Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-16
SURVEY OF TRADE.
Tone of Produce Markets Better
Creamery Butter Firm.
EASTER EGG BOOM DISCOUNTED.
Ohio Buff Hides Weakened by Boston Tan
merry Failures.
LOW GRADE SWISS CHEESE QUIET
EASTER EGG BOOM DISCOUNTED.
LOW GRADE SWISS CHEESE QUIET
t1EFrcE OF PITTsBURG DISPATCH,
MONDAY. April Is. 1889 (

f0ru n III,
MONDAY. April l5 1883
According to the general testimony of
,yoduce commission merchants, the tone of
trade shows slight improvement since the
beginning of the month. There has been
for the last week very active movement in
butter. The demand has been unusually
strong from surrounding towns. At this
time of the year, between hay and grass,
butter is usually scarce through the country,
and smaller towns obtain their supplies from
the city. A countryman at Diamond Market
thus puts the present butter situation: "Cows
are just getting enough grass to keep them
from hay and fodder and not enough to do
them any good, but few more days of grow
ing weather will bring things all right By an
other week there will be plenty good grazing
and tie creamery butter trade will slacken up"
The expected boom in eggs as Easter draws
nearer has failed to materialize as yet. While
the movement has been active for the week
past, any attempt to advance to l2c at once
brought a chill on the markets Said one old
time country peddler: Il look for no Easter
advance this year, because eggs have been
cheap so long that dealers are much better sup
piled than they commonly are at this time.
Customers of mine to- whom have sold as high
as 800 dozen a week or two before Easter
wanted only couple of cases this week, saying
that they were already well stocked"
Said the same dealer concerning poultry: Il
have never known the country through which
l travel weekly as bare of poultry as now. For
the first time in f1ve years came to Plttsburg
with not a single chicken or turkey"
The trade in staple cheese has held its own
for the past week both as to prices and volume.
There is a scarcity of good Ohio cheese which
now varies little If any, from New York in
price The fact is due to the abundance of the
latter and scarcity of the former. Swiss cheese
is verv quiet and has been all season. On all
but the highest grades Of domestic Sweitzer
large concessions are made to the cash buyer.
A jobber here reports that lot of low grade
Ohio Sweitzer was recently consigned from
here to New York with permission to drop
more than half on quotations in order to effect
a sale.
Groceries.
In grocery lines the marked feature of the
past week has been the sharp advances in
sugars, with which commercial reporters found
it difficult to keep pace. There appears at the
end of a weeb of almost daily advances no let
up to the onward movement as markets closed
very firm. With an advance of almost lc on
green coffee there was general expectation of
rise in packages. Prices, however, remain as
week ago.
Another heavy failure of Boston tannery
amounting to 100000 has had depressing in
huence on the markets here, as all over the
land. Up to the failure Ohio buff hides were
selling at &c. There was at once drop of 18c
in Eastern markets. Pittsburg is a leading
source of supply in this line to Eastern tanners.
While our dealers have not yet reduced prices
paid to butchers, the demand has so much
fallen of in the past few days, that &c drop
is almost certain the coming week. A leading
hide dealer speaking of the Boston failures
said: while markets have been depressed of
late, and these failures will have their tempor-
ary influence to depress them still more, the
hide and leather business here is on a sound
basis and there is little doubt we will come
around all right.
'Our home tanners, as a rule, are well fixed,
and in possession of more capital laid up in
good years than they are able to use in their
business. These late failures are probably due
TO local causes or to variety of reasons which
we here cannot know. Our Allegheny tanners
are as firm as the hills and it would require a
trade cyclone of the first magnitude and long
continued to knock them from their base.
Twenty years ago there were twice as many
tanneries here as at present. We have had
survival Of the fittest. l could name two tan
neries now, whose output is greater than the
2S tanneries which were IN existence 20 years
ago"