i^OVEMBER 15, 1912 



723 



General Correspondence 



DON'T MIX HONEY WITH SYRUPS 



Enough Suspicion of Pure Honey Already 



BY MAJOR SHALLARD 



I think Mr. E. W. Peirce's idea of mixing 

 honey with "Karo" or any other syrup, 

 July 1, p. 409, is much to be deprecated. 

 Once let the public mind associate honey 

 and syrup, or honey adulterated by any 

 thing at all, and you will do the industry an 

 immense amount of harm which it will take 

 years of effort to remedy. 



In bottling honey for the grocery trade 

 in Sydney (a city of 600,000 people) I 

 came into competition with adulterated 

 honey; viz., glucose (I put this first because 

 it was the basis), sugar syrup, and honey; 

 and as this could be put on the market at 

 a lower price than my pure honey, I found 

 it hard to keep my trade. The trouble ap- 

 peared to me to be this : That the adults 

 did not eat honey, and the adulterated stuff 

 did well enough for the children; and as 

 most homes have a scarcity of cash, the 

 cheai3est got the preference. If these peo- 

 ple would only think a little, and realize 

 what future trouble they are laying up 

 for their little ones in liver and kidney dis- 

 ease, through this stuff, I feel sure they 

 would not have it in the house. 



There was absolutely no comparison be- 

 tween my pure honey and the opposition 

 mixture, and after the peope came to rec- 

 ognize this, the former more than held 

 its own. 



At one time I thought of putting a cheap 

 honey (?) on the market to compete with 

 these adulterators. I got a cask of glucose 

 and some sugar, and experim.ented with 

 various strengths of fflucose and various 

 qualities of honey. I found that the dark- 

 est (almost black) honey gave the best re- 

 sults. It gave the most cash, and it was 

 possible to mix uji stuff (it was stuff, it was 

 not honey) that would, give satisfactory 

 tests in the polariscope, but there was no 

 more comparison between it and .the honey 

 I was bottling than there is betweeen a 

 trust magnate and an honest man. We, my 

 helpers and myself, had bottles of vari- 

 ous mixtures all over the ylace; and con- 

 tinually tasting the stuff made us all sick. 



We all got so full of the stuff that any 

 smell of glucose at all used to make us 

 feel ill, and I decided that, if it was not 

 good for me, it was not good for any one 

 else; and so I gave up the idea altogether. 

 I got the manufacturers to take the glucose 

 back, and stuck to the pure honey. 



There was never any question about my 

 honey, as it was the product of my own 

 apiaries; but the public became so suspi- 

 cious about adulteration that I found it nec- 

 essary to put the following on my labels: 



"I will give £20 to any one who can pro- 

 duce a bottle of my Blue Mountain honey 

 which is adulterated." 



This settled all argument so far as I was 

 concerned; but they were still very suspi- 

 cious where other honeys (many of them 

 absolutely pure) were concerned. 



For the last few years we have had a 

 ]>ure-food act which is rigidly enforced. 

 Under this act all foods must be accurately 

 described ou the label, and net contents of 

 the packages given; but the manufacturers 

 dodge this to some extent. For instance, 

 the honey adulterators put tliis on their 

 label: "Honey" in large type; and under- 

 neath, in very small type, "mixed with 

 saccharine matter." If they put "Honey 

 adulterated with sugar and glucose," the 

 people would not buy, and that is really 

 what it is because it is impossible t6 get 

 sufficient consistency without the glucose. 

 Some of the manufacturers put the incrim- 

 inating label under the bottle ; but the board 

 of health stoi)ped it. The board of health 

 carries out its duties well and efficiently, 

 and woe betide the trangressor if they 

 catch him. They are continually catcliing 

 people for diluting milk, and they fine them 

 very heavily — fines being inflicted from 

 £10 to £25. An inspector visited my bot- 

 tling place one day and remarked with a 

 smile, "Putting up honey and sugar?" I 

 told him if he could find any sugar or glu- 

 cose on the premises I would make liim a 

 present of it, and also of a £10 note. Then 

 I took him down to where several gross of 

 bottles were ready to go out, and told him 

 to read the label. "Now," I said, "you take 

 that bottle home and earn that £20." Well, 

 I could not induce that man to take any 

 honey away at all — not even as a present. 

 But, as I said at the start, if the public 

 once becomes convinced that some honey 

 is adulterated it takes years and years to 

 get the idea out of their heads. 



Even now, in spite of the law, nine peo- 

 ple out of ten will tell you that "it is not 

 possible to get pure honey in Sydney," 

 which is absolute nonsense, because you 

 can get it at almost every gi'ocery; but 

 you can not make the people believe it. 

 Every now and then, people will come to 

 one of my apiaries and buy some honey, 

 and they will say, "Ah ! this is the i>ure 

 stuff. I can't get honey like this in Sydney, 



