STATE bee-keepers' ASSOCIATION. 125 



Mr. Abbott — I am talking of the poultry fancier. 



Dr. Miller — If you count the poultry fanciers and the 

 bee-fanciers. I think they will rate very fairly. I think the 

 bee- fanciers take just as many papers as the poultry fanciers 

 take poultry papers. But you must remember that the sub- 

 scription list of these papers is not made up of fanciers so 

 much as of those who keep a few hens or a few bees. My 

 wife keeps hens and several other wives keep hens, and they 

 don't keep bees at all. When you take the number, I do 

 believe Mr. Abbott will find out he is a little hard on us. 

 We are keeping up to the mark just as well as the chicken 

 people are. The thing in a nutshell is, there are not so 

 many bee-keepers as there are of the others, and I don't 

 believe we are as "worse" as we might be. 



Mr. Whitney — I agree somewhat with Mr. Abbott and 

 with the Doctor. I think the Doctor's position is about cor- 

 rect when he makes a comparison between the chicken men 

 and bee-keepers. But the fact is, we don't take the bee- 

 papers as we ought to. I don't care how many chicken men 

 take chicken papers, every mother's son of us ought to take 

 a bee-paper. There is not a farmer in the country but ought 

 to take an agricultural paper and a bee-paper and a fruit 

 journal. They all raise fruit, they all raise poultry, and 

 nearly all of them ought to keep a few colonies of bees; 

 that is, keep them right, keep them as they should be kept. 

 I have tried my best in the last year to increase the sub- 

 scription list of the different bee-papers ; I have succceeded 

 in getting four or five individuals to subscribe, and they are 

 delighted with what they get in the bee-papers. I think if 

 we would all take that interest in it, that we go to somebody 

 who is our neighbor — and some clever fellow would just as 

 soon give a dollar for something he doesn't know anything 

 about, may be he will learn something about it, and in that 

 way we have increased the circulation of these different 

 journals may be one hundred percent. I think we can do it 

 next year, and if we do that, we will increase the member- 

 ship of the National Association, too. 



Mr. Dadant — I wish to take issue with Mr. Abbott in the 

 statement that there is a greater percentage of poultry raisers 

 who take poultry papers than there are bee-keepers who 

 take bee-papers. I believe it is the other way. I think 

 you all know everybody keeps poultry, except a ■ few people 

 in the big cities. Every farmer keeps chickens. We see 

 the chickens when we pass by the farm-house; and lots of 

 city people keep poultry. Now, wkat per cent are there of 

 those people who keep bees? How many are there of the 

 people who keep poultry who read a poultry paper? Only 

 here and there. But of those who keep bees the great 

 majority, who have an interest at all I believe, take a bee- 

 paper. There are plenty who raise two hundred chickens 

 a year and who make money out of them who do not take 

 a poultry paper. But there are very few farmers that we 

 find who make any money at all out of bees that do not 

 take a bee-paper. Therefore, I believe, generally, the bee- 



