1880 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



10o 





<'^V€M$m" 



[This department is to be kept for the benefit of 

 those who are dissatisfied; and when anything is 

 amiss. I hope you will "talk right out." As a rule 

 we will omit names and addresses, to avoid being 

 too personal.] 



HOW MUCH PROFIT SHALL BE ALLOWED THOSE WHO 

 TAKE SUBSCRIPTIONS, ETC.? 



¥p^Y the bye, friend Riot, it seems to me that if 

 you take sueh an interest in the pecuniary 

 affairs of your subscribers as you pretend, in 

 the Home Papers, tr> d >, you might at least furnish 

 the magazine which contains those papers to singl<> 

 subscribers as cheap as any outsider can furnish it. 



Geo. W. Jones. 

 West P.end, Wis., .Tan. 13, 1S80. 

 Well done, friend J.! You have hit right 

 squarely on the head a much-vexed question. 

 When I fixed the price of Gleanings at SI. 

 I decided that those who worked to get sub- 

 scrihers would want some pay for their ser- 

 vices. If I asked one of you to please carry 

 a copy of Gleanings round to your neigh- 

 bors who keep bees, and to take time to ex- 

 plain its good qualities to them, show its 

 pictures, etc., and ask them to subscribe, I 

 should expect to offer to pay you for so do- 

 ing. How much ought I to offer? If you 

 took your neighbor's money, bought a P. O. 

 order so as to send it to mesafely, and do all 

 the corresponding, I thought 25 c. would be 

 about right, or to allow you to retain } of all 

 the money you collected. To make it a lit- 

 tle more of* an object for some leading man 

 in every neighborhood to canvass the bee 

 keepers'for a few miles around, I agreed to 

 make the price GO c. for a club of 10 names. 

 This offer is not more liberal than many pub- 

 lishers make, and on many accounts it seems 

 about right. Well, since these days of sharp 

 competition in furnishing staple articles, 

 there has been much " cutting under," and 

 agents are offering many periodicals at f, or 

 less, of the publishers' prices. Tliey do not 

 go around to the houses as publishers origi- 

 nally intended they should, but they do the 

 business through the mails. Without ex- 

 plaining the magazine at all. or showing the 

 pictures, they simply get the publisher's 

 customers away from him by telling them, 

 "I'll sell it cheaper." Gleanings would 

 now be advertised at 75 c. in these very col- 

 umns, had I not refused the advertisement. 

 Why don't I let them do so, and sell it for 

 75c. myself? Why, if I charged one man 

 but 75c, I must do the same with all, and 

 then my hard working friends who travel 

 around in the mud and show Gleanings 

 and explain its merits, would stop in disgust, 

 and say, "You can keep your old paper, and 

 get subscribers yourself, if you cannot pay a 

 body decent wages for investing his tame 

 and money." I do not like to ask people to 

 work for me, without paying tlieui. and, for 

 such work, I like to be able to pay them lib- 

 erally. I am obliged to have one price, and 

 to adhere to my printed rules, or you would 

 have good reason to call me dishonest. Sev- 

 eral times, we have received 75c., with the 

 request to send Gleanings one year for it, 



as others do, or return the money. Of course, 

 I had no choice but to return the money, 

 sent for a single subscription. You see, my 

 friends, there are two extremes to be avoid- 

 ed. One thing seems to indicate that I have 

 given too broad a margin to canvassers; and 

 it is that so many of them are offering the 

 paper for less than a dollar. In doing this, 

 they virtually say, "we can afford to work 

 for Gleanings for less than 40c. a subscrib- 

 er,'' and so many have offered to take names 

 for 75c, that I have about concluded that 25 

 per cent off from the publisher's price would 

 be about right. This would leave little 

 margin for presents, and premiums, it is 

 true, but would it not be better to have the 

 paper published for what it is itself worth, 

 and not for the presents that are offered with 

 it? When I say "better," I mean better for 

 readers and all, and not especially for the 

 publisher's pocket. Friend Jones, I was al- 

 most converted before, and I do not know 

 but that you have hastened the crisis. I 

 cannot well put the price of Gleanings 

 down, but I can enlarge it, put more room 

 between the lines, use larger type, make it 

 easier for those with old eyes to read it, and 

 then have the discount so small that there 

 will be less temptation to offer it at less than 

 the regular prices. Friend Jones, I do not 

 think agents will offer Gleanings very 

 much less than 1 do, next year. 



MR. BOOr.— In reply to your kind letter in 

 the Growler}', I will ask, as I have always paid 

 you $1.00 a year for Gleanings, how is it that 

 Mr. Doolittle will furnish Gleanings for 75 cents ? 

 After you sent back 90 c. of the $1.00 that I sent 

 you for Gleanings, Mr. Doolittle sent me his circu- 

 lar, and so I sent for Gleanings to him, and have 

 just read the Feb. No. Now, Mr. Root, you carry the 

 idea, in Gleanings, that you are working- for the 

 benefit of your subscribers; but does this look like 

 it? If $l.i)0 per year is the least that you can fur- 

 nish single numbers of Gleanings for, why not tell 

 your readers that they can get it of Mr. Doolittle for 

 75 cts. (for by their fruits ye shall know them;? To 

 talk religion and act religion are two things. 



As regards those corners, if you will tell me the 

 price of a single set, I will send the money to you. 

 The postage that you spoke about was sent, 1 be- 

 lieve. I do not wish to have you feel that I am in 

 debt lo .sou, as you seem to carry that idea. I wish 

 to pay you all up, so that we can part friends. Hop- 

 ing to hear from you in March No. of Gleanings, I 

 am - STOUTS respectfully, 



Henry Smith. 



Brooklyn, Wis., Feb. 7, 1880. 



Xow, friend 8., you have certainly got me 

 into a corner ; in fact, I do not just now see 

 that you have left scarcely a chance for me 

 to even "wiggle." I certainly do wish to 

 help my readers to get their supplies at the 

 very lowest possible tigure,and therefore, as 

 I can not furnish Gleanings for less than 

 a dollar, it is unquestionably my duty to ad- 

 vise you all to send your money to my friend 

 Doolittle. I went home and told my wife 

 about it, and she says the trouble comes from 

 my decision, long Jigo, to make so low rates 

 to' those who buy at wholesale. Says she: 

 " If I go to the store to buy a spool of thread, 

 the price is 6 cents ; mm if 1 take a whole 



