38 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



February, 



pute all the honey produced in the 

 South? Are the progressive bee-keep- 

 ers of the South expected to accept Mr. 

 Muth's "experience" as compensation 

 for the annual losses resulting from the 

 absurd practice which he defends? Mr. 

 Muth should not assume that he holds a 

 monopoly upon "experience;" and we 

 predict that he will have had more ex- 

 perience when he has been in the busi- 

 ness longer that he now has. 



Mr. Muth tells us that " 'amber' and 

 'Southern' are trade terms, throughly 

 established, representing two distinct 

 characters of honey, and should not 

 be changed." If Mr. Muth will observe 

 very carefully he will discover the fact 

 that the latter trade term is not so 

 "thoroughly established" as it once 

 was. If he is progressive, he will readily 

 relinquish bad customs, though "thor- 

 oughly established" in earlier days, and 

 adopt the usages incidental to modern 

 advancement. In the days during 

 which this trade term became establish- 

 ed, we were without a honey ex- 

 change or any recognized system of 

 grading and quoting honey. "Trade 

 terms" established in those days are 

 necessarilv inadequate to present con- 

 ditions, and their continued use by a 

 very few dealers at this time tends not 

 to enhance the progressiveness of their 

 adherents in public estimation. 



In his fourth paragraph Mr. Muth 

 makes a wild shy. and goes after va- 

 garies which belong not to this genera- 

 tion. We beg to remind him that it is 

 a condition which concerns the imme- 

 diate present, in which we are interest- 

 ed, and which is under discussion. If 

 the South, as a whole, produced the 

 finest on earth, we should not want nor 

 expect that the product be quoted any 

 differently than the products of other 

 sections — that is, in accordance with es- 

 tablished customs of classifying differ- 

 ent grades; as, for example, "white," 

 "amber," *"dark," etc., the system al- 

 ready in vogue by the most progressive 

 dealers, producers and associations of 

 our country. Our efforts to correct an 

 erroneous and unjust habit with a very 

 few dealers, is not actuated by any per- 

 sonal motive. This journal has no sec- 

 tional interests; its home is in the 

 North, but it is pledged to serve the 

 interests of all American honey pro- 

 ducers, wherever located. Not to ex- 



ceed twenty per cent, of jts patrons are 

 located in the South, but no fair-mind- 

 ed producer in the North or West 

 would wish to see the gross injustice 

 to the progressive Southern bee-keep- 

 er, which Mr. Muth defends, continued 

 The South does, today, claim to pro- 

 duce honey that merits a olace beside 

 the best grades_ of the North and to 

 quote the most inferior products of the 

 slipshod bee-keeper as "Southern," is 

 an act that is wholly unwarranted, un- 

 fair and insulting. Mr. Muth will find 

 few sympathizers in any part of the 

 country, even among the dealers, we 

 believe and it is difficult to comprehend 

 his motive in standing alone in defense 

 of a practice which is without a single 

 commendable feature, and is so ob- 

 viously unjust to those for whom he 

 professes friendship. 



During the past season Mr. O. O. 

 Poppleton shiped to Mr. Muth's com- 

 pany something over sixty barrels of 

 honey. According to Mr. Muth's con- 

 cluding paragraph, "many big buyers" 

 would "refuse to buy" this honey, be- 

 cause of the poor packages used, lack 

 of care and the amount of foreign mat- 

 ter in it. For Mr. Muth plainly says 

 "many big buyers refuse to buy south- 

 ern honey," for the reasons stated; and 

 Mr. Poppleton's honey was certainly 

 "Southern." His final sentence con- 

 tradicts the preceding one. If "south- 

 ern" honey is dirty honey, it cannot be 

 marketed in first class_shape. 



Honey of a high and desirable grade 

 should be thus classified, regardless of 

 the section of the country from whence 

 it comes. The intermediate grades and 

 colors should be designated by a term 

 that will apply to similar grades the 

 country over. Inferior honey should 

 be given a- name that would fit it 

 wherever found, without needlessly re- 

 flecting upon first-class goods which 

 may have been marketed from the 

 same locality; and brother Muth, if he 

 proposes to remain in the business and 

 retain the respect and patronage of the 

 bee-keepers, might as well abandon the 

 old-fashioned ways which seem so near 

 and dear to him. There is no alterna- 

 tive. 



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