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THE AMERICAl^ BEE JOURNAL. 



from ; or turned over to sell to parties 

 who know little about honey, and 

 perhaps care less for it. 



In case the owner goes to the city, 

 he finds it diflBcult to sell the honey at 

 anything near the price that he ex- 

 pected. Merchants are supplied for 

 the present, and unless they can buy 

 it at a very low figure, they prefer to 

 buy in small quantities from the com- 

 mission merchant, who makes honey 

 a specialty ; for if anything should be 

 wrong about it, he can get immediate 

 redress, and that without much 

 trouble, as the commission man can 

 be easily reached. 



Thus baffled, the owner now seeks 

 some commission-house to aid him to 

 dispose of the honey. But not having 

 market reports in his bee-paper, he 

 finds no one whose name is familiar, 

 and the chances are that he finds it 

 necessary to make the acquaintance 

 of a firm whose chief business is 

 " live-poultry or veals, etc." They 

 think they can dispose of his honey 

 all right, and the much-worried bee- 

 keeper finally takes the train for his 

 distant home, and awaits patiently 

 for the sale of his honey. 



It so happens that the city to which 

 the honey was shipped, is that season 

 in the vicinity of the large yield, and 

 these parties find that the honey does 

 not sell very quickly, and coming to 

 the conclusion that the price asked is 

 too high, they drop it, and still it 

 does not sell ; until some day a shop 

 dealer comes along, and finding that 

 these parties are not well posted, of- 

 fers a very low figure, and finally gets 

 the honey. The husbandman gets 

 " account of sales," and is sorely dis- 

 appointed, vowing in his wrath, that 

 he will never send honey away from 

 home again. He has simply repeated 

 the marble act, and lost his " mibs." 

 But we will look at this industry 

 from another stand-point : Mr. Smith 

 is an apiarist, Jones and Brown are 

 grocers. Smith is a friend of Jones, 

 but does not like Brown ; but Smith 

 needs sugar, and he goes around to 

 the different establishments to get 

 prices. He finds that Brown will give 

 half a pound more for a dollar than 

 he can get elsewhere ; but he is a 

 little afraid of Brown's weights and 

 measures, and he concludes that if 

 Jones will sell an equal amount for 

 the dollar, he will not buy of Brown. 

 He returns to Jones, and states what 

 he can get at Brown's, and that he is 

 astonished, and feels hurt to think 

 that Mr. Jones would ask more than 

 anybody else. Mr. Jones defends 

 himself by stating that he cannot af- 

 ford to sell for less, and have any 

 margin. Is it to be supposed that this 

 answer is satisfactory to Smith ? No, 

 not five times out of six ; as Smith 

 feels he must buy where it is the 

 cheapest, notwithstanding that this 

 course will have the effect of reduc- 

 ing the profit of the producer. 



We might give hundreds of illustra- 

 tions of a like nature to the above ; 

 for it remains a fact, that if A sells 

 cheaper than B, the buyer will go 

 there ; but the seller must find the 

 party who will pay the highest price. 

 Here we may state that the commis- 

 sion merchant stands between the 



squarely opposed interests— that of 

 buyer and seller, or producer and 

 consumer. To get the product, he 

 must satisfy the producer ; to sell the 

 same, he must meet the views of 

 buyers. This, it may be said, is gov- 

 erned by supply and demand. Very 

 true I but the degrees may be modi- 

 fied by wise measures, and this de- 

 pends upon the amount of knowledge 

 possessed by the merchant. 



To succeed as an apiarist, requires, 

 in my opinion, diligent study of all 

 that pertains to the business, and 

 constant watchfulness that an enemy 

 does not come upon his charges un- 

 awares ; or be found ignorant of any- 

 thing that is a factor to success, and 

 only by experience and careful atten- 

 tion is the highest success attained. 

 All this is true of the merchant, al- 

 though methods may differ, and the 

 man or woman who succeeds as a 

 merchant, might fail as an apiarist. 



It is said that a Scotchman, hearing 

 a man imitate the lowing of a cow at 

 a play, became much interested, and 

 applauded the effort, saying, " That's 

 gran, mon ; the coo could nae doe bet- 

 ter hersel." Later on the same man 

 had occasion to imitate the roaring of 

 the lion, but he did this so indiffer- 

 ently that Scotty called out : " Na ! 

 na ! man, stick toe the coo /" This 

 would serve to illustrate the idea that 

 we are not all fitted by inheritance 

 and education to do all things well. 



My friend. Prof. McLain, will en- 

 ter into a scientific discourse on the 

 bee, and become perfectly enthusias- 

 tic in describing its wondrous con- 

 struction, and anility to perform the 

 work that we find completed, when 

 the honey is placed in cells securely 

 capped or sealed. But what a sorry 

 job I should make, were I to under- 

 take it before a learned convention. 



I read several articles in the bee- 

 papers during the past year, and my 

 recollection is, that in conclusion it 

 was agreed that methods, which had 

 proved satisfactory, were the safest, 

 and that a complete change of the 

 present systems of doing business 

 would be hazardous; but that they 

 might be improved upon,is no doubt 

 true. R. A. Burnett 



Then the following discussion en- 

 sued : 



E. J. Oatman— A man loses by 

 placing his goods in the hands of 

 more than one commission-house in 

 the same city, as they come in com- 

 petition with themselves. 



President Miller— Sometimes I can 

 do better by selling my honey at 

 home ; at other times it is more profit- 

 able to send it to a commission mer- 

 chant, and I do so. 



J. H. Robertson— For my part, I 

 would not give a cent for the best 

 home market. I have not sold 5 

 pounds at home in the last year. I 

 cannot bother with it. 



J. A. Green— I have dealt with com- 

 mission men in many large cities, 

 exercising the usual cautions, and 

 have never lost anything by them. 



James Heddon— In that convention 

 that we were going to have last May, 

 if we could have gotten the Chicago 

 papers to have said that the bee- 



keepers had " squealed ;" that honey 

 was too cheap ; that it did not grow 

 on bushes ; that the countryfled look, 

 and hay-seed in our hair was because 

 we were pow; that we must have 

 more for our honey or go out of the 

 business— if we could have accom- 

 plished only this, it would have paid 

 for holding the convention. 



M. M. Baldridge— The future will 

 develop the value of the suggestion I 

 made in my essay. If we can induce 



Eroducers to keep enough honey at 

 ome to supply their home markets, 

 this will prevent the glut, to some 

 extent, in the large cities, and will be 

 one point gained. If we can likewise 

 induce producers to place their honey 

 on sale (on commission) at home, at 

 their own prices, and see that it is kept 

 in sight at all times, tliat will be 

 another point gained. This can be 

 done by individual producers, and 

 without an organization, but they 

 will soon discover that it would be 

 very desirable to have co- operation. 

 They will work this up, to some ex- 

 tent, among their bee-keeping friends 

 at home, and, in due time, will be 

 ready to ask for and to demand gen- 

 eral co-operation. This will ulti- 

 mately result in a national co-opera- 

 tive producers' association on the 

 plan I proposed, or some similar one. 

 It takes time to educate the people, 

 and we must be patient. The only 

 way to do is to keep hammering away 

 and wait patiently for results. 



I do not like the idea at all, of the 

 bee-papers relying on a certain class 

 of commission men for their market 

 reports on honey. And why V Be- 

 cause this empowers the commission 

 men to regulate the prices on honey 

 to suit themselves. It would suit me 

 and some others much better if the 

 producers would select a competent 

 committee to decide upon a proper 

 price to consumers for both comb and 

 extracted honey, and have their de- 

 cision printed in each and every issue 

 of the bee-papers, and exclude all other 

 market reports. It is my belief that 

 the prices on honey can and should be 

 kept at about the same figures all the 

 while. And why do I advise this? 

 Because it is my belief that the de- 

 mand has never been and never will 

 be less than the supply— when prop- 

 erly distributed. I do not believe 

 that any one can show or prove that 

 we have a solitary State (save Cali- 

 fornia) that has ever produced more 

 than enough honey to supply the de- 

 mand therein. 



Honey on tlie Hotel Tables. 



A discussion arose on the scarcity 

 of honey in Chicago hotels, and strong 

 reflections on these institutions came 

 in thick and fast. The same state of 

 affairs prevailed, it was said, in other 

 parts of the country, and the assem- 

 blage finally resolved itself into 

 numerous committees of one to ask 

 for honey at all their stopping places 

 during their pilgrimage. 



Aplcultural Statistics Desired. 



Dr. A. S. Haskins— What we need 

 is statistics, so that we may know how 

 much honey there is, and its location. 



