THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



139 



as was received in San Francisco. A great 

 deal of difficnlty is encountered by the way 

 the C. P. K. R. do business. Though they 

 understand thoroughly the very great 

 damage cei'tain to occur to a car load of 

 honey by its being transferred from one car 

 to another en route, they will not guarantee 

 its through shipment, as they do with fruit. 

 They will not afford any warehouse room, 

 even for a niglit; the honey must be taken 

 from the wharf the day it is unloaded, and 

 must be loaded into a car standing on a side 

 traclv as it is hauled. If they do not happen 

 to have a car ready and belonging to the 

 city where the honey is destined to go, the 

 shipper miist store it somewhere, and re- 

 haul it, or run the risk of its being ruined 

 by transferring from one car to another. 

 The rates of freight are exorbitantly high, 

 a car load of wool, for instance, being 

 transported to N. Y. for about one-half the 

 charge on a car load of honey. These diffi- 

 culties should be met in some way, either 

 by a more favorable arrangement with the 

 K. R. Co., or by procuring warehouse facili- 

 ties near the railroad or steamship com- 

 pany's warf. 



Possibly, if our Association does a larger 

 business in forwarding honey, we may ob- 

 tain more consideration. The style of 

 packing honey in the cars, invented by Mr. 

 Harbison and used by our agent, is an ex- 

 cellent and safe one. We have a further 

 difliculty to contend with in tlie unloading 

 and transporting of our honey at its desti- 

 nation, and to guard against injury there, I 

 took pains to fully impress upon all com- 

 mission men, and others to whom we might 

 ship, the importance of very careful hand- 

 ling. In fact the liability of comb honey to 

 injury in transporting it any distance is one 

 of our greatest difficulties, and is a strong 

 argument in regard to what I will refer to 

 further on, i.e. the advisability of fostering 

 a market for extracted honey. These are 

 some of the difficulties attending the ship- 

 ping of our product, and most of them can 

 be lessened by co-operation among our- 

 selves, for by concentration of business we 

 obtain respect and consideration. 



The next and most important considera- 

 tion is to sell our honey at a good price. 

 This was not difficult when tiie amount pro- 

 duced was small, but now that it is so large 

 and rapidly increasing it is very important 

 to extend our markets, to put it for sale 

 where it is not known, and to procure, as 

 customers, people who can appreciate a 

 good and pure article. 



Formerly, every farmer througli the coun- 

 try made a few ciieeses. These were traded 

 to country dealers, and by them to whole- 

 sale dealers, but tliere was no system or 

 uniformity. Now, great factories make 

 cheese in immense quantities, of a uniform 

 size and quality, and supply foreign and 

 home markets. A few years ago farmers 

 kei^t a few hives of bees. Honey in all 

 qualities and conditions was sold or traded 

 to country dealers, and collected by whole- 

 sale dealers, v/ithout order or system. It is 

 only very lately that men have engaged ex- 

 clusively in producing honey in large quan- 

 tities, probably no other man in the world 

 having raised in one year as much as Mr. 

 Harbison, of our county, his crop the past 

 year approximating 100 tons. It now be- 

 comes necessary to do, as was done in the 

 cheese trade— extend our markets. 



Another evil has attended our sales the 



past year. Through want of co-operation, 

 our producers have shipped in small quanti- 

 ties to persons who did not understand the 

 trade. They have handled it carelessly, 

 competed unnecessarily with one another, 

 crowded it on an unwilling market, and in 

 various ways lowered the price. A far bet- 

 ter way is to employ a good, reliable agent 

 to sell on commission in each large city, 

 with the understanding that he shall supply 

 the market in that place, and so avoid in- 

 jurious competition. 1 made it my business 

 the past fall to find such men, and have 

 made arrangements with one in each of the 

 large cities, for whose ability and integrity 

 I have ample guarantees. 



The system adopted by our Association 

 of careful repacking, grading, and marking 

 with reliable certificates, meets with favor 

 and appreciation among dealers, who will 

 be able,as soon as our system is understood, 

 to sell by sample, saving the time and in- 

 jury to the honey by opening every case for 

 inspection. 



It is unquestionable that good extracted 

 honey is the purest and best form in which 

 it can be eaten, and when the public can 

 become convinced that extracted honey 

 shipped from here is a pure article, it will 

 be preferred to comb honey. The honey we 

 ship is perfectly pure, it can be raised here 

 at a less price than it could be manufactur- 

 ed for. On each package of comb honey 

 the tare is 14 lbs., as at present calculated, 

 or, at 3c. per & freight, 42c. per box of about 

 .56 lbs. net of honey, or over 4-.5 of a cent 

 per lb dead loss. On a cask holding 20 gall, 

 the tare is 20 lbs., at oc. per ft is 50c., or 

 about l-5c. per ft on 280 lbs. net of honey; 

 so that on each net ton of comb honey ship- 

 ped we pay $!12 more freight than on a ton 

 of extracted honey. It is the testimony of 

 those who have tried it, that fully double 

 the amount of honey can be made from the 

 same number of bees, by the use of the ex- 

 tractor. This, combined with the saving in 

 freight, shipping boxes, breakage of comb, 

 etc., will enable us to put extracted honey 

 on the market at a much less price than 

 comb honey, and realize for ourselves as 

 good a return for our labor. It is the ex- 

 perience of the world that cheapening the 

 price of any article increases the demand, 

 and if we can get our extracted honey be- 

 fore the public all over the world, on its 

 merits as a good and pure article, at a price 

 much lower than comb honey has hitherto 

 sold, we shall have no difficulty in disposing 

 of all we can raise. 



I woukl urge upon all interested in apiar- 

 ian pursuits, the necessity of co-operation; 

 intelligent efforts at improvement in pro- 

 ducing and shipping our product economi- 

 cally; honest and fair dealing; and that 

 hearty and cordial mutual assistance so 

 much needed at the commencement of a 

 new enterprise. Rely upon it that narrow- 

 minded jealousy and unnecessary competi- 

 tion will injure us each and all, while 

 cordial co-operation will relieve our present 

 depressed condition and make the produc- 

 tion of honey one of the most profitable oc- 

 cupations in which we can engage, while 

 populating and rendering useful large areas 

 of country otherwise barren and unsettled. 

 Chas. J. Fox. 



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