1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



58 



have; but how few who can dispose of their crop to 

 the best advantage! Those who produce good crops, 

 and fail to sell in their own markets, or have no 

 home demand, ship to city markets, and employ 

 dealers to handle their honey. Once out of their 

 hands, they are at the mercy (?) of their commis- 

 sion dealer, and this explains why I can buy honey 

 from dealers for less money than I am asked by the 

 producer. Do you hear? 



I have bought tons of honey this season from 

 commission men, at low prices, and have made 

 more money handling it than I would have made 

 had my own bees produced a good crop. Hence 

 you will see that it is not in my own interest that J 

 write as [ do about this matter. 



I nearly double my money on the honey which 

 some of you bee-keepers produce, and that, too. 

 after commissions, cost of packages, freights, and 

 numerous other expenses have been taken out — 

 out of your pockets. How do I succeed in selling 

 such quantities of honey at such good prices, you 

 ask? 



Looking at the mauuscript for the above, I am re- 

 minded that I have even now exceeded the limit of 

 space the editor will feel like according me; but I 

 will say, if it is the desire of Gleanings that I shall 

 write another article in the near future, on the sub- 

 ject, '" How to sell honey." 1 Hatter myself that my 

 successful career " along this line," as Doolittle 

 would say, would lie beneficial to many who sell 

 honey at a price incommensurable with the cost of 

 production. .J. A. Buchanan. 



Holliday's Cove, VV. Va.. Dec. :'.',, 1888. 



Friend B., you have struck on a very im- 

 portant point, and we shall be very glad in- 

 deed to have you continue the subject. If I 

 understand you. however, the reason why 

 you are enabled to get honey at these low 

 prices is because of the shiftless way in 

 which many send their honey to commis- 

 sion men. Now, we are not in the commis- 

 sion business ; but a good many bee-keepers 

 do send us honey, and beeswax also, with- 

 out telling us how much they sent ; and, in 

 fact, a good many times I do not believe they 

 knew themselves. Sometimes they send it 

 in, and do not say any thing at all. 'Most of 

 the time we have stray boxes of wax wait- 

 ing until somebody writes about them. 

 Well, my advice would be this: Don't any 

 of you send any honey at all to a commis- 

 sion man, nor to'anybody else, without first 

 writing to him, and asking him to tell you, 

 as soon as he can, about what he thinks it 

 would bring, giving a description of it. 

 Better still, send him a fair sample of the 

 lot, and let him tell you about what it will 

 probably realize. Then when the honey is 

 sent, teil him exactly how low he can go, 

 and give positive directions not to sell cheap- 

 er. If he rinds that he can not sell it at the 

 price you put on it, he will advise you and 

 you can decide to come down a little if you 

 choose. If he writes back to you that the 

 honey was received in bad condition — brok- 

 en and leaking — if the quantity is consid- 

 erable, and you are not too far away, it will 

 pay you to go and take care of it. Fix it up, 

 and peddle out the smashed honey yourself. 

 You will probably make better wages at it 

 than you can at any thing else. By so doing 

 you will have a better opinion of commis- 



sion men generally, and I am inclined to 

 think they will have a better opinion of us 

 as bee-keepers. 



THIRD LETTER ABOUT MRS. LUCINDA 

 HARRISON. 



HER HOME l.IEE, ETC. 



T STARTED out to write these letters about Mrs. 

 M L. Harrison, because every bee-keeper knows 

 W her and would like to hear about her; but in 



■*■ reading them over.it seems that I have been 

 writing all the time about Mrs. Chaddock, and 

 that Mrs. Harrison comes in onlj incidentally. 

 There are too many big I's in them. 



T think all the bee-keepers' wives who read Mrs. 

 Harrison's letters wonder if. she is a good house- 

 keeper, and sews on buttons and things, just like 

 other folks. Well, she is, and she does. She has a 

 small house, and it is as clean as a new pin, and is 

 always just .so. She hires a woman to come once a 

 week and sweep her house all over. She gets 

 rusk (a kind of light biscuit with a faint trace of 

 sugar in them) at the bakery; she hires her wash- 

 ing done; and, of course, she has no milk to care 

 for, nor churning to do. as farmers' wives have. 

 She hires most of her sewing done, and her house- 

 cleaning— in the spring aud fall. She puts in her 

 time cooking, washing dishes, writing for the press, 

 working with the bees, running the lawn-mower, 

 going to Sunday-school conventions, old-settlers' 

 meetings and bee-conventions, and she is the most 

 jolly woman that I ever met. Some people have 

 qualms of conscience. Mrs. Harrison has none; and 

 her cheerfulness and light-heartedness are conta- 

 gious. I want to hold her upas a beautiful exam 

 pie for all wives to follow. 



MRS. HAKKISON AT A SUN DA V-S( HOOI, CONVEN- 

 TION. 



When her husband came home the first night I 

 was there, she ran to meet him. She had not seen 

 him for a week: then she introduced me. Mrs. 

 Harrison does not scold— not a bit— but just laughs. 

 Tf the stove smokes, she laughs; if her husband 

 yets in a hurry for the breakfast, she laughs. All 

 the things that most women are put out about, she 

 only laughs at; and if there is any one thing that 

 impressed me mote than another in Mrs. Harrison's 

 daily walk and conversation, it was her great cheer 



