Nov. 1, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



693 



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Convention Proceedings. | 



Report of the Proceeding's of the 31st Annual 



Convention of the National Bee-Keepers' 



Association, held at Chicag-o, 111., 



Aug-. 28, 29 and 30, 1900. 



BY DR. A. B. MASON, SBC. 



(Continued from pag'eOT').) 

 J. A. Green — I would not be greatly afraid of having 

 sweet clover clast as a noxious weed, because it has been 

 so clast in this State for several j'ears, and in some town- 

 ships down our way the commissioners try to eradicate it. 

 Dr. Mason — Where is that? 



Mr. Green — In L,a Salle Co., 111. But usually their ef- 

 forts only result in making a pasture for the bees ; they 

 change the time of blooming, and until they have gone thru 

 a long course of education in better methods of eradicating 

 sweet clover, I am not at all afraid of their getting it out of 

 the way — they only help it. 



O. L. Hershiser — I don't think there is any danger of 

 sweet clover becoming a noxious weed if all the informa- 

 tion given here is made public thru the country. The defi- 

 nition of a weed is a plant whose virtues have not been 

 discovered. The virtues of sweet clover seem to have been 

 pretty thoroly discovered. 



J. Q. Smith — As I am one of the largest apiarists in 

 Central Illinois, I have had considerable experience with 

 the road commissioners in regard to sweet clover. They 

 used to cut it twice a year, but they found out my bees were 

 getting some benefit by that act. They have cut it three 

 times this year, and I had a conversation with one of them, 

 and was trying to explain to him it was not a noxious weed. 

 He said, "You can't tell me that. If I am driving any- 

 where in my buggy, or with my team, and see a stalk of 

 sweet clover, if I haven't anything to cut it with, I get out 

 and pull it up." I replied, " I am going to keep you pull- 

 ing sweet clover ; it has come to stay, and it must stay." 



Mr. France — I think that was a wise suggestion from 

 this side of the house, that we distribute at large this infor- 

 mation ; but there are other points in Mr. Moore's valuable 

 paper that are well worthy our consideration. Have bee- 

 keepers' rights besides those pertaining to sweet clover? 



Mr. Smith — I believe it would be well to get a copy of 

 an article on sweet clover, and each bee-keeper have his 

 local paper publish it. I am willing to pay for the space in 

 my local paper to have it publisht. That is, in the weekly 

 papers that go out thru the country, and have the farmers 

 read it. I believe it would be one of the best facilities we 

 could have. 



Pres. Root — That is a good suggestion. 

 R. Rodenberger — I wish to inquire if there is any use 

 that can be made of the seed ? If so, if the farmers would 

 learn that, they would raise it for the value of the seed. I 

 think there would be a chance for some one to make some 

 money out of it. If this matter was brought up by those 

 who are farmers, in our farmers' institutes, I think they 

 could educate the farmers in regard to sweet clover so they 

 would not class it as a noxious weed when they learn the 

 use of it. 



C. H. Coon— I know how valuable sweet clover seed is. 

 Some J'ears ago, in the citj' of Cleveland, I bought a peck 

 and paid S3. 00 for it. I took it home and sowed it in differ- 

 ent places. I can't get a stem of it to grow. I have gathered 

 it since then in Kankakee Co., 111., by the side of the road, 

 and sown it in my section [Ohio], and I can't get a bit of it 

 to grow. My wife put a little of it in a flower-pot in the 

 house and babied it, and she got it to grow a little spindling 

 plant, but it didn't survive the winter. Thruout Ashtabula 

 county we are not bothered by road commissioners destroy- 

 ing it. I tried my best to get it to grow, but I can't do it. 

 If Dr. Mason, or anybody else, can give me a little instruc- 

 tion how to raise sweet clover, I would like to have him 

 give it. 



A Member — When did you plant it ? 



Mr. Coon — The time I gathered the seed. Nature 

 seemed to indicate that that was the time to sow it. I have 

 sown it in the spring of the year : I have sown it all thru 

 the year — in June when the supervisors were working the 



road( and the soil was fresh. I have sown it a good many 

 times ; I have taken the seed along and scattered it where 

 the soil was fresh ; I have sown it with my grass-seed in 

 the fall of the year ; I have .sown it in the spring of the 

 year also when I sowed my clover seed. I have given to 

 my neighbors out of that peck, and they have put it in with 

 grass-seed, but never could get it to grow. I have seen it 

 growing in Pennsylvania right in the sand where it appar- 

 ently would not grow. I have seen it growing there four 

 feet high, and I have seen it growing in Kankakee Co., 111., 

 in black soil. 



Pres. Root — You don't see it growing in your county at 

 all? 



Mr. Coon — Except occasionally, right in a flower-bed. 



H. L,athrop — I have just been visiting two weeks in 

 Auglaize Co., Ohio ; I savp some nice sweet clover growing 

 right along the roadside. 



August J. Hintz — There is one thing I wish to say 

 about sweet clover that has not been toucht upon ; that is, 

 it fertilizes the ground. Six years ago I had a piece of 

 land near Denver, Colo. There was a piece of sweet clover 

 there that had been growing two years, and I had that 

 plowed about six or seven inches deep, and raised straw- 

 berries, and for years after that they were on that patch. 

 Then as many as four years afterward sweet clover would 

 come up. I was on the place last year, four years after the 

 seed was plowed up, and it still came up ; it fertilized the 

 ground even where there was manure. Put on sand it 

 would produce a better crop of strawberries than where 

 they used horse-manure. I am surprised that Mr. Coon 

 could not get it to grow. By sowing the seed in the fall the 

 frost will crack the seed. If I sow it in the spring I can't 

 get it to grow. In the fall I can get it to grow almost any- 

 where, where alfalfa or anything else will grow. 



J. L. Anderson — In a patch that I have, in northern 

 Illinois, scattered on top of the ground in October two years 

 ago, it stands as high as your head now. 



Pres. Root — We will next listen to the subject to be 

 handled by Mr. R. A. Burnett, the honey-dealer, on 



TRIALS OF THE COMMISSION MAN. 



I am here because you have a smart president. It is 

 quite a while since I have been before a bee-keepers' con- 

 vention, and I have managed to get out of it pretty well 

 until this time, and it is only fair that I should state, to 

 begin with, that the subject upon which I am expected to 

 address you is not one of my own choosing. Your presi- 

 dent managed to get out his program, get it on the press, 

 and then send me a copy, and said that if I couldn't, or 

 wouldn't, or something to that effect, that I would have to 

 telegraph my declination. I felt it would be rather unkind 

 of me to do that, so I am going to try to make the best of 

 this. 



I suppose one of the trials of the commission man is 

 that all the producers of honey don't send him their goods. 

 Another one might be, that instead of the commission man 

 before you to tell of the trials of that business, you could tell 

 him a whole lot of the trials you have with him. I think it 

 was a little bit wise, perhaps, that our friend who has ex- 

 plained the law should precede me, so that in case you get 

 into trouble with what I have to say, you know your rem- 

 edy. The trials of a commission man are the trials of you 

 all ; and manj' trials that we have arise largely thru ignor- 

 ance, and we, who may be the consignors, do not under- 

 stand how to get merchandise in such shape that it will 

 please the buyers. That, we might say, was the beginning 

 of our difficulties on that side ; if the commission man un- 

 dertakes to educate his patron, he must do it with lots of 

 circumspection. The chief idea with the ordinary consignor 

 is that if he gets his honey into the hands of a commission 

 merchant the latter must do the rest ; that is, he must get 

 the top price for the kind of honey he sends. The shipper 

 may see that honey is quoted at IS cents a pound, and he 

 knows of some others that have obtained that ; and if he 

 doesn't get it, whj', of course, there is something wrong, 

 and there is no doubt that, as a rule, that is true — there is 

 something wrong. 



I will cite a case or two that came up within the 

 last few days, so that the moss has not grown over them yet. 

 A small consignment of beeswax— and I think the shipper 

 may be in the audience, as he wrote me he expected to come 

 on the proceeds of it — sent it in after ascertaining how the 

 market was, and when we came to examine it, we found it 

 had a greasy condition about it ; iflookt to us very much as 

 if there was tallow in it — at least tallow had been used in 

 the pans to get it out. We found a white spot in one of the 



