(iLEAJSflNGS IN BKE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



\V(> should then Hud that wo had caused a large 

 number of jjeoplc to conceive, lor the first time, 

 that they had many times pui-chased honey in pref- 

 erence to syrnp, from no other cause than that it 

 cost more. 



I am sorry, but this is just what I believe. You 

 told us years ag-o, that when honey came down to 

 the present price there would he no end to the de- 

 mand. I told you, no; nothing- would stop the 

 downward tendency of prices except lessening- the 

 production, which would come of necessity, when 

 the weakest of ns began to starve out. Well, we 

 have reached the point, and no more honey is con- 

 sumed in Dowagiac than was consumed fifteen 

 years ago, and producers are going to hold a con- 

 vention to do all that united eflort can do to hold 

 up prices, the satne as is done by other classes of 

 manufacturers. 



Nearly every article of manufacture in a hard- 

 ware store is sold at prices fixed by a pool. Go to 

 your hardware store and inquire, and take a hint in 

 time. True, honey i° >a product; but the method we 

 employ to gather it and our processes in prepar- 

 ing it for market, rightfully class us as manufac- 

 turers, not producers. 



No, no one has worked harder than I to create 

 local demand, and Prof. McLain or any one else, ac- 

 quainted with the facts, will tell you that no honey 

 excels ours in this northern climate, and under our 

 care of production, and we never retail any but the 

 white, A No. 1 grades. 



1 agree with friend Dadant, that the specialist in 

 bee-keeping will be hardly more apt to quit his call- 

 ing than the farmer. But the way the small ones 

 will drop out in the near future will, I think, be 

 highly worthy of his notice. One peculiar fact 

 about the farm is. that it makes a home, and sup- 

 plies the greater part of a living; in fact, the whole 

 of a possible living, whether there is any such 

 thing as money or not, to say nothing about 

 "prices." I have more than $ijOOO invested in hon- 

 ey-producing, and I could not exchage it even, for 

 any $3000 farm in this county. I presume that the 

 farmer whom friend Root mentions in his foot- 

 notes had been dabbling -with bees or some other 

 side issue. 



I think friend Dadant is mistaken in saying 1 fol- 

 low his methods in producing extracted honey. So 

 far as they are laid down in his excellent little 

 pamphlet, many of them coincide with the methods 

 I first adopted, sixteen years ago; but he is mistak- 

 en, and you were also, in your foot-notes to my 

 last communication, in thinking that I continue 

 tiering, and do not extract till the close of the sur- 

 plus season. My bees gather too much honey for 

 that, and we keep our clover, basswood, and amber 

 grades separate. 



I believe Mr. Dadant has not yet learned the val- 

 ue of the slatted, break-joint honey-board, shorn of 

 which I would feel like giving up the production of 

 both comb and extracted honey. It is against ray 

 wishes and likewise my interest in some directions, 

 to state my convictions as above; but when drawn 

 out upon any subject, I mean to stand by my old 

 rule of making such statements in " the now," as 

 I think will be verified in the future. 



In closing this article I feel it an obligation and 

 pleasure to thank friends Hutchinson and Harmon 

 Smith for their able and instructive articles in last 

 issue. I feel that I have in-oflted much by both. 



Dowagiac, Mich. James Heddon. 



Friend H., I agree with you to a certain 

 fxteiit in most of your statements, but 1 

 hope you will excuse me for saying I think 

 you putit a little too strongly throughout al- 

 most all of your article. As an illustration, I 

 know that many of the articles in hardware 

 stores are sold at a regular and uniform price, 

 while other things, and things which are sta- 

 ple, are sold at prices that differ very widely 

 by different manufacturers. It is true, the 

 I vox Age publishes regularly an alphabetical 

 list of the staple hardware goods; and it 

 also gives the prevailing discount; and this 

 discount applies to factories north, south, 

 east, and west. Associations are formed, 

 but they are being constantly broken. The 

 combination on tinware stood, I think, three 

 or four years at one time ; but in their anx- 

 iety to get orders, certain manufacturers be- 

 gan cutting under on the sly, and pretty 

 soon the combination went to pieces. I still 

 think O'ar best way of keeping prices up on 

 honey is to buy out the smairproducers be- 

 fore they have had a chance to run their pro- 

 duct on to the market. It may be true, that 

 no more honey is sold now with the present 

 low prices than was sold before, when prices 

 were high. But the times demand low 

 prices on almost every thing; and what is 

 true of honey is also true of almost all farm 

 and rural products. Cane-sugar syrup is 

 some sweeter than honey, if I am correctly 

 informed, but not two or three fold sweeter. 

 Suppose Prof. Cook straighten us out on 

 this. And granting that it is sweeter, is it 

 worth so much more for food ? A pound of 

 sugar may be cheaper than a pound of straw- 

 berries; but who is going to take the sugar, 

 even if it is sweeter ? Perhaps you do not 

 call strawberries a staple ; but with the tre- 

 mendous trade that seems to be constantly 

 increasing in them, I should call them a 

 magnificent staple. Let us not waste time 

 in arguing, when we simply have a different 

 understanding of a certain word. The point 

 before us is to understand how to get the 

 most money out of the products of our 

 industry. 



AN ABC SCHOLAR'S REPORT. 



A farmer's view of the question— legisla- 

 tion FOR bee-keepers. 



y UNE 38, 1884, found me in possession of a newly 

 hived swarm of bees. They were a present 



to me. That swarm gathered 49 lbs. of surplus 

 that year, and had ample stores for winter. 

 The spi-ing of 188.") found them in moderately 

 weak condition. 1 lifted the frames and bees out of 

 their hive, and put them in a new clean one; 

 and during the process I found the queen, the 

 first I had ever seen. Being a beginner, I of course 

 felt proud of this. 



On the 9th of last .June I traded a hive filled with 

 comb, containing considei-able honey, for a first 

 swarm of bees. This swarm I call No. 3. My old 

 swarm I call No. 1. On the 13th of June it cast a 

 large swarm, which I call No. 3. I waited V 2 days 

 after this swarm issued, and then cut all queen- 

 cells from No. 1, as per Doolittle in his review of 

 your ABC book. It was my first exjierience, and 

 proved a success. I had n('\-er e\en seen a (|Uoen- 

 cell before. 



