this method; but
the price of extracted honey is much less than that of comb honey.
Adulteration of extracted honey with glucose is becoming so
prevalent that it threatens to ruin this branch of the industry. But
there will always be a good market for honey sold direct by the
producer to residents, or even through storekeepers, in medium size
towns, where customers can be sure that the honey is pure.

The average wholesale prices of honey are about fifteen cents a
pound for extracted and twenty cents for fancy comb, so if the
apiarist with two hundred hives produces the small average of fifty
pounds of comb honey and sells it at fifteen cents a pound, he will
receive $1500 for his season's work. If he goes in for extracted
honey and produces one hundred pounds per hive, he will receive even
more. Of course, expenses will have to come out of this.

That this has been done over and over again is proved by men who
started in with only a few hives and have accumulated considerable
property from the business.

But no one need expect to do this unless he is willing to give the
bees the attention which they will require. To neglect them once
means often a total loss. Most of the work will have to be done
during the swarming season in May, June, and July. There has been so
much written on the subject and so many inventions and improvements
made in the hives that bee-keeping more than any other branch of
similar employment has been reduced to a science, and any one can
thoroughly master it in two or three years. It is because its
possibilities are not generally recognized that so few are now
engaged in it.

The fear of stings will always deter many from entering this
business and so check competition from forcing prices down.

The price of honey makes it a luxury, and there will be an unlimited
opportunity in the crop as long as the price does not get near the
cost of producing, which is far below the present prices.

To use land directly is to open almost infinite opportunities.
Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin 204, says: "In the
United States the term 'mushroom' refers commercially to but a
single species _(Agaricus Campestris)_ of the fleshly fungi, a plant
common throughout most of the temperate regions of the world, and
one everywhere recognized as edible."

It is unfortunate that the commercial use of the term "mushroom"
restricts it to a single species. There are about twenty-five common
varieties of