116 



KIGHTII ANNUAL. REPORT OP THE 



Mr. "Wheeler: Let me speak of one 

 thing in connection with what I said; 

 that is, that the retail price of honey 

 changes very slowly. It does not 

 change with the wholesale grocer. The 

 honey I sold last year for nineteen 

 and twenty cents a pound, the grocer 

 got twenty-five cents a pound for. 

 Some I know are retailing their honeij- 

 at twenty-five cents, and are buying 

 from me five cents cheaper. They do 

 not change their price. And there Is 

 a great deal of harm done by these 

 wholesale houses sending out postal 

 cards or posters telling people to hurry 

 their honey in and get the top market 

 price. You know they get that honey, 

 and then the bee-keepers wait and 

 wait for their returns. You all know 

 how the returns come in after they 

 get hold of the honey. That goes onto 

 the market at any price the grocery- 

 man has a mind to offer. There does 

 not seem to be any stable price for 

 honey in the wholesale market. They 

 will size a man up, and get what they 

 can out of him for it. 



Dr. Miller: The view that ■ Mr. 

 "Whitney gives us is a good one, and 

 at the same time the incidents that I 

 have in mind show that it is not en- 

 tirely reliable. I have in mind a man 

 who I suppose takes the bee-papers. 

 He was sent as a delegate to the State 

 Convention for his local society, and 

 a grocer told me that he had bought 

 honey from him at ten cents a pound 

 this year. 



Mr. Moore: Comb honey? 



TDr. Miller: Comb honey, he bought 

 at ten cents a pound. The thing that 

 Mr. Wheeler mentioned is really the 

 thing that ought to trouble us, and I 

 don't see the remedy — don't see the 

 way out. "When honey goes away 

 down, and the producer will sell it, 

 as that man did, at ten cents a pound, 

 then you go into a grocery store here 

 in Chicago. I went into one and 

 asked the price of honey, and they told 

 me it w^as twenty-five cents a section, 

 which would be about twenty-seven 

 cents a pound. For them to sell for 

 twenty- seven cents what the producer 

 gets ten cents for, seems to show that 

 the consumer and the producer are not 

 getting their fair share of the deal, 

 and I don't know the remedy. 



Mr. Moore: Just one word. I want 

 to say that the condition of the market 

 last year helped us on this year's sales. 

 Honey was scarce last year. I paid 

 twenty cents a pound for white clover 



honey to sell again. The stores were 

 selling white clover honey for thirty 

 cents a pound. 



Br. Miller: "What time of the year? 



Mr. Moore: The latter end of the 

 season last year. 



Dr. Miller: In-4he fall? 



Mr. Moore: No, in the spring. 

 Fancy white clover comb honey is not 

 on the market after the first of April; 

 from April to July there is very little, 

 and at that time the price soars up, 

 where they insist upon having that 

 grade of honey. Being scarce last year 

 helped us greatly. I was to get a 

 couple of tons of honey from a bee- 

 keeper in Iowa. I had no trouble in 

 getting eighteen cents a pound for it. 

 They remembered they had paid twen- 

 ty and twenty-two not very long be- 

 fore. About two weeks after that I 

 got a second shipment. By that time 

 the wholesalers were getting five 

 hundred or a thousand pounds, and it 

 was a case of get rid of it at any 

 old price, and I couldn't get sixteen 

 cents as easily as I got eighteen. 



Mr. Baxter: Mr. "Whitney's sugges- 

 tion was a very good one, but it won't 

 work, because the people, as a mass, 

 won't attend these conventions. There 

 is only one way for the members of 

 an association, and that is for each 

 one to make himself a committee of 

 one and sell as much as he can in his 

 home market, direct to the consumers 

 or through the merchants, at fair 

 prices, and educate the people to use 

 it and to pay a fair price for it. Then 

 you will get fair prices. But so long 

 as you dump everything into one mar- 

 ket like Chicago, it will be the same 

 with the honey business as with the 

 fruit business, and you will get noth- 

 ing for the honey. The demoralization 

 of the market here will demoralize the 

 market all over the country. 



Mr. Wilcox: I was about to say the 

 same thing as Mr. Baxter has, and it 

 was that that led me to become a 

 dealer. My neighbors were selling 

 their honey so cheap, and they were 

 laughing at me. I turned around and 

 bought all the cheap honey, and I had 

 to sell it, and I sold it to the people in 

 the Western States for family use, 

 and to retail grocers at a fair price, 

 and I have continued year after year. 

 Even this year they came to me to 

 to buy their honey because they 

 couldn't sell it in the city markets at 

 the price they had formerly sold it. 



