336 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



cent or two a pound more than he will 

 give your neighbor. 



Every sale should be made as though 

 your whole trade depended upon that one 

 transaction. I once bought honey of a 

 man who kept out his inferior goods for 

 his home trade, with the remark that it 

 was "good enough for them." That was 

 the opposite of what I am trying to im- 

 press upon my readers. If that man had 

 valued his home trade, and if he cared in 

 the least to build it up, he should have 

 kept his very choicest honey for it. and, 

 instead of a small trade at a low price he 

 might have had a good trade at a good 

 price that would easily have taken all his 

 honey. 



I said it was very necessary to furnish 

 each buyer with the kind of honey his 

 taste preferred. To do this we must learn 

 to grade honey. This is a weak point 

 with many bee-keepers and with some 

 dealers. I have been offered "clover 

 honey," by large and experienced bee- 

 keepers, that hardly seemed to have a 

 trace of clover in it; besides it was dark 

 in color and strong in flavor at that. 1 

 have bought a lot of white honey and of 

 dark honey of a dealer, wherein much of 

 the dark honey was whiter than the white. 



To hold a person's trade, we must fur- 

 nish him what he wants. If a man is 

 dainty in his tastes, and wants clover 

 honey, and we furnish him honey dew a 

 time or two, we will find he will very 

 promptly avoid our honey quite as persist- 

 ently as our satisfied customers stick by 

 us; and, as one pleased customer will 

 often brinfe a half a dozen more buyers, 

 so one unsatisfied customer will often de- 

 ter half a dozen from buying. 



SALES LARGELY DEPEND UPON PUSHING THE 

 GOODS. 



We must keep our goods before our 

 customers. A family promptly supplied 

 will use several times as much as one 

 that has to hunt for the goods. 1 know 

 families which, when promptly supplied, 

 will use from twenty to thirty gallons of 

 honey per year, who otherwise do not use 

 more than four or five gallons. Honey is 



an article which is used by many people, 

 or, perhaps, by most people, largely in 

 proportion as it is drawn to their atten- 

 tion, and made easy to obtain. Its sale 

 must be pushed: hence the reason store 

 keepers often so signally fail in building 

 up a trade. It is a luxury, but where con- 

 stantly supplied it is then a necessity. 



1 have not found the fear of adultera- 

 tion much of an obstacle in my trade. I 

 am very particular as to the purity of my 

 honey, and 1 absolutely guarantee all I 

 sell. If anything puzzles my customers I 

 regard it as a favor to be permitted to 

 clear up the matter. We often sell our 

 honey to people who know nothing about 

 bees, and, therefore, when so many bee- 

 keepers know so little about honey, we 

 cannot expect them to know much, except 

 that it is pleasant to the taste and a de- 

 sirable article of food. I acquaint them 

 with the workings of the pure food com- 

 mission, and am always pleased to have 

 any test made. Our very willingness to 

 submit our goods to the test greatly in- 

 creases confidence in their quality and 

 purity. We should always avoid trying 

 to tear down another's reputation in or- 

 der to build up our own; and when 1 see 

 this done my suspicions of the critic are 

 always aroused and 1 make purchases of 

 such people with extreme care. It cer- 

 tainly is no recommendation of our honey 

 to say that our neighbor's is poor. If it 

 is poor, the people soon find it out without 

 our officious declaration, and the suspicion 

 we attempt to place upon him will almost 

 invariably react upon ourselves. 



People often order honey by kind, 

 ignorantly, and, as a result, get quite a 

 different kind of honey from what they 

 expect. In cases of this kind the dealer 

 is under no obligation to exchange, but, in 

 supplying family trade, it is always wise 

 to do so. You should not exchange in 

 answer to the charge of adulteration or 

 fraud, as, to do so under these circum- 

 stances, would be to give color to the 

 charge. You should then repel the charge 

 and demand a test of the goods by the 

 Pure Food Department. Have them un- 



