Aug-. 3, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



489 



least suspected by the unfortunate man who is making the 

 mistake. Some merchants have failed from employing- 

 cheap, inefficient help, under the mistaken idea that tliey 

 were practicing economy. Others have greatly assisted 

 their success by an opposite course. Some have failed from 

 a lack of advertising of the right kind. Others have suc- 

 ceeded because of their excellent advertising methods. 

 Others have failed because they did not keep up with the 

 times. Their methods were all right for 30 years ago. but 

 not appropriate for this age of steam and electricity. The 

 time was when a man could sit in his office and wait for 

 business to come to him. That daj' has past. Now he must 

 go after the business — and hustle, too, while he is about it. 



A new merchant comes into a town where the mer- 

 chants are of the old class ; he renovates the store from top 

 to bottom, outside and inside ; uses paper and paint and 

 plate glass ; makes a handsome display in his windows; 

 changes this display quite often ; puts in a telephone ; has 

 a nice delivery wagon ; uses column after column, perhaps 

 page after page, in the local paper ; in short, leaves no 

 stone unturned to boom his business ; if his other methods 

 of business are correct, he gets the trade, and men who 

 have been in business for years, but have been in a rut, so 

 to speak, will go down — if anybody goes down. 



I was quite interested in the way that Mr. Davenport 

 sold his honey at a good price by advertising it in the local 

 papers. This is an illustration of the advantages that may 

 be gained by catching the spirit of the times. A merchant 

 in a small town would find his dollars well spent if he 

 would make a visit to the stores in some large city — simply 

 that he might catch the spirit of the times. I do not mean 

 that he could profitably put into practice all of the methods 

 that he would see, but what he would see would help him to 

 get out of a rut and into more modern and more profitable 

 ways of doing business. 



The 7t>ay of doing t/iings makes such a vast difference 

 in the success or failure of any undertaking. I saw an 

 illustration yesterday right from ray office window. A man 

 came along selling strawberries. He sat up straight on his 

 wagon seat and bawled " s-t-r-a-w-berries." I saw one 

 woman come out and buy some berries. A short time after- 

 ward two women came along selling berries. One woman 

 drove the horse, and the other took a bos of berries in her 

 hand and called at the door of each house and slwjvcd licr 

 berries. There was scarcely a house at which she failed to 

 make a sale. 



If the manufacturer of some line of apiarian goods, 

 whose goods are of the very best quality, would go at it in 

 the right way, he could have the lead in the trade in that 

 line of goods. The goods would have to be advertised in a 

 telling, striking, unique manner. Some commission man 

 in Chicago mig-ht receive the lion's share of the consign- 

 ments of honey if he would advertise himself and his busi- 

 ness in the right way. The same might be said of a com- 

 mission man in New York, or any city for that matter. The 

 trouble is, that so many of us are inclined to keep along in 

 the same old wa}', instead of striking out and catching the 

 spirit of the times. 



Bee-keepers ought to read all of the journals, visit other 

 bee-keepers, and attend conventions. They, as well as 

 others, need to catch tlie spirit of the times. 



Again the Spelling Reform. — Stenog touches on the 

 Bee-Keepers" Review in the following- parag-raph. which we 

 take from Gleanings in Bee-Culture for July 1 : 



Mr. Hutchinson is inclined to adhere in the main to the 

 common spelling. He says : " So long as a system is radi- 

 callj' wrong, we gain very little by tinkering'- with minor 

 results." Further down he says, touching the fashions, 

 " Girls' plaid shirt-waists must be laid aside for stripped 

 ones." " Stripped " — how so, Mr. H.? 



Don't you see, Stenog, that if Mr. Hutchinson followed 

 the reformed spelling, such mistakes would be less likely to 

 occur ? If stripped were printed instead of striped, it would 

 be corrected to stript, and then the error would come to the 

 surface. Better climb in the band-wagon and come along, 

 Stenog. To be sure, you have a big lot of prejudice, but 

 then you have a bigger lot of hard sense, and it is only a 

 question of time when the sense will overcome the preju- 

 dice. And you would be of very much assistance. Better 

 come along now. 



As to Mr. Hutchinson's argument, if argument it be 



called — " So long as a system is radically wrong, we gain 

 very little by tinkering with minor results" — there would 

 be a good deal in that if it were generally admitted that the 

 present system of spelling is radically wrong. The trouble 

 is that so many think it radically right. Tinker some of 

 the " minor" defects, and g-et the public used to it, so that 

 the system will not be considered so sacredly perfect, and 

 then the way will be easier to make radical changes. 



Mr. T. F. Bingham, of Clare Co., Mich., the big bee- 

 smoker man, wrote us July 14 : "Bees have done fairly, 

 and are still doing a little." 



♦ » # ♦ » 



Mr. J. T. Calvert, business manager of the A. I. Root 

 Co., spent Friday, July 21, with us. He was returning- from 

 his annual trip among- some of the Wisconsin and Michigan 

 bee-supply manufacturers and dealers. Mr. Calvert was 

 looking and feeling fine physically, showing that he hadn't 

 been overworkt in handling the bee-supply business this 

 year. 



♦ * ♦ ♦ ♦ 



Mk. E. W. Haag is the successor to Mr. Theodore Ben- 

 der, of Canton, Ohio, in the latter's queen-business. We 

 had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Haag- at the Buffalo con- 

 vention — in fact, he was one of the six or eight of us that 

 " cotted " one or two nights in the same room. Mr. Bender 

 will still continue to Iiandle bee-supplies as heretofore. Mr. 

 Haag's advertisement will be found in our advertising col- 

 umns. We wish him every success, as we believe he fully 

 deserves. 



♦ * ♦ ♦ ♦ 



Editor H. E. Hill is in Florida, where he had an api- 

 ary three years ago. near the Indian River narrows. He 

 gives a fine view of his apiary. The hives seem right on 

 the brink of a large body of water, on which is a skiff. The 

 picture is a tempting one, and makes one wish to go to 

 Florida. On the St. Lucie River Mr. Hill extracted, bar- 

 reled, and shipt 3,500 pounds of palmetto honey from 65 col- 

 onies in two weeks. When that failed he moved to Miami 

 in the sailboat, and then to Stuart, making a cruise of 300 

 miles. One morning they were just ready for breakfast 

 when an overhanging limb swept the table bare, throwingr 

 the viands to Neptune. — Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



♦ # « * ♦ 



Mr. G. M. DoolittlE, in the Progressive Bee-Keeper, 

 speaks thus about writing for the bee-papers : 



" As the writers of the past were willing- to shed light 

 on our apicultural pathway, we would be ungrateful chil- 

 dren indeed were we not willing- to hand down that light to 

 others, together with all of the accumulated light that we 

 may have been able to gather as we have journeyed up the 

 mount of apiculture. Oh 1 how much we owe to those who 

 have preceded us, and yet how often we are selfish enough to 

 hug the whole unto ourselves and keep all we may get and 

 all we may produce within ourselves, claiming that we have 

 a perfect right to all we can secure for ourselves. Having 

 received, there is a debt hanging on every one thus receiv- 

 ing, to pay that debt with interest, to all who are about us, 

 and in the paying- comes far greater happiness than in the 

 receiving. And this is the reason why I write, often when 

 weary and greatly fatigued, when the couch looks far more 

 inviting than the paper and thoughts which I am about to 

 convey, but I thank God that duty calls louder for me to 

 pay my debts than does the ease of the couch, especially if 

 my ' scribbling ' is of help to any one. Only as all unite 

 in giving their mite to the common good, can apiculture 

 reach the high table-grounds at the top of the perfected 

 summit." 



We might add for Mr. Doolittle's encouragement, that 

 the writings of no other of our contributors are more highly 

 valued than are his. So he can rest assured that his work is 

 duly appreciated by many thousands who read the Ameri- 

 can bee-papers all over this country and others. 



