1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



159 



Antonio, and 35 cents f. o. b. Ham- 

 ilton. 



The San Antonio Express, in a fea- 

 ture article on the association's work, 

 recently made an estimate of the sav- 

 ings that would have been made for 

 the beekeepers of one little town in 

 a year if, instead of purchasing sup- 

 plies and merchandise in small ship- 

 ment lots, they had followed the as- 

 sociation's co-operative buying plan. 

 The saving on freight alone, in the 

 case of whole car lots, figured out at 

 $640, and the saving through secur- 

 ing of wholesale prices figured _ at 

 $704. The saving from association 

 buying alone would thus have been 

 $1344 for the season. 



Other instances of the kind men- 

 tioned will be given in what follows. 

 These are not special instances, but 

 may be considered as typical of what 

 the association is accomplishing. 

 Co-operation Was Needed 

 Generally unsatisfactory conditions 

 as regards the marketing of Texas 

 honey was what led the Texas Bee- 

 keepers' Association, after twenty- 

 • five years of existence as a mere so- 

 cial and educational body, to take up 

 the matter of co-operative marketing. 

 In July 1916, extracted honey was 

 a drug on the South Texas market, 

 securing around 5 cents per pound, 

 while comb honey could not be sold 

 at 7 cents in the majority of cases. 

 This was in spite of the fact that am- 

 ber extracted was selling at 7 l /> cents 

 in California and that Colorado 

 honey grading with the Texas prod- 

 uct was 8^2 to 11 cents in Denver. In 

 the words of Manager LeStourgeon, 

 "The Texas price was an artificial 

 value, born of ignorance on the part 

 of the producers and a ruinous com- 

 petition among themselves." 



As regards the attitude of the 

 Texas wholesale and retail trade to- 

 wards Texas honey, it was as dis- 

 couraging as possible. The handling 

 of honey had been for years a very 

 unsatisfactory business to the gro- 

 cery trade, with no stability in price 

 and no organized sources of supply. 

 A man might buy a few cases and 

 soon find a competitor far undersell- 

 ing him because of the latter having 

 secured a bargain from a producer 

 ignorant of what a reasonable price 

 should be. There had also been a 

 lack of uniformity in pack and grade, 

 so that many merchants had ceased 

 to handle honey through disgust at 

 the great variety in appearance, fla- 

 vor and color and inability to secure 

 a steady supply of a uniform grade. 

 At the time the co-operative idea 

 had been making headway in South 

 Texas, enough farmers having be- 

 come interested so that action was 

 being secured at the State Capitol in 

 obtaining a law authorizing the for- 

 mation in Texas of the co-operative 

 form of corporation. To the honey 

 producers it seemed the logical time 

 to do something drastic, and 79 bee- 

 men from 19 counties held a meeting 

 at San Antonio in July to discuss 

 marketing conditions. The result of 

 the meeting was the adoption of a 

 plan whereby every producing center 

 should organize under one head for 

 co-operative purchasing of supplies, 

 co-operative selling through a sales 



manager, thus eliminating the brok- 

 ers, and establishment of a central 

 educational bureau to disseminate 

 market information, teach best meth- 

 ods of packing and shipping, etc. _ It 

 was decided that the information 

 bureau should serve the entire indus- 

 try, whether members of the associa- 

 tion or not, and that all Texas bee- 

 keepers should be eligible to mem- 

 bership. 



Opposed by Big Business 



The association, which took the 

 name of Texas Honey Producers' As- 

 sociation, did not have entirely 

 smooth sailing at the start. Certain 

 supply interests attempted to dis- 

 courage the movement by even sell- 

 ing at a loss in order to quote lower 

 prices than the association could 

 quote. For a time cans for honey 

 packing could be purchased in South 

 Texas at a lower price than at any 

 other point in the United States, in 

 instances even lower than the car- 

 load price of the largest manufac- 

 turers. The better known bee sup- 

 ply houses, however, did not take 

 part in this unfair competition, and 

 the producers saw through it and 

 presented a united front, as a whole. 



They were strengthened in their 

 stand by another result of their first 

 meeting. For an immediate result of 

 their determination to co-operate 

 was the advance of honey prices in 

 Texas 2 cents per pound. This took 

 place within six weeks,' and was ac- 



companied by no advance whatever 

 in consumer prices. 



It may be said, in general, that the 

 first decision to co-operate, in a sec- 

 tion where prices are lower than rea- 

 sonable, can usually be made to ad- 

 vance prices, if the producers stick 

 to their guns. Exactly the same thing 

 happened in California, when the 

 prune growers of Santa Clara Valley 

 organized. The speculators had been 

 selling futures in the east at prices 

 which showed they intended to buy 

 from growers at 3 to 3 l / 2 cents. The 

 growers got wind of these prices, and 

 for the first time rebelled. They did 

 not believe the reports of a very 

 large crop circulated by the specu- 

 lators, and they held a mass meeting 

 and established a bureau to investi- 

 gate. The investigation proved a 

 normal crop only would be harvested, 

 and the bureau advised growers to 

 hold for 5 cents. Though there was 

 no real organization, except of the 

 flimsiest kind, a majority of growers 

 heeded the advice, at least partially. 

 Most sold at 4 cents or better, at any 

 rate, and in the one season the single 

 recommendation saved the industry 

 half a million dollars. The success 

 led to closer organization for co- 

 operative marketing, and the Califor- 

 nia Prune and Apricot Growers', Inc., 

 are now fully established and are al- 

 ready advertising "Sunsweet Prunes 

 and Apricots," on a small scale. 

 (To be Continued.) 



The Pussy Wi 



vn by the creek 



