1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



789 



and this makes it a safer food than cane sugar. 

 Again, he adds: "There can be no doubt but 

 that, in eating honey, our digestive machinery 

 is saved work that it would have to perform if 

 we ate cane sugar." And then he concludes by 

 stating, on the authority of physicians, that 

 " the large consumption of cane sugar by the 

 nineteenth-century man is harmful to the great 

 eliminators — the kidneys — and so a menace to 

 long life and health." 



DProf. Cook is doing a good service in preach- 

 ing the good doctrine that honey is a far safer 

 and much better sweet to eat than the modern 

 sugars of the day. Indeed, I knoir of some phy- 

 sicians who are recommending the use of honey 

 in place of sugar to their patients who can't eat 

 cane sugar. I think it would be well for those 

 who peddle honey from house to house to em- 

 phasize these facts to their customers. 



the dose of medicine, even if we do not like the 

 taste of it. 



I wish especially to indorse Mr. Abbott's point 

 thSit miseellaneotis credit is a real damage to 

 society. It is very much easier to buy goods 

 before the money is in hand than to pay for 

 them after the goods are received. The dealer, 

 as well as the honey-producer himself, should 

 be sure that the wherewith will be in hand at 

 the time the bill is due. The surest way to be 

 sure is to have the money, not in prospect, but 

 ready to pay over before the order is made. 



THE MANUFACTURER AND THE DEALER ; INDIS- 

 CRIMINATE CREDIT. 



I HEARTILY indorse the paper that was read 

 by Mr. E. T. Abbott in defense of the dealer in 

 apicultural supplies. He made the point that 

 he is a producer just as truly as is the man who 

 keeps bees and markets honey, or the owner of 

 a factory who takes boards and makes them 

 Into hives. He deprecated the tendency on the 

 part of the manufacturers to bring those deal- 

 ers into unfair competition with themselves 

 (the manufacturers), owing to the pressure of 

 other competitions from other manufacturers. 

 More than one dealer had bought early in large 

 quantities; and, before the season was out, had 

 found that the firm from whom he secured his 

 goods, owing to dull trade, was offering the 

 same goods, in small quantities, for less than he 

 had paid for them by the carload. Continuing, 

 he said: "There is no greater curse to modern 

 society than the miscellaneous-credit system. 

 Credit may be a good thing; but I am honest in 

 the opinion that it would be a blessing to all if 

 no man or woman could get any thing for con- 

 sumption before paying for it. ... A good 

 motto to adopt, especially for young people, is 

 to ' pay as you go;' and if you can't ' pay,' don't 

 ' go.' " 



By the way brother Abbott looked across the 

 room at me I concluded he was expecting an on- 

 slaught from my quarter ; and as what he said 

 accorded with my notions I concluded to say 

 nothing. He finally said he would like to hear 

 from E. R. In reply I indorsed the paper en- 

 tire; and that, while we (The A. I. Root Co.) 

 might have been guilty, in some cases. of unfair 

 competition with the dealer, it was not inten- 

 tional; that, as brother Abbott has been smart- 

 ing under this kind of competition; and as he 

 had bought of other manufacturers, I took it 

 that the "other fellow" was the one who had 

 been giving him the occasion for his remarks. 

 However, it will do none of us any harm to take 



HON. E. WHtTCOMB. 



One of the men who figured prominently at 

 the Lincoln convention was Mr. E. Whitcomb, 

 of Friend, Neb. He was born in 1843, in Sus- 

 quehanna Co.. Pa., and at the age of ten years 

 his parents moved to Lee Co.. 111. On the 2.5th 

 of Aug., ISGl, he enlisted in Co. A, ?Alh Illinois 

 Infantry, in which he participated in all the 

 campaigns in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Geor- 

 gia, taking part in, upward of 50 engagements, 

 including Sherman's march to the sea, and the 

 march through the Carolinas. He came to Ne- 

 braska in 1S70, and settled on a homestead ad- 

 joining what is now the city of Friend. 



As a bee-keeper, he has been a leader in his 

 State. For the past eight years he has filled 

 the position of president of the Nebraska Bee- 

 keepers' Association, and has had charge of the 

 apiarian department at the Nebraska State 

 Fair for the past 12 years. At first the exhibit 

 could have been hauled in a wheelbarrow; but 

 now, I am informed, it requires the largest and 

 best arranged honey exhibition hall to be found 

 anywhere in the world. I have already secur- 

 ed a photograph, and will give to our readers 

 the picture of this hall, in a future number. 

 Mr. Whitcomb also gathered together and made 



