Vol. LVI.— No. 3 



HAMILTON, ILL., MARCH, 1916 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YEAR 



A National Publicity Campaign for Honey 



Suggestions of an Advertising Specialist— By R. C. Gano 



•INHERE has been much talk about 

 I national publicity for honey," 

 * said M. G. Dadant of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal in a letter to an adver- 

 tising firm, "and if we can place facts 

 before our readers that will enable 

 them to unite on a feasible plan we will 

 be glad indeed." 



That letter landed on the desk of an 

 advertising man whose job it is to buy 

 advertising space in various publica- 

 tions for the clients of the firm. He 

 must have happened to remember that 

 another fellow in the company had 

 written some articles for farm papers 

 about the Sunkist and Sun-Maid cam- 

 paigns, so he marked the letter to me. 

 Knowing what remarkable benefits 

 the orange growers have secured 

 through organization and cooperative 

 advertising, I was mighty interested to 

 hear that the beekeepers have the same 

 bee in their bonnets. I know little 

 about the honey industry except what 

 Mr. Dadant's letters tell me, but they 

 tell me enough so that I see plainly the 

 beekeepers can profit from hearing the 

 inside facts about what the California 

 orange and raisin growers are doing. 

 For instance, Mr. Dadant informs me 

 that beekeepers are widely scattered 

 and have no general organization, but 

 only a few local organizations. The 

 California orange growers present the 

 opposite situation. They have what 

 has been called by good authority the 

 finest cooperative marketing organiza- 

 tion in the world. It has not only the 

 local associations, but these are grouped 

 under district exchanges, and the dis- 

 trict exchanges are members of the 

 central exchange the official title of 

 which is the California Fruit Growers' 

 Exchange. This exchange thus han- 

 dles the citrus crops of over 8000 grow- 

 ers, which means that it markets an- 

 nually nearly two-thirds of California's 

 entire citrus crop. It has so systema- 

 tized the selling end of the industry 

 during its 20 years of existence that in 

 1911-12, an average year, its total cost 

 of operation was 2% percent on gross 

 sales. This is the lowest selling cost 

 known in the food producing world. 

 It is estimated that farmers pay 7 to 20 



percent on gross sales as marketing 

 cost. And through its study of the 

 market and its active influence on the 

 market, it has always succeeded in 

 securing for its members good prices. 

 Now there is no use whatever in your 

 reading how the orange growers' or- 

 ganization achieves such fine results if 

 it would be impossible in the first place 

 for beekeepers to perfect a general or- 

 ganization similar to that of the orange 

 growers. If they can get the organiza- 

 tion there is no reasonable doubt that 

 they can accomplish in their own field 

 what their California cousins have ac- 

 complished in the citrus field. So, 

 though I don't know anything about 



the distribution of beekeepers, I am 

 going to try to show why it is possible 

 to effect the organization, no matter 

 what their distribution over the face of 

 the country. 



The question then is : Can beekeepers 

 of the United States and Cuba be 

 brought into a single business organi- 

 zation similar to the California Fruit 

 Growers' Exchange? 



I think they can. The fact that the 

 orange growers are concentrated in 

 the southern half of a single State is 

 an advantage and enables their ex- 

 change to do some things which it 

 would be impossible for the more scat- 



tered honey organization to do. But i 

 will be seen later that the three most 

 important functions of the"_California 

 Fruit Growers' Exchange are standar- 

 dization of output, cooperative adver- 

 tising and the maintenance of a central 

 office which keeps thoroughly posted 

 on market conditions. Its other func- 

 tions are merely incidental. These 

 three are primary, and the honey or- 

 ganization would be on equal terms 

 with the citrus exchange so far as these 

 three primary functions are concerned. 

 ^The California Fruit Growers' Ex- 

 change is composed of about loO^local 

 associations, some of which have as 

 many as 200 members. Each local 

 association has a salaried manager, and 

 an unsalaried board of directors, and 

 owns a packing house. It superintends 

 the picking, grading, packing and 

 branding of the fruit, and ships direct 

 to markets acting on advice from the 

 district exchange. 



The local associations are grouped 

 under 19 district exchanges. These 

 order cars and have them placed for 

 loading, secure market data direct from 

 markets and, through central exchange, 

 are payees for all shipments by their 

 local associations. The agent at mar- 

 ket sends the money to the district ex- 

 change which deducts operating ex- 

 penses and forwards lemainder to the 

 local association for pro rata appor- 

 tionment to members. 



The Central Exchange is headed by 

 a salaried general manager, and has 19 

 directors, one for each district. It has 

 its own legal, traffic, advertising, sup- 

 ply, and insurance departments, and i^ 

 operated at cost. The Sunkist trade 

 mark belongs to this Central Exchange 



A beekeepers' organization. 



Just as the local associations of cit- 

 rus growers represent natural geo- 

 graphical subdivisions or groups, so 

 the beekeepers of the United States 

 must inevitably be divided into natural 

 geographical groups. The beekeepers 

 of Illinois might represent a conven- 

 ient group for one local association, or 

 those of southern Illinois and Indiana 



