 dozen men or concerns running around 

 over the territory after the business 

 that one man could easily attend to. 



"On our street are seen the wagons of 

 20 grocers, but we do not have 20 post- 

 men covering the same route. Why is 

 this? It is simply that competition 

 has been eliminated from the postal 

 business, and it still obtains in the 

 grocery business. In Boulder, a con- 

 sumers' store has been organized, 300 

 families having subscribed for stock at 

 $100 per share. A capable and respon- 

 sible board of directors has been elect- 

 ed, and it appears to be starting in to 

 do the consumers and producers some 

 good in the sale of all merchandise. 

 The stock is not to draw any dividends. 



but the stockholders are to buy goods at 

 cost plus operating expenses. This is 

 true co-operation, and will no doubt 

 succeed if carried on honestly and 

 wisely. 



"I never heard of a co-operative ven- 

 ture succeeding where the members 

 were not enthusiastic advocates of the 

 principle of co-operation. If you be- 

 lieve that men can do business better 

 together than independently, and have 

 enough others with you who believe 

 the same way, you can make a success 

 of a co-operative honey-marketing and 

 bee-supply-purchasing association. It 

 requires a certain mental attitude to 

 make a good co-operator. Such will 

 talk more about 'we' than he will about 

 'L' 



"If you are a little doubtful about co- 

 operation, get some books telling the 

 story of co-operation the world over — 

 you can find something about it in 

 almost any library — and read about the 

 way the thing is working. Dr. Lyman 

 Abbott, who can not be charged with 

 being exactly a Socialist, said that the 

 'capital and labor' question would never 

 be settled until the man who used the 

 tools owned them. This means that we 

 honey-producers must eventually own 

 our sources of production of bee-sup- 

 plies, and our means of distribution— 

 the commission and distributing houses. 



"The farmer bee-keeper of a few 

 years ago could go to the woods and se- 

 lect his logs and saw them into bee- 

 hives for his own use, and he could sell 

 his honey direct to the consumers, who 

 were generally his neighbors. But now 

 things have become so complex through 

 specialization that such direct contact 

 with the source of hive-supplies and 

 market is impracticable if not impossi- 

 ble. Co-operation has for its aim the 

 return to this direct relation between 

 source of supply and distribution 

 through the means of the co-operative 

 association. Why should the bee-keep- 

 ers be behind the farmers in laying hold 



