280 HONEY COUNTIES PRICE. 



SECTION XVIII. 



Bees. 



> 



PREVIOUSLY to the year 1787, although we had ac- 

 cidentally caught a swarm of bees, we had paid little 

 attention to the culture of honey, our domestic occa- 

 sions for that article being very limited : and in that 

 year, whether or not the quantity collected or imported 

 was so considerable or the demand so reduced, the 

 first and pure honey was sold in Hants, Essex, and 

 various parts of the country, at and even under the 

 price of two-pence per pound. The middle district of 

 the county of Essex, in the vicinity of Bocking and 

 Braintree, produces probably some of the best of 

 English honey. It is usually collected from the 

 cottagers, by higglers in their carts, the price in 1824 

 about sixpence per pound, that of wax about eighteen 

 or twenty pence. Persons of property in a parish, 

 desirous of promoting the culture of the bee among 

 the labourers, might very safely purchase the produce 

 of their hives at a somewhat higher price, and render 

 the bee husbandry more encouraging. 



Such a PRICE as the first above quoted, affording 

 the prospect of loss, in every view, instead of that 

 of due remuneration, could not fail to damp the 

 spirit of apiarian culture on the ground of profit ; 

 and perhaps we are to look to this fact generally, as 



