HONEY PLANTS 
507 
side, some one opened the door and in¬ 
quired: 
“Hello! where is this honey-man ?” 
After introducing myself he requested me 
to show him what I had to sell. It did not 
take very long to convince him that I car¬ 
ried the genuine article; and what pleased 
me still more was the fact that he ordered 
two cans to be left at the corner drugstore 
across the street. 
When I delivered the cans they were 
closely scrutinized by the clerks and some 
other parties who happened to be present, 
and one of the clerks asked: 
‘ ‘ Wliat guarantee have we that this is 
pure honey?” 
Here another lecture-like conversation, too 
long to be repeated, took place, the sub¬ 
stance of which may be concentrated in my 
reply: 
“First, pure honey and my name and ad¬ 
dress are on every package; and, second, 
back of this is the New York State law that 
prohibits all honey adulteration.” 
Before I left the place I sold two more 
cans to those other parties. 
A great help in selling honey on the road 
is a proper traveling-outfit, which enables 
us to present our products in clean, neat, 
and inviting appearance. I know from ex¬ 
perience that at least one-fourth of my 
sales of honey can be traced back to this 
feature. 
PEDDLING HONEY AT GROCERIES AND OTHER 
RETAIL STORES. 
W. A. Selser of 10 Vine St., Philadel¬ 
phia, is not only a practical beekeeper, but 
he was also a large buyer of honey. In 
addition to the amount he produced in his 
own apiaries, he bought up every year the 
product of several large yards. All of 
this, mostly extracted, he peddled out from 
a honey-wagon to the retail trade. 
The secret of his success in selling and 
in getting good prices was in putting up 
always a first-class article in a neat and 
attractive form. He advertised liberally, 
and every one knew him about Philadel¬ 
phia as “the honey-man.” 
After several gross were put up, Mr. 
Selser loaded all he could carry in a spe¬ 
cial wagon, shown at the left of the illus¬ 
tration on the preceding page. He then 
visited the city stores and replenished their 
stock. After he had supplied all the city 
retail places he then went into the coun¬ 
try, visited the suburban towns, and even 
drove as far as the city of New York, sup¬ 
plying some stores. 
In these days of light automobile deliv¬ 
ery cars the territory can be greatly ex¬ 
tended ; in fact, a bottler can make several 
outlying towns, and follow up the trade, 
taking care of a large line of fancy grocery 
stores. Light automobile trucks with tops 
of the familiar Ford type are now being 
used for this very purpose—to sell and 
distribute honey. 
HONEY PLANTS. —The importance to 
American beekeepers of a tlioro knowledge 
of the honey-producing flora of this coun¬ 
try cannot be overestimated. A beginning 
in this work lias already been made by sev¬ 
eral States. An excellent preliminary list 
of Texan honey plants by Louis H. Scholl 
was published in 1908, and in 1911 there 
appeared a carefully prepared bulletin on 
the honey plants of California by M. C. 
Richter. In both these lists much attention 
is given to the geographical distribution 
within the state limits of the species enu¬ 
merated. More or less complete lists of the 
chief mellifluous plants of Massachusetts, 
North Carolina, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Ari¬ 
zona have also been prepared. So helpful 
have these publications been to beekeepers 
that there can he little doubt that similar 
bulletins will soon be issued by other 
States. Such investigations promise to 
bring to light many interesting and valu¬ 
able facts. No one should enter extensively 
upon the production of honey without first 
investigating the flora on which he must 
depend for a marketable surplus. Success 
or failure may often depend upon such in¬ 
formation. 
The geographical distribution of honey 
plants in the United States presents many 
striking peculiarities. While some occur 
over the entire country, others are re¬ 
stricted to a small area. The sumacs extend 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific; so do the 
carrot and carpetweed, tho the latter is 
commercially most valuable in central Cali¬ 
fornia. Sweet clover is spreading every¬ 
where; and the golclenrods and asters 
know no north nor south. While hearts¬ 
ease grows thruout nearly all North Amer¬ 
ica, the wild sunflower is confined chiefly 
to the West, cotton to the South, white 
clover to the East, and willow-herb to the 
North. Much narrower are the limits of 
many other species. The white-tupelo re¬ 
gion is a tract of land along the Apalachi- 
