1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



605 



1870 there were 3,027,108 farmers who practi- 

 cally owned all the farms in the United States. 

 In 1894 3,031,270 persons owned all the farm 

 land in this nation." To prove himself right. 

 Skylark will have to show that this clipping 

 gives a false statement. Will he undertake to 

 prove that these figures are not approximately 

 correct? Unless he can do this he has no right 

 to sweep me and my " argument into the 

 Pacific." In doing as he did, he only set up a 

 man of straw, and then proceeded to knock it 

 down. Be fair, Skylark, even if you are hiding 

 under a nom de yAume. 



CORPORATION, OR UNITING OF BEE-KEEPERS. 



Question.— y^hy are you opposed to bee- 

 keepers uniting to force up the price of honey? 

 Is not Skylark right in his premises regarding 

 this matter? 



Answer. — I am opposed to the uniting of bee- 

 keepers to force up the price of honey, because 

 the principle is wrong. It is just this principle 

 which has brought hard times to bee-keepers 

 and to the mass of wealth- producing people. 

 It is on a level with the great combines in th'is 

 country, which force up prices of coal, oil, etc., 

 to the injury of the masses, and which is con- 

 demned by all right-thinking ppople. Skylark 

 says that my ideas along the line of "loviag 

 your neighbor as yourself" "leads to the legiti- 

 mate conclusion that friend Doolittle should 

 divide his honey equally among his neighbors, 

 giving each one as much as he keeps himself." 

 Exactly; just this. And it also means that 

 each one of those neighbors should give me a 

 part of their wheat, meat, butter, eggs, cotton, 

 wool, etc., so that aZ7 might live in happiness 

 on the bounties which a loving Father so richly 

 provided for our comfort. The race in life 

 should be equal to ail. When I come to ex- 

 change my honey for any of the things rai-^ed 

 in any agricultural pursuit, I find that the 

 above is very nearly what happens, and I have 

 not heard of any one grumbling because his 

 honey did not buy enough wheat, corn, oats, 

 etc.; but when we come to exchange honey for 

 coal, fare on railroads, interest, taxes, etc., we 

 find that it takes from three to ten times as 

 much of our honey to secure to us the same 

 results as it did in the seventies, and this is 

 why so many articles have appeared of late 

 regarding the low price of honey. And now 

 Skylark proposes to overcome this growling by 

 a combine of honey-producers, so as to force all 

 of our agricultural friends to give us more of 

 their products for ours than they have been 

 doing, which all admit has been about right, in 

 the past. 



The papers tell us that there are 3.5.000,000 

 people in these United States without homes; 

 that is, they live in homes owned by others; 

 and in the face of tbis we are told that a 

 honey-trust would be right, to compel these 

 homeless ones to' pay to bee-keepers a price 



which would grind them down still lower in 

 the scale of society, or go without one of the 

 most delicious sweets God ever gave to man. 

 No, no; we have no business to go into wrong- 

 doing because others do wrong. Besides, if we 

 do we shall be beaten at our own game. Just 

 think for a moment of our trying to beat, or 

 even compete with the great oil monopoly, 

 coal combine, or sugar trust. The distance 

 between us would only grow broader and broad- 

 er as time went on, while we should entirely 

 take from the mouths of 3.5,000.000 people the 

 sweet we are so anxious they should have. 



Again, we can not combine, as bee-keepers, 

 if we wished to trample the golden rule under 

 our feet. I am in debt for my place, and my 

 honey will just about pav the interest, taxes, 

 etc., and allow my family to live on the bare 

 necessaries of life. Interest and taxes are due. 

 Talk about my holding my honey for higher 

 prices, or putting it into the hands of a bee- 

 keepers' exchange! No, I must sell that honey 

 for what it will bring, or have the sheriff sell 

 the place for taxes, or the landlord take it by 

 foreclosure of mortgage, unless Skylark will 

 advance to me on my honey enough for these 

 and my family's living, and do the same for 

 thousands of others. Will Skylark do this? I 

 trow not. 



Again, Skylark says, basing his ideas on the 

 teachings of Christ in the New Testament, "In 

 no place do I find it the duty of a merchant, 

 though he be a Christian, to make his business 

 known to a fellow-man who would like hints 

 as to his success so as to put them in practice 

 in the same business. Will Skylark tell us 

 what these words of Christ mean, if they do 

 not mean this? "Give to him that asketh of 

 thee; and from him that would borrow of thee, 

 turn not thou away." " Do good, and lend, 

 hoping for nothing again, and your reward 

 shall be great." " Freely ye have received, 

 freely give." "All ye are brethren." If a man 

 love not his brother whom he hath seen, enough 

 to tell him of his business when he is asked 

 about it, for fear he will enter into competition 

 with him, how can he love God whom he hath 

 not seen? What is the Christian bee-keeper 

 after? As much of this world's goods as he 

 can rob from his brother through a honey com- 

 bine? If he is, then " Great is your reward in 

 heaven" can not be applicable to him. 



If merchants, and most other businessmen, 

 are like those pictured by Skylark, I am happy 

 to announce that many of our leaders in api- 

 culture are not. Think how freely the man- 

 agers of Gleanings have given us all the little 

 "kinks" in our pursuit in the past; how 

 Gleanings prefers the other bee- papers to it- 

 self, by retracting any thing said of them 

 which might look as if it wished to place itself 

 above its fellows: how it is willing to give of 

 the knowledge possessed by Its managers, on 



