THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



67 



and uimble feet that *' get there first." Not 

 that the wiuner is to take more of the feast 

 than enough to satisfy tlie proper needs of 

 his physical nature ; but he gets the warm, 

 me.ily potatoes, while dull minds and slow, 

 heavy feet, have to put uii with the cold ones. 

 " We are to teach that every man shall 

 take the consequence of his o n nature, and 

 that he shall neither saddle upon others the 

 evils of his own nature and actions, nor be 

 defrauded by other people of the benefit of 

 his own wortliy nature and actions." Grades 

 and standards violate nature by producing 

 sameness. Nature revels in variety. Each 

 grain of sand, each blade of grass, each 

 atom of the universe seems to have a per- 

 sonal identity. 1 love liberty, loYe freedom, 

 and want every person to be left unhindered 

 to work out his own idea of beauty and 

 order according to his own nature and 

 capacity without interference from other 

 people. Fixed rules are sources from which 

 spring the Czars in social and political af- 

 fairs, and Popes in religion. Ofiicial grades 

 are favorable to traders and dealers and in- 

 jurious to producers. Before we had grades, 

 Minnesota produced No. 1 wheat. She 

 raises just as good wheat now, but it is No. 

 2, No. 3, or rejectt d, and it is well known 

 that the farmers of the State are cheated out 

 of many millions every year by the grading. 

 But there seems to be no remedy. The 

 trading classes make the laws and own the 

 courts. I do not want this system engrafted 

 upon the honey trade, but every one left 

 free to beat all the other fellows if he can 

 in the perfection of his products, aiid trust 

 to Nature's laws of the " survival of the fit- 

 test" to lead us to the highest perfection to 

 the injury of none for the good of all. 



FoEESTviLLE. Minn. 



Jan. 80, 1892 



I Accompanying the above was the follow- 

 ing note:— Ed.] 



Feiend H. — Do not think strange of this. 

 You will remember I took the same ground 

 at Chicago. It is hard to keep bee literature 

 out of the slough of repetition and sameness, 

 and I think Jieit; ideas will do good, even if 

 they are not very good ones. What a splen- 

 did No. is the last Review ! Brother H., I 

 do not wish to flatter you, but the Review is 

 going to "get there" sure. Splendidly 

 printed and then filled with live thoughts 

 from cover to cover. 



B. T. 



The Albany Rules for Grading Honey Lack 

 Consistency and Conciseness. — The 

 Changes Needed to Make the Chi- 

 cago Rules Nearer Perfect. 



A. IS. MASON. 



¥HILE being 

 laid by with 

 rheum atism and 

 the "grip," I've 

 been reading ; and 

 among other 

 j^^l^.>f/ things, Mr. Editor, 



W^'^BBT k your leader in the 



'■■f^^W " -Ian. Review, and 



I've come to the 

 conclusion that 

 I'm "awful" sor- 

 ry that I wasn't at 

 the Albany convention to help keep that un- 

 just representative (?) body of bee keepers 

 from making such a blunder as it did in 

 adopting such rules for grading comb honey. 

 It's the worst conglomeration I've seen to- 

 day. If the persons who got up those rules 

 produce comb honey, and were obliged to 

 sell it by them the rest of their "natural 

 born days," it would be punishment enough 

 for such an infliction. 



The Albany folks start out by saying : 

 "Honey shall be graded in two grades," and 

 then proceed to make Jive grades, first, sec- 

 ond, third, B, and pieces. I was going to 

 say it was "too much of a good thing." 

 They take up the same room in print that 

 the rules of the Northwestern convention do, 

 but for conciseness are "just nowhere" in 

 comparison. 



The first Albany grade has two good things 

 in it. The best grade to be known as 

 "fancy" and "composed of well filled sec- 

 tions." To say the honey shall be light col- 

 ored is certainly a mistake, for I've seen dark 

 honey that was as truly a " fancy " article as 

 any light colored honey I ever saw. 



I believe the first Chicago grade is pretty 

 nearly, if not quite, what might be called a 

 fancy grade, and it would be well to so name 

 it ; and your suggestion to have the different 

 grades divided into "fancy white," "fancy 

 amber," and " fancy dark," I believe is a 

 good one. Then have those other grades, 

 and what is called second, third and fourth 

 grades in Chicago grading, without the note, 

 will quite fill the bill. 



I don't just like J. H. Nellis' idea of grad- 

 ing up instead of down, although people 



