948 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15 



THE HONEY-MARKET. 



A Railroad Engineer's Views on the Subject; 



Why Honey Should be Sold Direct to 



the Consumer. 



BY A. C. ARMSTRONG. 



I can not say that I can give any secret 

 for stimulating the appetite for honey, page 

 2iJ9. 1 think it's born in us to like honey; 

 anyhow, I have been fond of honey ever 

 since I was born. Why ! is not honey high 

 enough now— that is, to the consumer? I 

 saw in a store in Syracuse, N. Y., a month 

 ago fancy honey marked 30 cts. (seems as 

 if this is nearly high enough) , while over on 

 the public market the dealers pay the pro- 

 ducer 10 cts. It appears that the middle- 

 men get the Hon's share of the deal. Hence 

 we should dispense with middlemen as much 

 as possible, and I am sure it can be done to 

 a great extent. I should see that my neigh- 

 bors know 1 had honey to sell at a reasona- 

 ble figure ; and, if within driving distance of 

 any town, I would advertise somewhat, as 

 the consumer always pays for the advertis- 

 ing. I would see that all in it knew that I 

 had honey, even if I had to have a house to- 

 house canvass of the place. Go weekly. 

 Djn't think if you have asked a party to 

 buy honey once, and met with refusal, that 

 there is no need of trying again, for the 

 next time he may want some, and have the 

 money handy or some other thing. 



Twenty years ago my father had a farm 

 of 130 acres. He raised grain and potatoes ; 

 kept two cows. One day his shoe-dealer 

 asked him to bring him a little fresh-made 

 butter. Father took him four pounds, and 

 itie shoe-man gave him 30 cents per pound, 

 jast the same as he was paying at the store, 

 i'he next week father took him more butter; 

 and the shoe-man's wife's sister wanted 

 some butter. On the way home father 

 bought two Jersey cows. In less than three 

 months he was supplying 15 famihes with 

 butter, eggs, lard, maple syrup, sausage, 

 vinegar, apples, and potatoes, all direct 

 from the farm to the consumer. At present 

 my brother does the business, and they sell 

 all the butter from 40 cows, all the eggs 

 irom 22 farms, buys 200 pounds butter per 

 week from a creamery, has sold 35 dressed 

 chickens per week since July last, also made 

 30 hogs into sausage and lard, and the but- 

 ter route has taken all of it fresh, and no 

 middleman in the deal. 



in 1904 I had some honey to spare. I 

 made a case that would hold each section by 

 itself, or would carry one section alone, and 

 put 24 fancy sections on the wagon with 

 the butter-man to sell at 15 cts. The first 

 day he sold six sections— just a bait, you 

 see; next week he sold 13 sections; third 

 week a whole case, and more called for, and 

 they took all I had to spare in 1905. I had 

 no honey to sell. My brother says his cus- 

 tomers wanted a ton or two. 



From this we have learned that there are 

 people who like good, fresh, clean stuff 

 from the farm, and who are willing to pay 



for it, and that a good fresh article will sell 

 itself, while a poor article needs a life- 

 insurance agent to sell it. 



Now, I'd Hke to tell you about buying 

 honey. In 1884 I called on my grandmother. 

 She sent me to the store, near by, to get a 

 little honey, while she made some biscuits 

 for supper, as 1 was fond of honey. Well, 

 I got the honey, and the sections had con- 

 siderable empty space. All this was filled 

 with dust, and the cappings were covered 

 with fly-specks. As my aunt said, "You 

 got the honey at retail and the fly- specks at 

 wholesale. " She uncapped it before it went 

 to the table, but somehow my appetite for 

 honey was not as good as usual just then. 

 It did not taste just right. 



Another time I was at the house of a 

 friend when the grocer's boy came in with 

 some goods in a box. He dropped it on the 

 table with a thump, and away he went, 

 whistling "Down went McGinty." My 

 friend went to taking the goods out of the 

 box, and a section of honey and a cake of 

 stove polish had entered into partnership — 

 that is, the stove- polish was inside the sec- 

 tion, while some of the honey was outside. 

 No harm was done to the stove- polish, but 

 the honey appetite got destimulated a bit. 



Another time I bought a case of honey 

 and had it shipped seven miles to me. It 

 was in good condition at the time of pur- 

 chase; but on arrival it was mush — case 

 leaking. After that I generally carried my 

 honey home. 



Now a word about wasting honey, p. 351. 

 Do people throw away what butter there is 

 left in the butter-dish at the end of a meal? 

 I fancy not; and a honey-dish with a cover 

 that will hold a section thick or thin won't 

 waste very much honey, any more than it 

 will of butter. 



Again, Mr. Crane's article, page 284. I 

 bought honey in 1870, and had to go to a 

 drugstore to get it. The grocers did not 

 handle it, but druggists had a ' ' strained ' ' 

 article. ' 



My family are all healthy, but my wife 

 says I am the ' ' honey hog, ' ' and I am 

 healthy. I have worked since Nov. 10, 1890, 

 every day but two. I was sick one day in 

 1901, and Jan. 8 this year. 



I think Mr. Secor overdoes the thing in 

 putting honey and cream on his pancakes 

 (honey is enough for me). I wonder he 

 doesn't want some maple syrup on top of 

 the cream— page 364. 



Wait a while about the photograph. There 

 may be some of the other bee-keepers who 

 also eat some honey, although I have heard 

 of people who kept bees who never tasted 

 of the honey; but I kesp bees for my own 

 honey, and I sell only what I can't eat. I 

 have some call from among my neighbors. 

 One man says his wife is very fond of hon- 

 ey, and he buys her two sections each year! 

 Yet she loves honey and he doesn't. 



My brother found a woman who came 

 from Germany twenty years ago who had 

 never tasted honey in America. 



Warner, N. Y. 



