Vol. LVII.— No. 8 



HAMILTON, ILL, AUGUST, 1917, 



MONTHLY, 1.00 A YEAR 



DEVELOPING THE HOME MARKET 



i Some Successful Plans of Stimulating the Local Demand for Honey, 

 in Use by Well Known Beekeepers — By Frank C. Pellett 



FEW beekeepers realize the possi- 

 bilities of the local market. 

 _ Those who do are often able by 

 means of inexpensive advertising to 

 develop a demand for far more 

 honey than they can produce. They 

 thus become buyers, and make a 

 small margin by handling more or 

 less honey in addition to their own 

 crop. After visiting beekeepers in 

 many states, I am more and more im- 

 pressed with the fact that too many 

 beekeepers are selling their own 

 honey altogether too cheap. Men 

 who should get a fair price often sell 

 at retail at about the wholesale price. 

 I have known men to advertise to sell 

 the best extracted honey at ten cents 

 a pound in any quantity, and to fill 

 fruit jars, pails and other small con- 

 tainers at this price, at a time when 

 large bottling concerns were offering 

 as much in carlots. Until the pro- 

 ducer learns to demand a reasonable 

 price for his product, the business 

 can never stand on a firm footing. 

 The beekeeper who enquires what 

 the wholesale price is and then pro- 

 ceeds to sell to his neighbors in small 

 quantities at such a figure is doing all 

 that is within his power to depress 

 the market the following year. If we 

 beekeepers sell our honey at retail at 

 ten cents a pound, we can hardly ex- 

 pect bottlers to ofifer us more than 

 five or six cents a pound in quantity. 

 They have to pay freights, commis- 

 sions, and other expenses from the 

 difference between the price which 

 they pay and that for which they sell, 

 and a good business man is not satis- 

 fied without a reasonable profit to 

 show for the cost of doing business. 

 The bottler must pay for the bottles, 

 labels, for the labor of packing and 

 handling, and sell to the grocer at a 

 figure that will enable him to make 

 a profit also at the retail price. If 

 we sell at ten cents retail, the grocer 

 is compelled to sell at a similar 



figure and the producer who does not 

 retail his crop must sell at a price 

 that will allow for all these expenses. 

 Honey is now worth more money 

 than it has been worth for many 

 years. There are few places where it 

 should sell for less than twelve and a 

 half cents per pound in sixty-pound 

 cans, or fifteen cents per pound in 

 smaller quantities. If the beekeeper 

 is not willing to ask these prices he 

 should in justice to the stability of 

 the market and the good of other 

 beekeepers, sell to a bottling concern 

 at jobbing prices. If a man's time is 

 worth anything he can't afford to re- 

 tail his honey for less than five cents 

 a pound more than he can get at 

 wholesale. 



Raising the Local Price 



The above is not written without 

 some knowledge of the difficulties to 

 be encountered in raising the price in 

 a local market, where there are 

 short-sighted beekeepers who insist 

 on selling below the market. When 

 I started to produce extracted honey 

 in my present location there was lit- 

 tle demand locally for anything but 

 comb honey. The little extracted 

 honey produced here was sold in 

 small quantity at three pounds for 

 twentj'-five cents. In spite of the 

 fact that everybody wanted comb 

 honey and that they were accus- 

 tomed to buying extracted at less 

 than nine cents per pound, I estab- 

 lished a price nf 2.t cents for a 20- 



ARCHIE BANKS AND HIS WIRELESS OUTFIT. A UNIQUE MEANS OF 



ADVERTISING, AND INCIDENTALLY OF PLACING SOME 



OF BANKS' HONEY. 



