486 



AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



July 31. 1902. 



ket quotations on all kinds of country produce, which are 

 not specific enough. 



In every large city tViere are at least one or two commis- 

 sion merchants that make a specialty of honey-selling-, who 

 have a iioney-trade, and know how to handle, who know 

 what grades their customers want, and can generally place 

 honey at good prices ; while some dealer next door, not gen- 

 erally known as a honey-dealer, can't sell unless at a 

 slaughter price. 



Commission merchants in honey are as indispensable 

 to the honey-producer as commission merchants are to the 

 manufacturerof cottonor woolen, and aboutall manufactur- 

 ing industries. For their goods are nearly all sold by com- 

 mission merchants that know the trade and the wants of it 

 better than the manufacturers do. 



As in all lines of business, there are irresponsible com- 

 mission merchants that should be avoided, but it is a very 

 easy matter to find out the responsibility after you have 

 found a practical honey commission merchant. Go to any 

 bank and ask them to give you the financial rating, which 

 they can do in the mercantile agency book. There is no 

 excuse in these days for shipping to irresponsible commis- 

 sion merchants. 



It behooves a responsible commission merchant to do 

 his best for a consignment, for it is on his consignments he 

 has to depend for his supply of honey. It is quite impracti- 

 cable for the commission merchant to-day to buy his needed 

 supply of honey. He can not afford to spend his time 

 traveling the country over to buy, and to buy by sample is 

 generally unsatisfactory. 



The honey-producer should not begrudge the commis- 

 sion merchant his small commission of S percent, which is 

 usually well earned by the risk of credit the commission 

 merchant has to give ; the risk of delivery to his trade 

 ■safely; the risk of turning out as represented or shown, 

 and coming back after he has made account of sale to 

 the owner, etc. 



Regarding quotations being always reliable and sure. 

 that is impossible, for quotations, although based on actual 

 past sales, are somewhat problematical. Selling honey, 

 like all other produce, is governed more or less by circum- 

 stances. Some buyers are more bearish than others. It is 

 not always possible or practicable to hold to a rigid price, 

 but many times a small concession is advisable rather than 

 let a hard buyer go. 



It is not wise to quote honey too high, nor too low : bet- 

 ter err on the side of too high, for quotations are seen by 

 the buyer as well as the producer, and it is extremely diffi- 

 cult to sell above quotations. 



I would avoid consigning honey to any commission 

 merchant not strictly commission, or who bought honey 

 more or less, for it is quite according to nature for such to 

 sell their own purchased hotiey to the most favorable cus- 

 tomer and best-price-paying' customer, to the exclusion of 

 consignments on which they make only a small commission 

 compared with the profit they are making on their pur- 

 chased honey. 



It is quite the custom for bee-keepers, and they take a 

 natural pride in selling the finest selection of their honey 

 at home, or to some '• finicky " groceryman that sells but 

 little at best. The bee-keeper often in this %vay lowers the 

 average grade or quality of honey. He sends the balance 

 of his crop to commission merchants late in the season, and 

 is oftentimes disappointed in his returns. 



In selling honey, unless you sell at home for cash be- 

 fore shipping, you take much more risk than by consigning. 

 If you sell your honey delivered at a distant city, the buyer 

 is apt to be fastidious, and if he sees the least sign of drip, 

 or leaking, or out of condition, will refuse to accept it and 

 pay for it ; and if he doesn't pay you at all he can go into 

 bankruptcy and pay you nothing. While, on the other 

 tiand, if you consign the honey, and the commission mer- 

 chant doesn't pay, you can send him to jail for conversion 

 of property. When you consign honey a good plan is to 

 write promptly and ask the commission merchant to write 

 you on receipt of the honey, the condition it arrives in, and 

 what he thinks it will sell at : also to send you two-thirds 

 to three-fourths of its market value as an advance on the 

 consignment, which any responsible commission merchant 

 will readly do. 



There should be a better understanding prevailing be- 

 tween the honey-producer and the commission merchant 

 than there is. I do not understand why any party would 

 want you to quote markets incorrectly or under price, unless 

 they want to use the quotation to help them buy cheap in 

 the country. 



The quotations of honey in the various markets that 



you publish in the American Bee Journal must be a guide, 

 and of great value to the many bee-beepers, in helping 

 them to get a fair price from the home or country buyer. 

 The fact that these quotations are made and signed by re- 

 liable dealers is more or less of a guaranty. Of course, the 

 quotations must necessarily be somewhat expectant or 

 prospective, and the prices governed by the supply and 

 demand. 



It would be a gross injustice, and entirely against the 

 usuage of trade, to quote honey less than market. Your 

 market quotations signed by those who furnish them is 

 evidence with the witness furnished, whilequotations with- 

 out the authors' names is evidence without the witness. 



H. R. Wright. 



MARKET QUOTATIONS ARE FOR WHOLES.-^LK. 



Editor York : — We notice that in the closing para- 

 graph of your editorial on page 195, that you invite some of 

 us who quote the honey market in the columns of the 

 American Bee Journal to help enlighten " Rip Van Winkle. " 

 It would seem that there is little for us to do, for you have 

 made about as complete a setting forth of the other side of 

 the question as can well be done. We think that by the 

 time " Rip Van Winkle " has been 20 summers instead of 

 two summers bee-keeping in Cook County he may change 

 some of his ideas ; if not, he might as well " take another 

 sleep," and that, of course, might be considered selfish, as 

 it would tend to give the commission man a rest. But there 

 is just about as much rest for the commission man as there 

 is for the honey-bee when the How of nectar is on. He must 

 be " up and doing," or the labors of all concerned will fail 

 to bear the fruitage that they should. 



We do not know that that side of our life has been pre- 

 sented of late in any of the bee-papers, so we will call the 

 attention of those who send goods to be cared for, that the 

 commission merchant in the summer-time is at his place of 

 business at 5 o'clock, and he does well to get away by 6 or 7 

 o'clock in the evening. For many years the writer kept up 

 this pace, but now is not to be found on duty quite so early, 

 nor always quite so late, still some one else has to represent 

 him who has reached the maturer years. We find that the 

 old do not run as many miles in a day in rounding up the 

 affairs intrusted to him, but he often accomplishes as much 

 by the short cuts that he has learned by careful attention 

 to each day's experience, and thus he may be able to work 

 out in 10 hours quite as good results as he did formerly in 

 18, by aiding others younger with counsel, so that in 9 or 10 

 hours he has accomplished a full day's work, and is entitled 

 to the rest and recreation that a fairly well-spent life de- 

 serves. • 



Beginning with November the hours of the labor day 

 gradually shorten until about 6:30 or 7 is as early as most of 

 the stores open, but with April they begin to open at 5 to 6 

 o'clock in the morning for continuance during the summer. 



The prices given at the request of the editors of the 

 various bee-papers are for the figures obtainable for honey 

 in the wholesale way, and not for honey retailed by the case 

 or single package. There is in the Chicago market, as in 

 all other cities, wholesale dealers, some known as receivers 

 and others as jobbers ; the receiver is supposed, in selling to 

 a jobber, to get the market value of goods in lots, the job- 

 ber or wholesaler, on the other hand, varies his profits by 

 the amounts taken by the purchaser, as a man buying a 

 case of honey would not buy it quite as cheap as a man 

 buying 25 or 100 cases would— there would be a difl'erence 

 of anywhere from V cent to 1 cent per pound, according to 

 the nature of the goods and trade. 



Now, there are quite a number of so-called wholesalers 

 who buy from receivers in the manner already described, 

 and peddle it out as best they can from '4 to 1 cent per 

 pound profit, and their asking price is hardly ever their 

 selling price, so that any one going along the market and 

 pricing stuft' is almost certain to get the extreme figures 

 given in reply to his question ; but if he is a bonafide buyer 

 he will soon impress the salesman with that fact, and by 

 practicing the usual diplomacy will succeed in purchasing 

 for a little less than the original figure given (especially if 

 the would-be buyer and the salesman are strangers to each 

 other), for the day of bartering and haggling over prices 

 has not yet become obsolete in the produce markets, while 

 to a lare extent it has done so on the more permanent arti- 

 cles of trade, or those that are less liable to perish if not 

 sold within a very short time after they have been placed 

 on the market. A great many people find fault and say 

 that the price asked should be the price that the seller is 

 willing to take. In the abstract we quite agree with this 

 proposition, but if we wish to live in the practical, every- 



