THE MODERN BEE-FARM 259 



wife no longer goes to her dairy, nor makes any of 

 the good old farmhouse things that served to up- 

 hold country England in days gone by ; and how 

 the master-agriculturists now are the sinews of the 

 great London Stores, while the little local shop- 

 keepers are left to the field-labourer with his 

 twelve or fifteen shillings a week. 



For the class of small-holders that must now 

 multiply throughout the length and breadth of the 

 land, there is awaiting an enterprise — a source of 

 livelihood — as yet hardly tapped. A stock subject 

 of envy with most artisans is the capitalist who 

 leads an easy life while his factory hands toil for 

 him. But if the small-holder will take up bee- 

 keeping, he too can look on, to a large extent, 

 while his thousands of winged labourers are filling 

 his storehouse with some of the most useful and 

 saleable merchandise in the world. It is a truism 

 in commerce that a good supply creates a demand 

 just as certainly as that the universal want of a 

 thing stimulates its production. One of the needs 

 in England to-day is a full, good, and cheap supply 

 of honey ; and when this is forthcoming there will 

 be little fear but that the present demand will 

 increase hand over hand. 



There are many reasons why the people should 

 choose honey for their principal food rather than 

 the beet sugar which is now so largely consumed. 

 In the first place, honey is a pure, natural, un- 

 doctored sweet, while in the manufacture of 

 17 — 2 



