70  Honey  Trade  of  the  United  States,     f  I'Jsn^''' 
THE  HONEY  TRADE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  DOMESTIC  AND 
FOREIGN. 
By  B.  F.  Stacy,  Charlestown,  Mass. 
This  article,  which  twenty-five  years  ago  formed  quite  an  insignifi- 
cant article  of  trade  in  this  country,  is  rapidly  increasing  year  after 
year  in  domestic  production  ;  whilst  the  amount  imported  is  growing 
smaller.  While  less  is  used  for  pharmaceutical  purposes,  it  never- 
theless is  rapidly  increasing  in  domestic  use.  It  is  also  used  largely 
by  confectioners,  and  is  an  ingredient  of  many  of  the  fancy  beers 
which  have  recently  become  in  vogue.  Some  dealers  maintain  that 
the  honey  which  is  the  product  of  a  cold  climate  is  vastly  superior  to 
that  of  warmer  latitudes,  which  seems  almost  a  contradiction  to  na- 
ture, as  Southern  lands  teem  with  flowers  far  excelling  as  a  base  of 
supplies  to  the  bees.  One  sample  that  the  writer  saw  from  Canada 
excelled  all  others  in  whiteness,  clearness  and  density.  Samples 
from  New  York,  Minnesota,  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire,  ranked 
next  in  order.  The  only  way  to  obtain  pure  honey  is  to  buy  it  in  the 
comb,  as  nearly  all  the  strained  honey  sold  in  the  market  bears  un- 
mistakable evidence  of  adulteration  ;  this  is,  however,  so  well  known 
and  so  easily  discovered  that  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  dwell  on  it^ 
and  as  the  adulteration  is  mostly  sugar  and  occasionally  a  little  starch, 
to  give  it  a  whitish  appearance,  it  is  at  least  harmless  ;  would  that  all 
the  adulterations  now  in  use  were  equally  so.  Out  of  ten  samples 
purchased  of  different  dealers,  eight  of  them  gave  plain  evidence  of 
having  been  tampered  with,  the  remaining  two  being  samples  from 
Cuba,  right  from  the  custom-house. 
"  In  1860  the  total  product  of  honey  of  the  United  States,  reported^ 
was  23,366,357  pounds."  "New  York  stood  at  the  head  of  the  list, 
with  2,369,751  pounds,  followed  in  order  by  North  Carolina,  2,055,- 
969  pounds;  Kentucky,  1,768,692  pounds;  Missouri,  1,585,983 
pounds;  Tennessee,  1,519,390  pounds;  Ohio,  1,459,601  pounds; 
Virginia,  1,431,591  pounds ;  Pennsylvania,  1,402,128  pounds ;  Illi- 
nois, 1,346,803  pounds,  and  Indiana,  1,224,489  pounds  ;  all  other 
States  falling  below  1,000,000  pounds."  "  Since  the  census  of  1860 
the  statistics  obtained  have  been  partial  and  fragmentary  ;  the  sta- 
tistics of  Massachusetts  for  1865  showed  an  increase  of  26  per  cent., 
and  that  of  Iowa  for  same  year  an  increase  of  22  per  cent,  over  the 
figures  of  1860."    "In  the  winter  of  1868-69  the  Department  of 
