THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 347 



of hcney and feeding, if feeding has to be done, a'ou are ttre man 

 who has to pay the bills. If you succeed in harvesting a crop, then 

 you are the one who is entitled to the profits. Are you getting the 

 profits, or are you shipping your honey to a city, paying heavy 

 freight rates and commissions and waiting for your returns, while 

 your home market remains unsupplied? If you are, it is time you 

 should investigate the possibilities of your home market. Did you 

 say, "I am not a salesman." Perhaps you are not, neither were you 

 a bee-keeper until you learned step by step. If you would devote 

 the same time, the same energy, and the same persistency to selling 

 the crop as you did to learn how to handle your bees, you would 

 soon establish a good paying home trade, and there is no better time 

 to begin than right now when the price of butter is so high, because 

 most children, if given the choice between honey and butter, will 

 say, "Give me honey." The writer has built up paying home trades 

 in three vastly different localities, and in doing so has learned many 

 valuable little kinks, or I might say tricks, of the trade. 



Hoping that they may benefit those who intend to, or are al- 

 ready taking care of their home trade, I will name a few of them 

 under the head of "Dont's," giving my reason for the same. 



Don't imagine that any old thing will do for a container. There 

 is no one thing that I know that will create a worse impression with 

 a prospective buyer than a dirty, nasty, sticky package, and that is 

 just what any package soon becomes when it leaks. Choose a nice 

 jar that can be made air and honey tight. Buy the jars back when 

 empty, of course at a little less than they cost you. I find that it 

 pays, because when you call for the jars it generally means another 

 sale. 



Don't turn your honey over to a groceryman and im.agine that 

 your troubles are ended. An ordinary salesman can sell more honey 

 in a week's time than the combined stores of your town will dis- 

 pose of in a month. You do not need to look far for the reason. 

 The honey salesman is selling just one article he has an interest in, 

 pushing the sales of that article, but with the groceryman, honey is 

 only one of the many articles he has for sale, otherwise tlie honey 

 remains in some out of the way corner until granulated. 



Don't cut prices in order to get what you consider 3'our share 

 of the trade. Remember the other fellow can, and very likely 

 would, cut his prices to undersell you. If your competitor is not a 

 bee-keeper, you already have one advantage that he can not over- 

 come. The public will always buy their honey direct from a bee- 

 keeper if they can. If your rival is also a bee-keeper, just try to sell 

 a little better grade of honey, put up in a neater package, be a little 

 more polite and prompt with your customers, and then see who 

 wins. 



