Junk, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



481 



Let me now put in a word in regard to 

 " demand and supply " of honey. My good 

 neighbor, Mr. Abbott, wlio has o\er 1000 

 chickens, and more than half of them are 

 laying hens, 'delivers his eggs to families; 

 and as he is also sometliing of a beekeeper 

 he carries honey along. Well, he has been 

 selling a 3-lb. jar of honey for 25 cents — 

 that is, for the honey alone, for he gets the 

 jar back on the next trip. Another bee- 

 keeper living across tlie river gets 10 cts. 

 per lb., or 30 cts. for the contents of the 

 fruit- jars. Another friend, Mr. Reddout, 

 from York State, brought a lot of honey 

 from his northern home. This honey was a 

 vei*y fine article of almost \nn-e white-clo\ er 

 honey. He sold only 2 lbs. for a quarter. 

 I remonstrated a little 

 with Mr. Abbott for 

 selling it so low. He 

 replied that the people 

 had got used to having 

 3 lbs. for a quarter, 

 and they would not 

 pay any more. The 

 other neighbor, who 

 had been getting 10 

 cents, said he could, by 

 taking a little more 

 time, get 12^2", but he 

 had to stop and ex- 

 plain and argue the 

 matter; whereas at an 

 even ten cents the hon- 

 ey went right off, and 

 he could get home 

 quicker and get *to 

 work. Perhaps I 



should explain that Mr. Abbott's and Mr. 

 Reese's honey was produced in Florida, and 

 probably gathered mostly from scrub pal- 

 metto. Well, I have something else to add. 



One day when I was carrying some po- 

 tatoes into one of our gTooeries the grocer 

 held up a glass jai* of the " Airline " honey, 

 put up by the A, I. Root Co., Medina, Ohio. 

 Tliis honey was 25 cts. for one pound; but 

 it was put up in very attractive style, and 

 a little book about honey for cooking went 

 with it. The honey was purchased from us 

 by a wholesale grocery company in Tampa, 

 and they sent our Bradentown grocer a 

 sample case to try. Now, in the case of 

 both the potatoes and honey in the above 

 incident, the way in which they were put up 

 and presented to the public had much to do 

 with the price received. The potatoes we 

 offered were almost all, if not every one, 

 perfect. There were no cut or worm-eaten 

 ones; but when we bought some old potatoes 

 shipped down from the North, Mi-s. Root 

 says she has been sometimes obliged to cut 



off and thi'cw away almost half of them. 

 Tliere would be cuts of the hoe or fork — 

 holes cut in them by wire-worms or grubs, 

 or scab, or something of that sort. But in 

 putting up my bright clean Red Triumphs 

 I sorted out every potato having a bad 

 spot in it ; and Mrs. Root cut out the spots 

 and boiled them up for the chickens. I 

 might mention here that all potatoes that 

 were deemed too small for even seconds 

 were also given to the chickens. In fact, 

 Wesley, when digging by hand, saves every 

 little potato, even tho it be not much larger 

 than a grain of corn. Perhaps I sliould 

 mention here that after Wesley digs a hill 

 of potatoes he gathers up the tops and 

 buries them out of sight right in the place 



The sample of potatoes that sold for a dollar a peck during April, 1917. 



where he took the potatoes out. This leaves 

 the ground clean of trash, and oftentimes 

 we plant another crop of potatoes or corn 

 in the valley between the rows the very day 

 and sometimes the very hour the jjotatoes 

 are taken out; and as this spot between the 

 rows had a dressing of fertilizer when the 

 potatoes were half grown, the new crop 

 comes on with " a good send-off." 



Perhaps it may be well to tell you that the 

 potatoes I carried up to the two groceries 

 in Bradentown during the month of April 

 amounted to something like a hundred dol- 

 lars, besides what I got from the first crop 

 before the frost killed them. With the 

 brush shown in the picture above, the new- 

 potatoes are very quickly made ready to be 

 dumped into boiling water. 



SOMETHING ABOUT CHICKENS. 



I told you in our last issue about how 

 those little potatoes satisfied the growing 

 chicks and started the adult hens to laying. 

 By the way, that brood of 80 chicks became 



