236 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



If there is nothing- better in sig-ht 

 than to continue selling 1, 000, 000 pounds 

 of honey at $50,000, there is nothing- to 

 be g-ained by rising- up in wrath and 

 denouncing- the American Corn Prod- 

 uct Company for interfering- with the 

 bee-keepers' business. It is simply a 

 business proposition of raising- a cer- 

 tain amount of cash to spend in the 

 leg-itimate object of increasing- the sale 

 of the product of the apiary. 



I firmly believe that the American 

 bee-keeping: industries should combine 

 to carry on this large work of increas- 

 ing the consumption of their product. 

 They should not leave the sale and the 

 pushing of the sale entirely to the 

 middleman. As long as they do that, 

 they must sell their product at five 

 cents a pound, and make the consumer 

 pay twenty or twenty-five cents a pound 

 for honey. 



AN ORGANIZATION COULD BE FORMED 

 FOR ADVERTISING PURPOSES. 



I believe that an organization should 

 be formed under such a comprehensive 

 name as the American Bee-keepers' 

 Association, which would take in the 

 bee-keepers of Canada and Cuba, fix- 

 ing the price of membership in this 

 association at so much a colony, spring 

 count, each year. Five cents a colony 

 would be a small amount, and might 

 be sufficient to procure the funds neces- 

 sary to properly carry on the work of 

 such an organization. The first object 

 of such an orgaiiization should be to 

 get up a trademark, to be registered 

 in the United States Patent Office. 

 The second, to have printed a large 

 number of labels bearing this trade 

 mark, to be furnished to each member 

 of the association; third, to advertise 

 extensively the fact that the American 

 Bee-keepers' Association is furnishing 

 strictly pure guaranteed honey, at the 

 same price that inferior and injurious 

 syrups can be bought for, reproducing 

 in the advertisement the trade mark of 

 the American Bee-Keepers' Associa- 



tion, so that the public could look for 

 it just as they look for the name 

 "Karo" when they want to buy molas- 

 ses. This method would give the 

 public confidence in honey, which is 

 at the present time sadly lacking; at 

 least, it is lacking in this market, for 

 almost every person with whom I have 

 talked on the subject of buying ex- 

 tracted honey, did not want to bu}' it 

 at the grocery stores because they do 

 not believe that there is any honey in 

 it. 



FEAR OF ADULTERATION GREATLY LES- 

 SENS THE SALE OF HONEY. 



I believe that thousands of people 

 would buy honey who do not now buy 

 it, if they were sure that they were 

 getting real honey and not a mere mix- 

 ture of glucose and sugar syrup. 



The business end of the proposition 

 could onlj^ be worked out by having at 

 the head of the organization an ener- 

 getic business man, who has had 

 experience in extensive advertising, 

 and who has more than the average 

 quantity of brains. Such a man could 

 be found, but he could not be employed 

 at a trifling salary. 



ADVERTISING -WILL PUT UP THE PRICE 



Perhaps the foregoing outline will 

 give you an opportunity to do a little 

 figuring on the possible receipts and 

 expenditures of an organization such 

 as is set forth. I firmly believe that 

 the increased consumption of honey 

 that would result from such a course 

 of advertising, would make it possible 

 for the producers of honey to get a 

 better price for their product than they 

 are getting at the present time. Price 

 is a matter of supply and demand. 

 The object of advertising would be to 

 increase the demand, and I do not at 

 all doubt that the demand would be so 

 largely increased that the price of 

 honey would go up, and the increase 

 would go to the producer. 



Altoona, Penn. May 21,1904. 



