Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1877-05-03
The Wool House.

The Cadiz papers, last week, discuss al
some length, the wool house project at Steu-
benville, giving the arguments pro and con
on the subject. The Republican says:
The main advantages claimed, are, that a
large amount of wool will be kept together,
near at home, and under the control of the
farmers themselves, thus securing all the ad-
yantagcs that large dealers possess in con-
trolling large quaint ties of wool, and that the
farmers would thus have an organization and
be enabled to act together, and not be exposed
separately to the tricks and manipulations of
wool buyers. 5r5 -e1
At present, under the ordinary system of
wool buying, large Eastern dealer sends out
an order, for example, to some responsible
man or firm in Harrison county. This man
or firm employs sub buyers, they travel over
the country, look at the wool hurriedly, buy
what they can at the lowest figures, and leave
the rest. After lime another order comes
and another set of sub-agents pick up little
more of the wool, and thus, finally, it is all
bought up. Before this wool reaches the
manufacturer, the large dealer must have a
profit out Cf it, his man or firm must have
profit out of it, the sub-agents must all have
a profit out of it, and the wool l-grower re-
ceives what is left.
We shall watch the progress of the great
Wool House and endeavor to keep our read
eIs posted 1t is called Grange Wool House,
and yet, we are informed, the organization
known as the Grange, or Patrons of Hus-
bandry, has nething to do with it. 1t is to
be an individual, or corporate enterprise, and
stripped of all disguises, is only new sort
of a wOol-buyer, that wants to take the bust
Cal-- l. r II
ers. We trust that it will be a success, and
that the great Wool House will be built, for
we believe that it may do something toward
correcting some of the abuses that at present
afflict the wool trade in general But when
built the wool-growers- of this county will
have to consider whether the distance from
home, and the cost of hauling or shipping
wool to it. and the cost of storage, and the
cost of insurance, and the disadvantage of an
arbitrary grading Of their wool and the fact
of yielding the business OF selling, in part, at
least, to other men, and the possibility of
dealing with swindlers, might not be greater
on the whole, than those from
which they now suffer in selling their wool at
their own barns, to men whom they know,
and with the certainty Of prompt payment of
Lhe price agreed upon. 1t may be considered,
also, whether, if public wool ware house is
D good thing, the county OF Harrison, the
leading wool county of the State, should not
support one of her own.
The Sentinel has this: 'sThe old cotton
factory at Steubenville will be opened on
May 1st as ware house for the wool growers
Of Eastern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and
West Virginia We believe that some mem
bers of the Grange organization are origina- |
tors of the affair. A charge of II cents a
pound will be made for handling wool. How |
.he affair will take among wool growers we
10 not know. Many of the wool growers of
his county will not sell wool except straight,
or, if deductions are to be made, they wait
she amount made definite. 1t may turn out
10 be a good thing, and it may-not. Time
will test its merits"