St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-07-21
IS THIS A BIG BLUFF?
It Is Announced That North
Dakota Elevators Will Not
Store Grain.
A New Method Of Getting Alb
solute Control Of the
Coming Crop.
Recently Imposed Elevator
Tax the Cause of the Move
Against Farmers.
Many Tillers Of the Soil Look
on the Situation With
Dismay.

Special to the Globe.
JAMESTOWN, N. D.. July 20.-It will
be startling piece of news to the
wheat growers Of North Dakota to find
out on the eve of harvest that no eleva-
tor in the state will store grain this
year. This radical change in the hand
ling of the crop has been kept as secret
as possible. 1t was determined upon,
it is said, soon after the law was passed
this year which makes all public ele-
vatOrS and warehouses pay an annual
license of $3.50 for each 1000 bu capacity.
Nine-tenths of the crop of the state has
been heretofore bought by the elevator
companies upon Duluth and Minneapo-
lis quotations. A farmer could store
his grain in these elevators for fifteen
days for nothing and keep it in store as
long as he desired to pay small fee
therefor. Now the elevators will re-
fuse this on the ground that they are
not public elevators, and the farmer
who is mortgaged to the ears will this
year be compelled to sell his crop at
whatever price the company chooses to
allow him. In most cases this. will leave
him penniIess for the winter. The law
was supposed to be a reasonable one
and was in the nature of tax not so
easy to evade as the old tax law has
proved, but the companies, in order to
evade it, will resort to this sweeping
change. which will bring
Unexpected Misery
on most of the wheat growers of this
state, class of men having from 80 to
500 acres in grain, which represents all
they have in the world, and which now
promises the first actual return for their
labor in three years. By the plan of
forcing private buyers out of the small
stations and agreeing upon price, the
principal elevators of the state will have,
as in the past, absolute control of the
enormous crop now heading out. This
crop will be so large that the railroad
commissioners have stated that all the
railroads combined cannot furnish cars
to move it tenth as fast as required.
Ii the elevators decline to store it, the
confusion and dismay that will result
will be something unparalleled. OF
course the demand for cars will be i'm
mensely increased. Farmers, having
will not have time to build bins or
warehouses. They have, as rule, no
granaries now, and can't get money to
buy lumber for new ones to store their
own garin in. Many of them, too. bought
seed wheat of the elevator syndicate
organized by Gov. Miller this spring.
This was charged for at 81 bushel,
and
Lien Taken on the Crop,
which prevents the farmer from doing
anything with it except to turn it over
to the company as soon as threshed.
The plan of the combine will result in
an agricultural panic for this section
of the state, but the profits will be SIM
ply enormous. Most of the growing
crop is mortgaged for the losses of
three years of failure by drouth and
frost, at high rate of interest. Aug.
1 is the date on which the law takes
effect. The bulk of the grain is handled
by two or three companies. The average
public elevator of $4,000 bushels capac-
ity would be required to pay as it's
share of state taxation but SIS year.
A comparative estimate of the hard
wheat yield for the state for 1890 is 49,
100000 bushels, to say nothing of barley,
rye and other small grains handled by
the same companies. A general hos
tility exists throughout the state over
the complaints of understanding, dock
age and combining OF the elevators to
lower prices, but this last high-handed
proceeding will increase such animOsity
tan-fOld