

84 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT 



July. If you wait until everybody wants money you are 

 t03 late. If a dealer pays 16 cents and the next competitor 

 buys it for i2j^ cents, how long: will a fellow last in busi- 

 ness? I don't believe everything I read in the paper even if 

 it is in the American Bee Journal. I have my own deduc- 

 tion of this. When there is a big crop you don't tell the 

 truth, and a man who keeps the truth from the general pub- 

 lic — well, I will tell you it is not right for the general public 

 It has made the demand for all the honey that's produced 

 in this country; the individual bee-keeper, not at all. There 

 are others. There are people in the West that don't know 

 a queen from a drone that handle carloads. These fellows 

 dig in; they sell honey. You don't care, you abuse the 

 dealer. You have got the wrong fellow. You want to get 

 at the National Bee-Keepers' Association to promulgate the 

 uses of honey. There was one fellow in California, I be- 

 lieve, three years ago, who had an awful crop of prunes. 

 They said prunes were scarce, and the wholesale grocer 

 throughout the country knew better, and they simply kept 

 the prunes. In San Francisco they had 500 cars of prunes 

 to put in storage, and it wasn't any time before the associa- 

 tion advertised throughout the State the good uses of prunes. 

 The National Bee-Keepers' Association could do that and 

 bring the price of honey away up. Any legitimate honey- 

 dealer wants to pay the bee-keeper every dollar there is in 

 it; he wants his shipments; he wants to make him happy. 

 I think I have covered the ground now. 



Dr. Miller — I want to emphasize that one point. We 

 want the National Association to p-et so large and to have 

 so much money that they can put a lot of money into adver- 

 tising. I saw those advertisements and they didn't always ap- 

 pear in the form of advertisements. They made me think, 

 "Why. I haven't been eating near nrunes enough." That's 

 what we need in all the prints. We want those dealers to tell 

 the people the importance of -eating honey. In regard to this 

 tellin? what our crops are, you may talk if you please about . 

 keeping it quiet. If you are a born bee-keeper and you got 

 a big crop of honey, you want to tell somebody. I can keep 

 quiet and not tell, but I want to tell so badly that it wrenches 

 me terribly! 



Mr. Smith — Dr. Miller said he wasn't full of prunes then ! 

 In my correspondence with dealers I find they don't always 

 tell the truth. They say honey is a drug on the market; 

 it is worth 11 cents, choice snow-white is worth 12]^ cents, 

 and I have had individuals write me right from those places 

 where those dealers are saying that they can't buy a pound 

 of honey under 20 cents, and I have shipped honey in there 

 at 18 cents a pound right under their noses. 



Mr. Wheeler — I don't want any reflections on Mr, Muth. 

 I send him lots of honey, and he always did the square thing, 

 and hasn't crowded the price down, either. I find him a bet- 

 ter man to deal with than some Chicago fellows. 



Mr. Starkey— I am glad I said what I did, although the 

 impression wasn't what I intended. I am glad Mr. Muth 



HI 



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