THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



119 



method. In fact, the only hirge city that I 

 found well supplied witli pure extracted 

 honey is Cincinnati. It is needless to men- 

 tion to whom belongs the credit of this 

 state of the honey market iu this instance. 

 Suffice it to say, that there are very few 

 grocers indeed in that city, who do not 

 handle the goods put up by Chas. F. Muth & 

 Son, whose sales must be immense, although 

 no attempt is made to compete in price with 

 glucose goods, which are met with so seldom 

 as to be regarded as a curiosity. 



Now friend H, if you are correct about 

 there being but little adulterated honey, and 

 al)Out the reason why there is but little on 

 the market, isn't the remedy you suggest for 

 getting rid of what little there is likely to 

 prove a rather dear one for bee-keepers to 

 adopt? You say: "If a man tinds adulterated 

 goods are in opposition to his own, let him 

 go quietly to work" etc. Fancy a man try- 

 ing to carry out this plan in the Detroit 

 market for instance, at the present time. In 

 order that his honey may I >e in shape for the 

 retail trader it must of course be put up in 

 small packages. These should be of glass, 

 if the honey is white, and as he must buy 

 glasses in small quantities, while his competi- 

 tor buys these as he does his glucose, in car 

 lots: he will commonly pay about twice what 

 the other man does for his. Now, if the 

 goods are put up for shipment at the apiary, 

 he must be to the expense of packing care- 

 fully and pay a high rate of freight to reach 

 the market. If he ships in bulk to the city, 

 and puts it up in packages there, he must 

 rent a room at no trifling expense for the 

 purpose. If he has once tried putting such 

 goods in the hands of commission men, he 

 is not likely to repeat the experiment now. 

 In canvassing the grocery trade, he will find 

 nine out of ten dealers, eitlier supplied with 

 the other man's goods, or else they are too 

 suspicious of being gulled, to buy of one 

 whom they do not know, and as you must 

 say nothing aboutadulteratedgoods, it won't 

 do to make any comparisons with the other 

 fellow's lioney, and of course you can ask 

 no more for your goods than he does for 

 his. 



Now suppose he actually succeeds in get- 

 ting a few orders each day. These as a rule 

 will be small ones, and as the parties who 

 order will commonly be located miles apart, 

 the expense of delivering the goods, will be 

 very apt to use up what little margin there 

 is remaining, after paying railroad fare, 



freight, board and rent bills; especially as 

 there are always some who are more ready 

 to give orders for goods, than to pay for 

 them when delivered. On the other hand, 

 the seller of adulterated goods takes liis or- 

 ders while selling a great variety of e(iually 

 desirable food products, selling and deliver- ., 

 ing at the same time (from wagons wliich 

 call on each customer twice a week) as small 

 quantities as tlie grocer sees fit to order, and 

 selling on time to insure sales. As these 

 wagons would run whether any honey was 

 sold or not, the expense of selling is a small 

 item? 



May I not safely affirm that for every 

 pound of honey that a bee-keeper can pro- 

 duce and market in this way under these 

 conditions, his competitor can produce and 

 sell twice, often tiiree times as much of hie 

 goods for the same amount of money in- 

 vest3d. 



Now friend H, if you know of any silent 

 forces that can be set in motion to rid us 

 from such competition, you will be doing 

 your readers a great service by telling them 

 what they are and liow to engineer them. 

 For my part I havn't a particle of faith in 

 such a course. Bee-keepers have tried tliis 

 "say little, and do nothing" policy quite 

 long enough. What we need is a bee-keep- 

 er's Union of at least five thousand members; 

 then we can comiiel these corporations to re- 

 spect the laws inacted for our protection. 

 We need, also, in every large city, an estab- 

 lishment devoted to the interests of bee- 

 keepers and having sufficient capital and en- 

 terpise to handle such of their products as 

 may seek a market tliere. Another reason 

 given for not making an outcry is, "that it 

 is exceedingly difficult to prove that any sam- 

 ple of honey is adulterated." If this state- 

 ment is a correct one, how does it happen 

 that the leading encyclopjedias tell us that 

 even the l)est specimens of the glucose, of 

 commerce, alivat/s contain some sulphuric 

 acid, and any chemist will inform you that 

 the presence of this acid can be invariably 

 detected by means of chloride of barium. 



Several suspected samples that I submit- 

 ted for inspection to Dr. Duffield, formerly 

 State chemist, were subjected to this test, 

 and pronounced mixed with glucose, in about 

 as little time as it has taken me to write this 

 mention of the fact. In conclusion, while 

 you may be right and I may be wrong about 

 this entire business, I assure you that when- 

 ever I am convinced that such is tiie case, 



