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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1. 



honey, and the government conkl put its stamp 

 on the package to show that the tax was paid ', 

 but how is the government to know that every 

 package is pure honey when so much disagree- 

 ment has been shown among the chemists who 

 have analyzed samples heretofore? Honey is 

 alreadv on the protective-tariff list, and now 

 we would have Uncle Samuel put his hand into 

 other people's pockets and take out their money 

 to give to us so much a pound because we are 

 producing a different kind of article from that 

 •which they produce. Our government can not 

 get money except by taxing, directly or in- 

 directly, the people; and every dollar paid 

 as a bounty on sugar is taken from the peo- 

 ple as a whole and given to a class who pro- 

 duce sugar. The hundred million or so a year 

 that is the government's share in the liquor- 

 business comes from those who drink it, and, in 

 consequence, hundreds of thousands of poverty- 

 stricken wives and children of drunkards are 

 deprived of food and clothing, and the other 

 necessaries of life, that the liquor-monopolists 

 and its powerful partner, " Uncle Samuel," may 

 fill their pockets, while the great proportion of 

 the remainder of the government's revenue is 

 derived from the consumers of the tariff-pro- 

 tected articles imported into the United States. 

 Now, again, I ask, by what principle of justice 

 can the government put its strong hand into 

 my pocket and take my money and (jlve to 

 somebody else because he is engaged in another 

 kind of business? I make some butter, as well 

 as produce some honey; and as prices have 

 been for a number of years, I have not netted 

 two per cent on the capital Invested, with labor 

 thrown in; please tell me why I should not 

 have a bounty of 5 cents per pound on my but- 

 ter; and then the men who produce pork, beef, 

 wheat, oats, potatoes, and, in fact, every prod- 

 uct of labor, should not have a bounty, for the 

 producers all say, and truly, that they can not 

 make reasonable profits on their business. A 

 man who desires the government to take other 

 people's money and gire to //im for no equiva- 

 lent is either very selfish orelse he has not look- 

 ed the matter over carefully; for it indisputa- 

 bly would be a violation of every principle of 

 justice. Let us use our efforts to get stringent 

 laws passed in all of the States against the 

 adulteration of honey, and then get, if we can, 

 executive officers elected who will not neglect 

 their enforcement; and that is the best we can 

 do. VoLNEv White. 



Findley's Lake, N. Y., Jan. 7. 



THE OBJECT OF A BOUNTY 

 EFITS. 



WHOM IT BEN- 



BOUNTY ON HONEY NOT DESIRABLE. 



I notice in the Jan. 1st issue of Gleanings a 

 letter by A. N. Draper, taking up the topic of a 

 bounty on honey, and treating from a point of 

 view that might for a while result more favora- 

 bly in some particulars to the producer of hon- 

 ey. (By the way, an outsider would naturally 

 draw the inference that Mr. D. is a producer of 

 the extracted article, as he says comb honey 

 needs no bounty.) As the question of the 

 bounty on sugar is understood in this part of 

 the country, the bounty is not primarily intend- 

 ed so much for the benefit of the party or par- 

 ties producing the sugar, though, of course, 

 that is where the benefit first alights; but it is 

 to foster and help the growth of an industry 

 that will be an infinite benefit to the country at 

 large. It is also supposed to act as an induce- 

 ment to timid capitalists to invest enormous 

 sums of money in factories for working up large 

 amounts of material into a product that the 



people have been sending their money abroad 

 for in vast amounts foi" many years past; the 

 idea being kept in sight at all times, that, in a 

 very few years, these plants or factories will 

 not only be self-sustaining, but that they will 

 return the money paid them in bounties by the 

 government much larger sums to the people in 

 the form of cheaper sugar. 



Now, honey is not a thing that the country in 

 general considers a nec<'ssity, neither is it a 

 thing that they should or would be willing to 

 be taxed to pay a bounty on for the benefit of 

 the producer. Honey-yjroducing is an industry 

 that has been developed pretty extensively for 

 a number of years, and that can stand on its 

 own bottom, with a little assistance in the 

 way of a tariff duty on the imported article, 

 which it already has. He says, further. " Let 

 the government stamp what honey is actually 

 produced in this countiy. and adulteration will 

 cease;" and likens honey-producing to whisky- 

 producing. Has the government ever paid a 

 bounty on the production of whisky ? If so, it 

 was before my time. Tiie stamps affixed to the 

 packages of whisky cost the producers of that 

 article quite a tidy sum, and I believe the gov- 

 ernment does not undertake to certify to the 

 purity or wiiolesomeness of any package to 

 which the stamp is attached; further, liquors 

 which Ijear government stamps and inspectors' 

 marks are popularly supposed to be as rank and 

 vile mixtures of adulterators as is possible for 

 them to concoct; at least, so we were taught by 

 the truly good prohibition brethren last cam- 

 paign in Nebraska, so there falls one of his 

 principal points. So long as learned chemists 

 pronounce pure honey from the bees as adulter- 

 ated with glucose, as has been done on several 

 occasions, so long must consumers take their 

 chances of a mixture; and so long as a cheaper 

 product can be mixed with the genuine honey, 

 to the financial advantage of the mixer, so long 

 will a mixture be on the market unless we get 

 in force a severe and stringent law punishing the 

 seller of a product that is sold for what it is not. 

 It is really too bad that Mrs. H.'s chances of 

 a crop are getting a trifie risky at Peoria be- 

 cause her field is covered by a city. It has 

 never been considered a function of the govern- 

 ment, however, to assume all risks in the busi- 

 ness ventures of its citizens, and guarantee 

 them a profit. I can see only one of two reme- 

 dies in her dilemma. She might persuade the 

 Peorians to go west and uncover her field, or, 

 failing in that, she might come out. possibly, 

 herself with her bees where we have many 

 broad fields yet uncovered by cities, and we 

 would make either Peoria or Mrs. H. awfully 

 welcome too. 



I am probably wi'ong, but it seems to me a 

 good deal disgusting— ilie howl that is ascend- 

 ing to the skies for something to be given to 

 this class and that. It seems to be getting to 

 be a mania to want to pull at the public teat in 

 some manner. Farmers want government to 

 build them warehouses in which to store their 

 crops: and not only that, but to give them the 

 money for their crops, and hold it till they can 

 starve those needing it into giving all they 

 choose to ask for it. Not only that, but, after 

 the government has given tnillions of farms to 

 the present owners, they now want the govern- 

 ment to let them have the worth of their farms 

 in money without interest, and keep their farms 

 too! Bee-keepers want other people to pay them 

 two cents for their honey, and allow them to 

 keep their honey. Sugar-men want two cents 

 per pound for all the sugar they can make. But 

 here is some return — they sell the sugar two 

 cents per pound cheaper than they did before 

 the bounty was granted, so there the people are 

 nothing out for their liberality, while in a few 



