1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



!»07 



the South and East, are evidently put up with- 

 out weighing at all. If you specify, however, 

 in making an order, that you will take 10 bar- 

 rels of potatoes providing they average 150 lbs. 

 to the barrel, you will likely get it; and I think 

 this is the best way to do business. It is sonae 

 trouble to remember and specify, every time, 

 what you expect to have when you agree to 

 pay a certain price; but it has the effect of 

 avoiding jangles and disputes, and is very 

 much pleasanter all round. The man who is 

 careful to build up a good name, and keep his 

 good name after he gets it. will be very apt to 

 comply with all your conditions if he expects 

 your order. In our own practice we put 165 

 ibs. in a barrel— or. rather, the boys have in- 

 structions to put in ]('i7 lbs., so as to be a little 

 over rather than under; and then if the barrel 

 is not full we fill up with straw or shavings. 

 If a customer orders three barrels we sometimes 

 put the whole into only two very large barrels. 

 This is generally satisfactory, providing a card 

 of explanation gets there before the potatoes 

 do. If our packers neglect to do this on the 

 invoice, sometimes the^'customer will write 

 back:§li 



a";Look here. Mr. Root. Gl ordered and Jpaid 

 for three barrels of potatoes; but I found at the 

 station only two; and the agent says there are 

 only two on the bill of lading. I have been told 

 yon are a good, straight, honest man: but it 

 iook« as though I had been humbugged in this 

 my first deal." 



Most of you. especially those who are old in 

 business, will blame the man for being in haste 

 to think evil; but when I look abroad and see 

 how many there are who send away their hard 

 earnings, and get swindled out of part or all of 

 it, I confess I feel a good deal of charity for 

 those who are in haste to think they have been 

 cheated. A good many times I have felt like 

 giving almost the whole business world a good 

 shaking— that is. if I were equal to the ta«k. 

 Do you ask whv I would shake it? Why. be- 

 cause people do not talk more and explain 

 things hotter. A good many hate to write a 

 letter. They can not even take a postal card 

 and pencil, and say: "You will findyour three 

 barrels tightlv packed in two very large bar- 

 rels." Now, this much on a postal might save 

 a iangle that would cover pages of foolscap 

 later on. The illustration I have given is a 

 very plain and simple one: but in business 

 matters unheard-of complications come up. 

 The dealer is suddenly sold out; sometimes it 

 seems advisable to take just a little liberty in 

 substitutine. He may decide, in order to get 

 the order off before freezing weather comes, to 

 put in a higher-priced potato at the price he 

 received, rather than to fail in getting off the 

 order complete. An explanation at the proper 

 time would have made every thing pleasant 

 and neighborly. Neglect to do so makes no 

 end of jangles. 



DA good manv of us are interested either in 

 buying or selling potatoes for seed, or both; 

 and some of us have more or less to do with the 

 new potatoes that have commanded such high 

 prices when they first came out. Now, where 

 a man gets a high price for an article, say three 

 or four times what potatoes are worth in the 

 ordinary market, for eating purposes, under 

 such circumstances we should expect, of course, 

 he would give good measure. This, however, 

 is not always the case. It would seem at first 

 thought that one who is anxious to build up a 

 trade of any kind would recognize the advan- 

 tage of advertising his business by giving good 

 quality any goodrneasure. Some of the new 

 potatoes are very large. Sometimes, besides 

 this, they are long; and for this reason it is 



difficult to get as many pounds into a barrel as 

 where the potatoes were all either small or 

 some of them small. But where the price is 

 large, and the product large, it would seem as 

 though the seller might be quite willing to pur- 

 chase larger barrels. Sometimes he does not 

 think of it. He should think of it, however. 

 Not only the success of his business, and his 

 good name that is involved, but other ihings 

 come in here. A good many people are accused 

 of preaching one thing and practicing another; 

 and if we do not look out, we shall all of us be 

 more or less guilty. There is a class of people, 

 too, who, when they buy, demand the very 

 fullest measure; but when they sell they give 

 the smallest possible measure. 



A little item has been going the rounds of the 

 press, to the effect that a farmer's wife brought 

 some butter to a grocer. Said he: 



'• Madam, I am sorry to say these rolls of but- 

 ter do not weigh a pound. They are scant 

 weight, every one of them." 



The dealer, however, was not so keen and 

 bright this time as he thought he was. She 

 slipped a package from under her shawl, and 

 held it up. 



"My dear sir, that butter was weighed out 

 with a pound of starch bought of you at this 

 grocery. Every roll of butter weighs exactly 

 as much as the pound of starch, paper and all. 

 Here it is, and you can try it." 



The woman might have added, in the lan- 

 guage of our text. " With the same measure 

 that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to 

 you again;" but I can not learn that she did so. 



In regard to barrels once more. Everybody 

 who advertises produce by the barrel should, if 

 Le wants to build up a reputation, state how 

 much the barrel contains. Suppose, however, 

 he does not do this— he simply says so much per 

 barrel; and when his customers complain that 

 the barrels are scant, suppose he falls back on 

 his printed prices, saying he didn't say the 

 barrel held three bushels or even eleven pecks, 

 or any thing about it. In one sense he could 

 not be accused of cheating or unfairness; but 

 public sentiment would be against him. There 

 seems to be a general agreement or understand- 

 ing that any thing that can be justly called a 

 barrel should hold at least eleven pecks, or 165 

 lbs. I notice in some of the quotations in the 

 papers that a barrel price is given, and then 

 right under it another barrel price for a barrel 

 of 180 lbs. This would be a three-bushel barrel 

 of the old-fashioned kind. I remember of buy- 

 ing a barrel of cranberries; but when we came 

 to retail them they were scant weight. I wrote 

 to the dealer, and he said my order read just 

 one barrel, but it did not say how much it 

 should contain. Had I said I wanted a barrel 

 of cranberries, "flour-barrel size," I should 

 have gotten one that held fully 100 quarts of 

 cranberries. As I did not say so in making my 

 order, I had no redress. 



Now. friends, this way of doing business may 

 be all right according to law, but it is not right 

 according to "gospel." A man who is a pro- 

 fessor of religion, and who claims to gauge his 

 life, business, and every thing else by the 

 standard of Christ Jesus, should be ashamed of 

 any such logic. If such a transaction as this 

 should be made by any of his clerks, he should, 

 as soon as he finds it out, make it good whether 

 he loses or gains financially. Re should rec- 

 ognize that every thing of this kind tends to 

 dishonor moie or less our Lord and Savior 

 Jesus Christ; and this should be of more im- 

 portance than every thing else in the world 

 besides. Saving property or money, or coming 

 out whole in a transaction of dollars and cents, 

 should sink into insignificance compared with 



