338 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Ap)ther Case of "Glucose Meal." 



From the Elgin, 111., Advocate of 

 May 6th, we clip this extract, giving 

 another instance of injury and loss 

 resulting from feeding the refuse of 

 glucose factories to cows kept for dai- 

 rying purposes : 



This week Henry Waterman, who 

 operates a creamery at Bartlett, and 

 who is well known on the Board of 

 Trade— informed us that he had re- 

 cently sustained quite a loss on 

 cheese, and was unable to account for 

 it until he received the following let- 

 ter from Charles D. Wells, of Chicago, 

 who handled his cheese. Mr. Wells 

 says : '' Your cheese have arrived, 

 and, on examination, 1 find they are 

 such a poor lot as to be almost unsal- 

 able. They have the appearance of 

 being finely made, but on inserting 

 the tryer in tlie cheese, the plug 

 comes out porous and gritty, and on 

 holding them any length of time seem 

 to rot and get bad. There is some- 

 thing in the milk, in my judgment, 

 that causes these conditions. The 

 cows are fed on something that is 

 sweet, or foreign to their customary 

 feed. The cheese seem precisely like 

 a certain factory, the cheese of which 

 I handled last year, which notted 

 down in thirty days, causing a loss to 

 me after I had sold them. Some of 

 my customers refused to pay at all. 

 After investigation I found that the 

 cows had been fed on glucose, which 

 invariably produces this kind of 

 cheese." Mr. Waterman, upon re- 

 ceipt of this letter, made investiga- 

 tion, and learned that a number of 

 his patrons had been feeding glucose 

 meal for the past few months. Fac- 

 torymen of this section should stipu- 

 late with their patrons not to feed 

 this meal, as it invariably results m a 

 great loss. In Ohio, where glucose 

 factories are quite numerous, the 

 cheese factorymen receive the milk 

 from cows ted f>n glucose meal, or 

 refuse, and their example should be 

 followed here. It is not fit for cows, 

 and spoils the milk for food, butter or 

 cheese. 



" Rotted down in thirty days ! " and 

 yet the philanthropic manufacturers 

 of glucose claim to be the especial 

 benefactors of the farmers and dairy- 

 men, because they stimulate the mar- 

 ket for corn, and afford a cheap feed 

 for dairy cows ; so, too, should they 

 claim to be humanitarians, because 

 of the evnployment they give the doc- 

 tors, and for their premature contri- 

 butions to the undertakers. Prof. 

 Nichols, in his able article published 

 by us last week, says glucose " is not 

 a poison when well made, and, as re- 

 gards its healthfulness, it may not be 

 much more deleterious than ordinary 

 cane sugar ; still, it does produce and 

 aggravate dyspeptic symptoms, and 

 by its proneness to set up fermenta- 

 tive processes, its use causes flatu- 



lency and painful affections of the 

 bowels." 



But with an unscrupulous class of 

 manufacturers whose association 

 holds its sessions with closed doors, 

 and whose commodity is used mostly 

 for fraudulent purposes, what likeli- 

 hood exists that their wretched stuff 

 is even " well made," or tliat they are 

 any more honest than they expect 

 their patrons to be ? And even when 

 well made, Professor Nichols says it 

 produces the grievous complaints 

 enumerated above. When cheese 

 will " rot down in thirty days," caused 

 by the infusion of the glucose poison 

 into only a portion of the milk used in 

 its manufacture, can it be wondered 

 at that the horrid stuff soon rots the 

 very timbers in the railway car which 

 transports the meal, and that railroad 

 managers issue orders to thoroughly 

 scrub the car as soon as emptied V 



If glucosed cheese will " rot down 

 in thirty days," what must be the ef- 

 fect of glucose on the urinary organs 

 and lacteal secretions of humanity V 

 Can it be doubted that the effect is 

 even more pernicious on the blood, 

 lungs and heart, than on the bowels i* 

 One-half the evils resulting from the 

 use of glucose have never been enum- 

 erated. As remarked by Dr. KelliTgg, 

 of Michigan, it enters into many com- 

 plications which develop into well de- 

 fined complaints, and are frequently 

 attributed to other causes. We doubt 

 not many chronic complaints, which 

 have been fearfully on tlie increase of 

 late, can be indirectly traced to glu- 

 cose ; and posterity will more largely 

 pay the penalty. The stuff should be 

 manufactured and sold under penal- 

 ties and restrictions only, as is corn 

 whisky and other poisons. The evils 

 attending its manufacture and sale 

 more than overbalance the good, and, 

 therefore, it is a curse. The National 

 Board of Health has a great work be- 

 fore it— but one which it must under- 

 take, and the sooner they realize its 

 magnitude, the easier will be the 

 struggle. Meantime, let all honest 

 producers, whether of honey, butter 

 or chee.se, or anything else of food, 

 lend their influence against adultera- 

 tions wherever found. 



Honey versus Glucose. 



1^ During almost all of last week 

 the weather was quite unfavorable in 

 nearly all the Central and Northern 

 States for building up weak colonies. 

 Queen-breeders have also been much 

 embarrassed, the weather being too 

 variable for developing good queens. 



Mr. M. C. Stevens, Lafayette, Ind., 

 sends the following semi-critical arti- 

 cle. The expression to which he takes 

 exception is an old aphorism, and was 

 given as such. We do not know any 

 who have been so foolish as to claim 

 the same sweetening properties for 

 honey that cane sugar possesses, 

 though to the taste, honey is quite its 

 equal, and glucose is not. That honey 

 may have been considered a luxury in 

 former times, there is no doubt ; so, 

 too, were butter, cheese, and, in re- 

 mote times, wheat flour, but are they 

 fairly so considered now ? Honey is 

 just as surely working its way into 

 public favor, and it remains only for 

 the combined wisdom of the bee-keep- 

 ers to make it an equal necessity with 

 consumers : 



In your article in the Journal for 

 February 1, on " Methods for Granu- 

 lating Glucose " you close with these 

 words: "And finally, when our cane 

 sweets shall have been exiled from 

 our markets, tlie enterprising bee- 

 keeper will have a market at his door 

 for wliat (honey) he can spare from 

 the neighborhood demand, because 

 there will still be consumers in abun- 

 dance for natural sweets— and what 

 can be sweeter than honey V" 



This question was propounded many 

 years ago and ouglit to be a strong 

 argument that honey is the sweetest 

 substance known. It might have 

 been so in Samson's day, but I think 

 if you sweeten your cup of coffee with 

 the same weight of honey as you do of 

 cane sugar, you will discover a great 

 difference in the taste. If I am not 

 mistaken, there is not much more 

 sweetening property to honey than 

 there is in grape sugar or glucose. In 

 fact, according to the most careful 

 analysis, about 73 per cent, of honey 

 is glucose, or, speaking more ac- 

 curately, a mixture of laivo-glucose 

 and dextro-glucose, (36.4.5 per cent, of 

 the former and 36.57 jjer cent, of the 

 latter). Of the remaining 27 per cent. 

 18.5 per cent, is water. According to 

 my information, it takes two and a 

 half pounds of glucose to be equiva- 

 lent to one pound of cane sugar in 

 sweetening effect ; and 1 am quite 

 sure there is no more sweet, if as 

 much, in honey as in glucose. 



While I am a bee-keeper, and am a 

 believer in honey , and have no patience 

 with adulterations of any kind, and 

 think they should be stamped out by 

 appropriate legislation, still I think 

 the consumers of it should understand 

 that it is a luxury, and they should 

 not be kept in ignorance of this fact. 

 To sell a pound of honey to a man for 

 twenty cents, and at the same time 

 make him think he is getting the 

 wortli of his money in sweetening 

 value as compared with cane sugar at 

 ten cents a pound, is just as truly a 

 swindle as to sell gluco.se for cane 

 sugar. Let us not, in trying to steer 

 clear of Scylla run upon Charybdis. 



