JULY 1, 1913 



449 



lias demonstrated beyond a doubt the prof- 

 its that can be made in the bee business in 

 Arizona. The last three years all his honey 

 put together would total about nine car- 

 loads. These carloads of honey range 

 in cash from .$1600 to .$3000 per car, regTi- 

 lated somewhat by the amount and price in 

 the car. Mr. Tracy has a nice little home, 

 out of debt, 700 or 800 colonies of bees, a 

 good horse and buggy, and money in the 

 bank. The one improvement that I would 

 suggest would be a nice wife; then Jim 

 would surely be on the road to happiness 

 and prosperity. 



If this article does not find its way to the 

 waste-basket I shall be pleased to finish the 

 report, as we have many beginners Avho are 

 worthy of mentioning, a few of whom I 

 will simply name for the present : Wm. 

 Doner, Walter Dickerson, Levi J. Holtz- 

 worth, Mrs. L. D. Smith, Mrs. May G. 

 Lovett. 



Phoenix, Ariz. 



HONEY-SELLING VIEWED FROM A STORE- 

 KEEPER'S STANDPOINT 



Wrapping Each Section in Transparent Paper Tied 

 with a Silk Thread, and Selling for a Fancy Price 



BY C. B. PALMER 



Shall we improve the style and appear- 

 ance of the section of honey, and keep pace 

 with all other packages of merchandise now 

 handled in the grocery or general merchan- 

 dise store, and receive a better price for our 

 improved package? Or shall we continue 

 to place our sections on the counter in the 

 same old w-aj' we have done for years, and 

 then wonder why our honey brings no bet- 

 ter price than it did last year or the year 

 before, or, in fact, than it did fifteen years 

 ago? and also why there is not an increas- 

 ing demand? I doubt if there is a food in 

 our stoi'e. the style of i^ackage of which 

 has not been improved on in the past few 

 years. We must cater to the demand. 



Back in the seventies, when as a boy I 

 was drawing wood into old Kalamazoo, 

 father would sometimes say, " Take a grain- 

 sack along and go to the bakery and bring 

 a dollar's worth of little round butter-crack- 

 ers, always so fresh and crisp." 



Go to your store now and ask for a dol- 

 lar's worth of crackers. You will be lucky 

 if you get five packages, and on one end 

 of each package will be marked in very 

 small tyi^e, " This package contains twenty- 

 nine ounces of crackers." But see the ele- 

 gant, bright, pretty package. Some one has 

 seen fit to cater to the demand of the trade, 

 and you can scarcely find a family to-day 



that does not keep crackers constantly in 

 the house. 



A glance over the shelves in my store tells 

 me that the old method of handling honey 

 must go. The method is so crude and so 

 antiquated that the food commission had 

 to compel us by law to carry our honey in 

 glass show-eases or other suitable covering. 

 Sections of honey are much easier to enclose 

 than many other packages of foods, espe- 

 cially dried fruits or foods that contain 

 oils, or any food that the moth miller can 

 reach. 



I can count more than fifty different 

 packages of goods put up in the most at- 

 tractive forms possible. These were all 

 handled in bulk only a few years ago. But 

 should I order a ease of honey it would 

 come in the same old mussj^ leaking condi- 

 tion. No wonder that merchants do not try 

 to create a demand for this class of goods. 

 It is up to the producer to increase the 

 demand. 



One of the most attractive packages I 

 have is a three-pound rice. I have this same 

 rice in bulk in a dish on the counter, mark- 

 ed five cents a pound, but no one wants it. 

 It does not attract the buyer's attention. It 

 is the old-style method of showing goods, 

 and customers are looking for something 

 new. Consecjuently they take the three- 

 pound package at twenty-five cents, and 

 are pleased. The producer of the beautiful 

 gilt package has increased the selling value 

 of the i^ackage, and at the same time in- 

 creased his own profits as well as mine. 



The large producer of honey has no 

 trouble in finding a market, as he has made 

 a study of the demand and knows how to 

 supi^ly it. It is the man with only a few 

 pounds or a few hundred pounds who be- 

 comes discouraged and soon drops out for 

 lack of a market for his few pounds of sur- 

 plus. When I found myself in this position 

 I began to look around for a market. I 

 found every store supplied with honey, 

 from honey one day olcl (the merchant had 

 lost a stand from disease, and he was press- 

 ing the honey out of old filthy combs into 

 glass fruit-jars), to honey so old that ''whis- 

 kers " were growing on the sides of the case. 

 Some of the honey looked like some of my 

 own, especially that with the "whiskers;" 

 but all, good or bad, was in 4^/4 x 4^/4 sec- 

 tions. 



I decided that, in order to sell my honey 

 and make a demand for it, I must first 

 change the shape of the package so that 

 the customer would not be looking at the 

 same old mussy, grimy, dusty section, and 

 I decided to overhaul all my supers and 

 produce nothing but 4 x .5 sections. Then 

 I would see how nice I could put them up 



