GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



c 



OUR FOOD PAGE 



Stanq? Puerden 



ur 



^^^^^^^^ 



774 



THE last 

 week of 

 August the 

 editors of 

 Gleanings cle- 

 lig-hted my heart 

 by s u ggesting 

 that I go to 

 Chicago to hear 



Herbert Hoover talk to editors and publish- 

 ers of farm journals. It didn't take me 

 long to decide that the garden, the canning, 

 the corn-drying, and even the children could 

 get along without me for a day or two. 



There were one hundred and twenty-six 

 farm journals represented at the meeting, 

 from twenty-four states, and the purpose 

 of the conference was to develop a closer 

 working relation between the Food Admin- 

 istration and the farm press. It was the 

 first time Mr. Hoover had left Washington 

 to make an address since he came to this 

 country to take charge of the Food Ad- 

 ministration work. He came in quietly, 

 just at the hour set, and, after shaking 

 hands with the representatives of the vari- 

 ous papers, began his talk. He stood lean- 

 ing slightly forward with the tips of his 

 fingers touching a table on which were his 

 notes, and spoke in a low voice, choosing 

 his words Avith great care. He is a modest- 

 appearing man, and one had the feeling 

 that he was most anxious not to be mis- 

 quoted. When he is looking down he looks 

 incredibly young to have had the responsi- 

 bility of'the greatest organized charity the 

 world, has ever known, for two years; but 

 when he raises his eyes they look tired and 

 very serious, and the man seems years older. 

 In this limited space I can touch on 

 only a few of the points he made. He told 

 us food problems would have arisen wheth- 

 ■ er our country had entered the war or not, 

 and that they are really easier of solution 

 now, as we can summon patriotism and de- 

 votion to our aid. 



He dwelt at length on the great need of 

 stimulation of production and reduction of 

 consumption and waste. He said, " Unless 

 we can keep the women and children of our 

 Allies fed, the western line of the war will 

 surely he thrown to our Atlantic Seaboard, 

 and it may he thrown to an infinitely more 

 dangerous quarter in the ransom^ of Canada 

 as penalty of England's defeat." He told 

 us that, in spite of promises of an abund- 

 ant harvest in the United States, our sup- 

 plies are going to be far below our combin- 

 ed necessities. Our exports to our Allies 

 this year must be mainly wheat, meat, 

 espeeially pork, and dairy products. We 

 must learn to us-^ substitutes from our 

 abundance of other products ourselves in 



1 



U. 



October, 1917 



Older to export 

 these concen- 

 trated foods. 



He talked in 

 a most interest- 

 ing way of the 

 purpose of the 

 Food Adminis- 

 tration to keep 

 prices reasonable, and on the other hand 

 see that the producer gets a fair profit. 

 It is also their object to eliminate specula- 

 tion in food, and he told us of many plans 

 with tliis in view. One thing he said which 

 I have not since seen in any published re- 

 port of his speech, and it was something 

 like this : " We are trying to equalize the 

 burden of this gi'eat war so that it will not 

 fall harder on one class than another." 



He believes that even if the war had not 

 come we were due in a few years for an 

 economic revolution, for our productive 

 cai^acity in food stuffs has fallen behind our 

 productive capacity in industry. To quote 

 him again, " If I interpret the signs cor- 

 rectly, the farmer is coming into his day, 

 and it is the duty of all of us to support 

 him." 



At the close he said, " I resent the state- 

 ment that the Food Administration is dic- 

 tatorship. I have seen the suffering of 

 ten million people under the wrongs of 

 dictatorship. Food administration as much 

 as any other function of democracy must he 

 founded on the consent and good will of 

 the governed." 



And now, Mr. Beekeeper, will you let me 

 say just a word to you? In the course of 

 Mr. Hoover's talk he told us about the great 

 shortage of ships, and that it is affecting our 

 imports as well as our exports. That is one 

 of the reasons for the sugar shortage, and 

 here is where the bees will arise to the occa- 

 sion if the beekeeper will do his part. I 

 have often heard Mr. A. I. Root tell about 

 the first barrel of honey he jDroduced, and 

 how people could hardly credit the state- 

 ment that he had such an enormous amount 

 of honey. I can remember when the first 

 carloads of honey were brought east from 

 California. Until very recently no one bee- 

 keeper in the East produced honey by the 

 carload, but now there are a number in the 

 white-clover belt who are selling honey by 

 the carload from tlieir own apiaries. And 

 I for one have faith to believe that the 

 industry of beekeeping is just in its infancy. 

 The time may come when honey, the oldest 

 sweet mentioned in history, will be used as 

 freely as sugar. Here is a subject which I 

 should like to see discussed in Gleanings 

 the coming year, " How much necfar aii- 

 iiuallv goes to waste in our countrv?" 



