602 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



and could not get it : therefore it would 

 have been good economy to have poured the 

 bad apptes out to the pigs, rather than to 

 have damaged and hindered the sale of the 

 nice ones by having them sprinkled through 

 with bad ones. I was a little surprised 

 when they told me about it ; so I asked my 

 wife one day, when I saw her paring apples,— 



" Sue, how much more would you give to 

 have apples tiiat were all smooth, without 

 any specks, rotten spots, or ' crookedness ' 

 about them — that is, providing you wanted 

 them to cut up for pies or sauce T' 



She replied promptly,— 



" Why, I would give twice as much." 



" Oh, no I you couldn't give so much as 

 that, could you V Are you not putting it a 

 little too strongly V' 



" I am not putting it too strongly at all. 

 AVhere a woman's time is valuable, and 

 where slie likes to have things nice, she can 

 well afford to give double the money to get 

 nice fair fruit. ' 



Of course, there are people who will want 

 the culls at a moderate price, and such 

 people should have the privilege of having 

 them. Xow, we have kept on grading our 

 fruit ever since that day, and I have been 

 surprised again by hearing the boys say 

 they could not get rid of their culls so long 

 as they had nice fruit on the wagon. There 

 was hardly anybody who wanted the culls at 

 any price. While relating the little story to 

 a friend, lie mentioned the following: 



He wanted to buy some corn, and a farmer 

 drove past his house with a load that he 

 wanted 20 els. for; but there were so many 

 nubbins and so much soft corn mixed in 

 with it that he decided not to buy it. Short- 

 ly afterward he drove to Akron (five miles), 

 and met the same farmer who was trying to 

 sell his corn. He drove from place to place, 

 but the soft corn and the nubbins frightened 

 liis customers, and he could not get a pur- 

 chaser. He finally sold it to my friend (who 

 offered him 20 cts. in the morning), for only 

 15 cents per pushel. They transferred it 

 from one wagon to the other ; but Avhile so 

 doing they sorted it. tlirowing the bad ears 

 to the back end of the wagon. After they 

 got it sorted a man drove past who wanted 

 to buy corn, and he offered 2o cts. a bushel 

 for the best. Now, then, how many bushels of 

 bad corn were in the back end of the wagon? 

 I can not remember the figures, but the re- 

 sult was something like this: There were 

 17 bushels of good corn and ."> bushels of 

 culls. The farmer sold the 20 bushels for 

 SH.OO. ]\Iy friend who bought it was offered 

 S4.2o for the sound corn after he got it sort- 

 ed, and had the culls to take home besides. 

 I have mentioned this little story a great 

 many times, and every one veriiies it. 



Oiir friend Terry, of potato-book fame, 

 has several thousand bushels of potatoes, 

 not very large, on account of the devastating 

 blight "that lias swept over almost all of 

 Northern Ohio. 1 suggpsled that he sort 

 them, and sell the small ones for what he 

 could get, and the nice ones at a good price. 

 He was afraid it would not work with the 

 potatoes. When 1 got home 1 asked my 

 wife if she would give double the money for 

 good-sized potatoes in good shape, free from 



specks, crookedness, etc. She replied at once, 

 that she would gladly. Now, I do not know 

 how far it pays to carry this principle. Per- 

 haps my Avife is a little over particular, 

 in her readiness to pay a good price for 

 fruits and vegetables tliat are just to her 

 liking ; but I know there are lots of women- 

 folks who are just like her. 



Now let us apply it to honey. Some of 

 your honey is real nice ; a good deal of it is 

 pretty fair, and some is crooked and unsight- 

 ly ; but it is not well to put it together, with 

 the hope that the purchaser won't mind the 

 bad if there is not very much of it. and your 

 chance of getting a fancy price for your fan- 

 cy honey is killed by a few bad sections rnix- 

 ed in, just as we drove customers away from 

 our apples, and just as the farmer made his 

 whole load of corn un.salable by three bush- 

 els of soft nubbins mixed in. It is the same 

 thing with lUjuid honey. There will proba- 

 bly be some time in the season when honey 

 that comes in is just splendid. Put this by 

 itself; when the yield changes, put this by 

 itself, and put the poorest by itself. When 

 you have a customer who will give anything 

 like a fair price for the poorest quality, let it 

 go. You will always have the most Irouble 

 in selling the culls— at least, we do on our 

 market wngon. People have different tastes 

 and notions. There are a good many nowadays 

 in every community who take pleasure in 

 using and in showing to their friends, God's 

 Hnest gifts to men. They like gilt-edge but- 

 ter, and they enjoy paying a gilt-edge price 

 for it. It stimulates and encourages the 

 producer, and raises farming, fruit-growing, 

 etc., to one of the line arts. 



.V great many purchasers spoilGod's (incst 

 gifts by bungling, slip-shod habits in hand- 

 ling the products, after nature has furnished 

 them free from blemish. Almost every farm- 

 er who brings us apples puts them iii bags. 

 Very often the bags have had flour or meal 

 in them; they are dumped into the wagon, 

 then shaken into a basket. By the time 

 we get them they have to be sorted and 

 wiped. AViping takes off' the bloom, which 

 everybody loves to see. Another thing: A 

 good many apple-growers shake their apples 

 off' on to the groinid. and perhaps set their 

 boots on them when they are picking them 

 up. A few days ago a young man brought 

 us some beautiful Red-Astrakhan apnles 

 that were picked from the trees, and laid 

 carefully into baskets. I gave him some new 

 baskets in place of his, so that we were ena- 

 bled to handle the apples without touching 

 them or tumbling them from one measure to 

 another. Tlie man who raised them is pres- 

 ident of one of our horticultural societies. 

 Did it pay him to pick the apples? They 

 brought fiilly 20 c. more than if he had shak- 

 en them off"! and everybody was pleased all 

 around. If we could have all the fall apples 

 brought us pick! (1 in litis way. and set into 

 our market wagon, nicely graded by the 

 picker. wouUhri it be fun to sell fruit? The 

 careful housewife could then till the fruit- 

 stand with these great smooth beauties, with 

 the bloom on every apple that it possessed 

 when it ripened on the tree. Now, dear 

 friends, does this little chapter strike homo 

 to you in your work? 



