THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 305 



and so he cannot afford to pay very much for it. Suppose we have 

 three grades — No. 1, Choice and Fancy, and these weigh net per 

 case of twenty-four sections — 18, 21 and 51 pounds, the wholesale 

 dealer selling them at 12, 14 and ITc per lb. The retailer could sell 

 bi^ the comb — the number one at twelve cents, and would have to 

 sell the choice at IT^^c and the fancy at 20c to make the same profit 

 per case. Of course there is in actual trade all kinds of prices and 

 all kinds of profits. A great deal of honey has sold the past season 

 at retail for 2.5c per pound, and now that I am writing about buying 

 and selling I want to commend the article commencing on page 47 

 for February, 1913. 



I have had considerable experience along the same lines, h?.\ing 

 dealt with commission men much of the past forty years and know 

 that he tells the truth; indeed, he hews so close to the mark that I 

 do not wonder that he wants his name withheld. This article alone 

 is worth to the inexperienced bee-keeper the cost of the membership 

 fee to the National for several, I might say, many years. 



I remember one instance in which I wished to buy a certain 

 class or grade of extracted honey and found one market where the 

 price quoted in our bee journals was rather low. I wrote inquiring 

 if they could supply me and got a prompt reply that they had none 

 to sell at the prices quoted, as they took all that came themselves. 

 x*\nother article which we have had to buy I have tried to get 

 somewhere near quotations, but have, I believe, paid in nearly 

 every instance several cents a pound more than the price quoted. 

 A farmer was telling me some time ago how he got up a choice 

 herd of Jersey cows and nroduced a very fine article of butter, but 

 on sending to the city failed to get from his commission merchant 

 a very satisfactory price. Wondering what the trouble was he took 

 a train and went to his commission man as a buyer. He was 

 shown various grades of butter, but none of them suited him. He 

 wanted a very choice article. He was then taken around into a 

 cnol room, where he fcund a quality to suit him with a price to suit 

 the quality. He also found his own marks on the package of butter 

 when he was ready to introduce himself to ]Mr. Commission Mer- 

 chant, and tell him that if there were laws in the state of Vermont 

 or ^vlassachusetts bearing on the case he should proceed to put 

 them in force unless the merchant settled up. The merchant, think- 

 ing discretion the better part of valor, settled. 



Now there are commission merchants true as steel and I have 

 had the pleasure of doing business with some of them. Then there 

 are commission men and wholesale dealers and jobbers, and retail 

 dealers, who, so far as I have been able to judge them, are some 

 times all combined into one firm and, being wholesale dealers, they 

 do not hesitate to sell to themselves as wholesale merchants, and 



