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36th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., FEB. 6, 1896. 



No. 6. 



The New " California Honey-Exchange." 



BY PROF. A. J. COOK. 



In response to the request of subscribers to the American 

 Bee Journal, I append the following regarding the proposed 

 California Honey Exchange. 



The honey-producers of California feel that they have a 

 serious grievance. They can produce honey of e.xcellent quality 



The retail prices remain practically the same, whether the sea- 

 son is very poor, fair, or excellent. 



There are but two explanations to this anomalous condi- 

 tion. Either a large supply irrespective of the actual amount 

 produced, or else the dealers and commission men manipulate 

 prices to suit their greed for gain, paying no heed to whether 

 the producer has any margin of profit or not. This state of 

 affairs has become simply unbearable; and the California bee- 

 men are aroused to the necessity of a complete revolution. 

 Like the producers of nearly all our farm products, they have 

 no voice as to what they shall pay or receive as they visit the 

 markets to buy or sell. They see no reason why they should 

 not have a voice in determining prices on their own products. 

 Could they but work in concert, act as one man, some- 

 thing after the manner of the Standard Oil Company, then 

 they could adjust prices of their honey according to the 

 amount, and the cost of production. This is just what they 

 are hoping. They believe that they have confidence enough in 

 each other to thus act, and intelligence enough to adopt and 

 make operative the best scheme of co-operation. 



AjjUiry oj Mr. J. IT. Yoaiuj, Kiiujtiiaii, Kaiis. — See iMtgc ^.s. 



and in satisfactory quantities, but they have to pay exhorbitant 

 freight-rates, and are forced to accept ruinously low prices. 

 Up to the present time they have been utterly unable to regu- 

 late either transportation rates or the markets on a living 

 basis. What makes the wrong all the more aggravating and 

 exasperating is the fact that, though they receive prices which 

 leave them no margin of profit, and often brings them in debt 

 at the close of the season, yet the actual consumer pays as 

 much as of old, when prices to the producer were more than 

 double the prices of to-day. Again, any poor seasons make 

 no perceptible difference with the prices in the retail markets. 



In formulating a plan, the bee-men are not wholly in the 

 dark, or walking an unbeaten path. They have before them 

 an example where genuine success, and almost universal sat- 

 isfaction, has been secured. The orange-growers were threat- 

 ened with bankruptcy in the face of just such evils as confront 

 the bee-men. They organized the Southern California Fruit 

 Exchange, and already, though but two years a-field, this new 

 organization, on the plan of carefully managed co-operation, 

 has brought new hope and courage to the Citrus Fruit Growers 

 of this whole southern country. The Fruit Exchange is a cor- 

 porate body. There is a central Hoard that oversees the whole 



