AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



13 



After signing a release and loading 

 and unloading his own honey, the bee- 

 keeper is charged double the rates he 

 ought to pay by these servants of the 

 people. 



A recent ruling, which compelled the 

 shipper to cover the glass, that has been 

 used for a score of years, chiefly to 

 secure more careful handling, is a fair 

 sample of the treatment we receive. 



This Association should vigorously pro- 

 test against this unwarranted interfer- 

 ence with our rights, and a committee 

 should be appointed to work diligently 

 until reduced rates and better treatment 

 are secured. We have had such a com- 

 mittee in our State Association, but we 

 need a united effort throughout the coun- 

 try. 



3. Lack of uniformity of packages and 

 grading is a barrier to a proper distribu- 

 tion. What is accepted in one market is 

 not in another. Put up the honey to 

 meet the demands of the market to 

 which it is sent, has been the advice. 

 This sounds too much like the cry of the 

 sensational or Sunday newspaper man, 

 who says "we publish what the people 

 demand," and the paper gets down lower 

 and lower all the time. The people are 

 not always the best judges of their 

 needs, and often have to be educated. 



Starting with the two-pound box, 

 glassed, we have successfully met and 

 catered to the demand for one-pound 

 sections, glassed and unglassed, full 

 weights and light weights, paper cartons 

 and pasteboard boxes, wood and mica 

 sides, thick (2-inch) boxes and thin 

 boxes, 1%, l^downto IJ^-inch, square 

 boxes and tall boxes, until there is the 

 greatest diversity in packages, and it is 

 difficult for a dealer to duplicate an 

 order for any quality, unless it is from 

 the same consignment. The producer 

 has wasted his substance in continual 

 changes, and, like the sensational editor, 

 has been but a puppet to a senseless de- 

 mand. 



We should adopt a standard, and if 

 glassed honey looks better, carries bet- 

 ter and keeps better, why not gradu- 

 ally enlarge the production of this kind, 

 and, if possible, educate the consumer to 

 buy honey in the standard box, or "sec- 

 tion." 



I have this year had calls for glassed 

 honey from the West, and yearly the 

 demand for this kind is increasing in the 

 East. 



In the reduction of duty on sugar, no 

 bee-keeper, to my knowledge, was con- 

 sulted, and fearing that, in the con- 

 templated treaty between this country 

 and Spain we might again be over- 



looked, I consider it my duty as an 

 elected representative of the bee-keep- 

 ing interests of this country, to address 

 a protest early in the year to the State 

 Department against the free admission 

 of honey from Cuba. A copy of the let- 

 ter is here appended : 



Starkville, May 14, 1891. 

 Hon. James O. Blaine, State Department, 

 Washington, D. C. 



Mr. Secretary:— Information reaches 

 me that this country and Spain will 

 probably agree upon a treaty of reci- 

 procity. With such probabilities ahead, 

 I desire to be informed, as representative 

 of the bee-keeping industry, whether 

 honey is upon the free list. If so, I 

 wish at this early day to enter an em- 

 phatic protest against any change in the 

 tariff. 



The conl^mplated removal of the duty 

 on honey in the Spanish American treaty 

 a few years since was met by a most 

 emphatic protest from the 300,000 bee- 

 keepers of the United States of Amer- 

 ica. Much better reason have they now 

 for protesting, since the great reduction 

 in the price of cane-sugar, the chief 

 competitor of liquid or strained honey. 



The removal of the duty on foreign 

 sugar was followed by a bounty to our 

 domestic sugar producers, even to the 

 producers of maple-sugar, which is 

 chiefly an article of luxury, and not a 

 competitor of cane-sugar in the manu- 

 factures as is "strained" honey. Our 

 legislators, who so kindly remembered 

 the sugar growers, entirely forget the 

 honey producers, whose product is but 

 sugar under another name. In the man- 

 ufacture of certain products honey is 

 superior to sugar, although not so much 

 superior but that we shall have to lower 

 present prices in many cases to avoid the 

 substitution of the inferior and cheaper 

 article. 



Now, to permit Cuban honey to enter 

 free, and still further reduce prices, 

 would be an act of injustice that could 

 hardly be forgiven. In fact, it is ques- 

 tionable whether our industry could 

 survive, unless it should be that limited 

 branch of it devoted to the production 

 of comb and liquid honey for table use. 

 Cuba is probably the finest honey produc- 

 ing country in the world, and capable 

 of producing on immense amount of 

 honey. So superior is it in this respect 

 that several of our most intelligent bee- 

 keepers have left all of the advantages 

 of their native land to engage in the pro- 

 duction of honey there. 



Our industry is still in its infancy, and 

 while we already produce many million 



