192 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST, 



"Qualifications of au Apiarist," is 

 the subject of a good article in a late 

 issue of Gleanings by Mr. Doolittle. 

 Give the beekeepers weather of a 

 good quality, and the apiarist will 

 manage to take care of the rest. The 

 following are some of the good pcjints 

 in Mr. Doolittle's paper : 



' 'How often have I tried to get cer- 

 tain persons to take a bee-paper or to 

 send for a good book on bees, only to 

 be met with certain excuses which 

 went to show that the persons ad- 

 dressed would not maive a success in 

 bees. A man who is not willing to 

 put a few dollars into the bee-reading 

 of to-day shows by that very thing 

 that he will not make a success of it ; 

 for if he has the right kind Of love for 

 the little busy bee, he will devour all 

 the reading on the subject which comes 

 in his way, as eagerly as a hungry 

 man eats his dinner." 



This is the experience of all when 

 soliciting subscribers to any bee jour- 

 nal. The trouble is these facts can- 

 not be placed before the people that 

 should see them. 



" Besides Gleanings, take all the 

 other bee-p.ipers which yon possibly 

 can ; and, before any of these, be sure 

 to get at least one good book on bees. 

 Why I say procure the book or books 

 first, is, that no man is ready to un- 

 derstand the bee-papers till they :ire 

 acquainted with the elementary prin- 

 ciples of our pursuit. There is scarcely 

 a week passes but that I get a list of 

 questions which I know wouldn't have 

 been asked had the writer a good book 

 on^bees, and had they read that book 

 understandingly. From these papers 

 and books the mind is to be stored 

 with useful knowledge which can be 

 put into practical use as soon as the 

 season of 1893 opens." 



The non-reading, beekeeping class 

 depend on those who do read the bee- 

 papers for all the points they get. 



Read the bee-publications for the 

 same points you do the newspapers. 

 I cannot say there is not buch a 

 thing as knowing too much about bees ; 

 the only people who seem to be 

 troubled in that way are those who do 

 not read bee-papers or bee books. 



Some of our contemporaries claim 

 very Lirge circulation, but whose 

 claims are unfounded. One of them, 

 who some time ago claimed 4,000 

 subscribers, offered his entire list to 

 us recently for a few dollars, but we 

 declined it. There are only 500 names 

 on the list. — Exchange. 



So far as our experience goes, we 

 have found that the number of sub- 

 scribers any paper has makes very 

 little difference to the advertiser. Most 

 of the answers to advertisements come 

 from those who read the sample copies 

 sent them. We have inserted adver- 

 tisements in some of the new bee- 

 papers, and after the first few months 

 no one would make reply to them, and 

 of course we were obliged to withdraw 

 our patronage from such papers. 

 'I'herefore we c!aim it is the number 

 of sample copies sent out and not the 

 regular list that pays the advertiser. 

 It is not worth while for this or that 

 paper to brag of what a wonderful 

 advertising medium they have. The 

 ■best proof that a paper is a good one 

 in which to offer goods for sale is the 

 one that has the largest number of 

 genuine advertisements in each issue. 

 We had rather have an advertisement 

 in 1,000 copies of a paper sent out as 

 samples, than one in 10,000 on the 

 regular list. 



Have you renewed your subscrip- 

 tion to the Api? 



