774 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Dec. 4, 1902. 



eastern cities, and I am glad that our friend from down on 

 the Big- Muddy has given us just the information that we 

 wanted : he has told us how intensely hot it is, and it is get- 

 ting hotter and hotter down there. Surely, that is the 

 place to liquefy honey ; I turn to my friend from Chicago, 

 and my friend from St. Joe, who are in such a hot place 

 already that they can't carry a package of granulated 

 honey in a paper-bag without it running all over. How 

 -will it be when they put one of those glass things in their 

 pocket, and when that fellow that you hear and read about 

 so much begins to get after them, and they get to sailing 

 around the corner, and whack it against something hard, I 

 guess it will be running all over, too. They forget it takes 

 in the neighborhood of ISO degrees to liquify honey, and it 

 ■doesn't get so hot in this country, nor it doesn't get so hot 

 in many of the towns and cities where 1 send my honey. 



I want to tell you what I did last year. I packed in 

 lard-pails over 20,000 pounds of extracted honey, let it candy 

 slightl}', and I want to tell you that now, and for about six 

 months, I have not been able to supply my customers ; my 

 own town is without honey ; my customers in towns and 

 cities all around the country are without honey ; I have 

 reached out into a field, as I indicated in my paper, which 

 is as wide as the commercial world, and because there is 

 nobody in the field. I notice that my friend from Fort Col- 

 lins, and another from Longmont, and a good many others, 

 are beginning to fall in line ; the people from that hot 

 country have been talking to me and admiring those paper- 

 bags. I went back a bit ago to find a sample bag without 

 honey in it. I brought in several, but I don't know what 

 has become of them ; I guess they have gone off to Chicago 

 or St. Joe, and the next thing you will hear about them put- 

 ting up honey there in that shape. ' 



Now, this is a practical question, it is a question ever3'- 

 one of you is interested in. I know just as well as you 

 know that when you produce extracted honey — I am talk- 

 ing to producers— and put it up in 5-gallou cans, and under- 

 take to sell that honey and get living prices out of it, you 

 can't do it. You may sell a limited amount to your store- 

 keeper, and he will lay the can up on his desk or on a box 

 or something, and he will unscrew the top and run out a 

 little and spill a lot of it, and you will sell him two or three 

 times ; after that how much will you sell him ? Just what 

 he can sell in the original package, because he will not re- 

 tail it if he has to draw it out from the can, and it is only a 

 little while till it has candied. A few days ago there was a 

 German came into my honey-house, and lie had gotten some 

 honey I had melted a few days before, but when he came 

 back for the second lot that honey was candying, and when 

 I took out some of it and showed him, he said, '• No, no ; I 

 don't want that ; you put tlour in that ; you mix flour in it." 

 And another one said, " You mix lard in it." Just a little 

 bit of talk, and a little bit of persuasion, showed them that 

 it was honey; they took it and went home, and came back 

 and bought again. 



In my own town, in my own market, the retailers, the 

 groceryraen, do not want honey in liquid shape ; they want 

 it candied, and they want it in a package : they can just 

 hand it out, and there is just so much profit on each pack- 

 age. There is no leakage ; and this honey, when it is can- 

 died solid (speaking of the honey I produce, and the honey 

 others produce in this country), is hard, and if you put it in 

 a paper-bag you could stick it in your pocket and go around 

 the corner just as fast as you want to, and it won't leak ; it 

 will leave the surface of the honey, where the paper touches 

 it, smoother than would be the skin of a sausage ; that is 

 how it comes out. It is a fact, if I would send my honey 

 down to that Irishman who publishes the American Bee 

 Journal in Chicago, he would pay me a price that would net 

 me about four cents a pound. Isn't that about right ? 



Mr. York — I'd pay you more than that. 



Mr. Aikin—Just now you will ; and the same if I send 

 it to the other city. This man in St. Joe wouldn't do a bit 

 better. Yet, I have been selling my honey in lard-pails 

 and paper-bags, and almost anything that will hold it, and 

 getting from one to three cents a pound more than they 

 will get me for the same product. 



Now, producers, each one of you wants to follow my 

 advice, and do not pay any attention to what that man told 

 you, but put up your honey in the package that will get you 

 the most money, and get it to the consumers in the shape 

 that will be the easiest for them to carry home at the least 

 expense. 



As to this package here (Mr. York's), I didn't say one 

 ■word in my paper against putting it up in this shape for 

 any trade that demands it in that way. There is a place 

 ior it ; there are people who will pay more for that because 



it looks nice, and because there is not one, perhaps, out of 

 this whole audience could pay the same price for it. Some 

 people glory in paying more for a thing than the thing 

 costs — than you and I can pay for it — but there is a great 

 horde of people all over this country, east, west, north and 

 south, that do not know what honey is. Mr. York told you 

 about it ; he said our honey would hardly make a single 

 grain to each one of the population of this country. 



Mr. York — For the Irishmen, you mean. 



Mr. Aikin — The Irishmen. There is a vast amount of 

 people in this country who want honey so that they can use 

 it. but if you put it up in this shape they couldn't buy it. 

 Why? In the first place, theif salary won't allow them to 

 do it ; and they will turn around on the other side of the 

 counter here, and there is a bag of granulated sugar ; they 

 will take home 25 cents worth of granulated sugar, and 

 they will put a little water in it, put it on their cakes and 

 eat it, and your honey and glasses will stand on the shelves. 

 That is true in the towns and cities all over our country. 

 There is a vast population that will use the goods if it is at 

 a price that they can consume it ; and I have put goods of 

 my own packing in lard-pails, and candied, into the city of 

 Omaha and sold it there, and I am selling honey to-day, or 

 would be if I had it (I am sorry to say I can't do it this year), 

 I could sell it anywhere between here and the Mississippi 

 River; and my customers are writing me almost daily to 

 know when I am going to send them some more of that 

 honey. And so it goes. 



The market is before you, if you will only take advan- 

 tage of it ; but you can't sell to those people in S-gallon 

 cans or barrels, because you can't get to them except at a 

 price five times what sugar will cost them, and then it be- 

 comes decidedly a luxury, and sells just as I have indicated 

 in my paper. 



J. A. Green — Like Mr. Aikin, I am on the ridge-pole, 

 but Mr. Aikin appears to have gotten oft' on one side, and I 

 am on both sides. I have sold honey extensively, and I 

 have observed the market, and I can tell you that there is a 

 market where it would be useless to attempt to sell honey 

 in any other than such a package as that on the desk there 

 (Mr. York's) ; such a package as that is attractive, and it is 

 small, and people will buy it for those reasons when you 

 couldn't induce them to look at candied honey in a tin-pail 

 or a paper-bag. That jar is useful after the honey is taken 

 out, and many people will take account of that, and they 

 will pay more for it on that account. 



Now, I have sold a great deal of honey in pails, and I 

 have experimented somewhat with it in paper, and un- 

 doubtedly in some places there is a demand for it. Mr. 

 Aikin has told us that there is, and it is undoubtedly true, 

 and I just want to emphasize a little more what Mr. Cogg- 

 shall has told, and what Mr. Aikin has said in regard to Mr. 

 Abbott. If you produce a good article of extracted honey, 

 you can get it candied so dry and hard that you could 

 wrap it up like a bar of soap, or anything of the kind, and 

 carry it home without any danger of it ever melting or 

 breaking ; you get a good, ripe article of extracted honey, 

 and when you think it is beginning to granulate then stir it 

 up well and run it through the honey-gate while it is in 

 that condition ; let it go as far as it will go so that it will 

 run well, then run it into your packages, and it will be hard, 

 and white, and dry. I know this, because at one time I ex- 

 perimented extensively with a view to putting it up as con- 

 fectionery, as caramels, and I found the only objection to 

 doing that was the need of some machinery to do it cheaply 

 enough. I could put it up and it would be just as hard as 

 caramel in the candy-store. 



REVISINQ THE CONSTITUTION. 



Mr. Abbott — I would like to make an amendment. Be- 

 fore I make it I will read a section of the Constitution : 

 " This Constitution may be amended by a majority vote of 

 all members voting, providing notice of the said amend- 

 ment has been given at the previous meeting." It does not 

 require any discussion or anything of that kind. I desire 

 to give notice now that Article IV, Section 1, will be 

 amended, or an amendment to it will be offered as follows : 

 " And no member of the Board shall hold any other office 

 in the Association, and no State shall have more than one 

 Director; in all cases when the vote shows that more than 

 one Director from any State has been elected, the one who 

 receives the highest number of votes shall be declared the 

 Director for said State, and the vacancy shall be filled by 

 the Board selecting the one who receives the next highest 

 number of votes who lives in a State not represented on the 

 Board at that time." Article V, Section 8, will be amended 

 so as to read as follows — the last clause : " For any cause 



