November, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



715 



to and fro; and the farmers who have ap- 

 ples or peaches or anything else to soil, have 

 their produce in neat and attractive pack- 

 ages on a little stand placed on a pretty 

 piece of green lawn close to that beautiful 

 highway, with prices in plain print. If no 

 one is in sight, just toot the automobile 

 horn, or whatever it is, and somebody will 

 wait on you. Mell Pritchard 's son is selling 

 honey in the same way, and just lately he 

 has been putting up some little boards on 

 top of a stake, maybe a yard high, with just 

 the one word on it — '"'HONEY." These 

 little signs are strung along the highway 

 for a mile or more in each direction. One 

 objection that has already been made is 

 that there are more automobiles passing on 

 Sunday than on any other day; and a great 

 part of the Sunday people would like to 

 buy stuff on Sunday as well as week days. 

 I hardly need tell you that I object to any- 

 thing on Sunday that calls for money back 

 and forth, unless it is a restaurant for regu- 

 lar meals. One of these signs near the city 

 of Cleveland has a notice in plain black 

 letters, "No sales on Sunday." 



Last winter, when Huber and I ran over 

 a considerable part of Florida, we found 

 oranges and other fruit in attractive bask- 

 ets, more or less all along the improved 

 highways. Here is another argument for 

 good roads. Just think and consider, and 

 not only consider but act, dear friends. In- 

 stead of paying fifty cents for what need 

 not cost over three cents, help the world by 

 example and precept in making a still sliort- 

 er cut between producer and consumer. Stop 

 buying stuff in little fancy packages. When 

 you are taking an outing in an automobile, 

 and wish to have a picnic supper or dinner, 

 20 cents for a few crackers with some fruit 

 and cheese to go with it may be all right, 

 as it saves time. But when you under- 

 take to keep a family and buy your food in 

 little packages as I have indicated, just re- 

 member what your old friend A. I. Eoot has 

 said about it. 



I wonder if somebody will not rise up 

 right here and say, "Mr. Eoot, what about 

 Airline honey, ' ' My reply is, do the same 

 way, by all means, in regard to honey. Hunt 

 up the beekeeper, and, instead of asking 

 him to put it up in little tumblers, buy a 

 five-gallon can or if you do not want to buy 

 so much, say a ten-pound can. Honey, for 

 safety, must be put up in expensive glass 

 or tins, and these are heavy to ship. Honey 

 should not be sent long distances. There 

 ought to be a beekeeper within, say, ten 

 miles of every home, and you can take your 

 automobile and go and get it. If you per- 

 sist in going to the groceries and buying it 

 a tumblerful at a time, let me be frank and 

 tell you what you will have to do. I do not 

 propose to screen myself nor our industry 

 here at Medina. You know, perhaps, we 

 buy honey by the carload, and a good many 

 times these carloads come from away off in 

 California or some other great distance. We 



have just received a carload of mesquite 

 honey from Arizona. We paid the beekeeper 

 6 14 cents a pound for it; but we had to pay 

 the expensive freight all the way from Ari- 

 zona. Then in order to give the proper 

 blend and color we had to put in some bet- 

 ter and whiter honey with it — usually our 

 northern white clover honey — to bring it up 

 to grade and quality as well as color. Then 

 this honey is sometimes shipped as far as 

 the carload was shipped in the first place 

 from Arizona. When it gets into the gro- 

 cery, far away from Medina, I should not 

 wonder if the grocer finds that 75 cents for 

 a 3-lb. can or jar is the best he can do. 



I have been telling you repeatedly in my 

 Home papers that I started out almost 50 

 years ago to put the serving of humanity 

 flrst, as my object in life, and serving A. I. 

 Eoot, in the second place. 



Just a word more about your grocer. 

 Please do not think that I am putting the 

 blame all on him. The grocer, as a rule, 

 furnishes what his customer calls for. Mrs. 

 Eoot and I have just used up a package of 

 oatmeal. I figured up that it cost us 12 

 cents a pound in a fancy package. I said to 

 our grocer, "Have you oatmeal in bulk?" 



"Sure," he replied. 



"How much a pound is it!" 



"Six cents." 



There you have it. A great part of our 

 daily food is kept by the grocer in bulk as 

 well as in fancy packages; and in fan 3 

 packages it costs twice as much, or evua 

 more than that, and yet the people pay the 

 big jjrice just on account of looks, while at 

 this very time they are starving by the mil- 

 lions, not only in China but away off in 

 poor Eussia. Let me go over it briefly 

 again. 



Wheat ground in the coffee-mill costs you 

 3 cents a pound or less; made into crackers 

 and put up in fancy packages it costs 50 

 cents a pound. Perhaps the graham crack- 

 ers are an extreme; but there are a great 

 many other things in the same line. And a 

 sadder thing on tjp of all of it is that a lot 

 of people — yes very likely you and I — are 

 "digging our graves with our teeth" by 

 eating 7nore than is good for us, with little 

 or no thought of the starving millions. 



Good friends, if you will look at my head- 

 ing you will see it includes something about 

 the cost of getting sick. I told you a year 

 ago about the examination they gave me at 

 Battle Creek. Well, the dear children 

 (grandchildren and all, as well as myself) 

 think it best that I should be examined at 

 least once a year by a competent physician. 

 In the great city of Cleveland there are, of 

 course, a great many doctors — yes, and a 

 great lot of "high-priced" doctors. Just a 

 little while ago I heard of one Cleveland 

 doctor who does not use any medicine at 

 all. And he does not send one to any 

 drugstore to pay out ever so many dollars 

 for "prescriptions." If I remember cor- 

 rectly some of the drugstores have been ae- 



