Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1895-10-10

, Board of Trade with but one or two buy
ars. The farmer has his advices. too.
He talks learnedly of the crops in France,
Austria Hungary and the Columbia Riy-
er, and their effects on the market
The report of the Hessian fly, smut,
rust, or chinch bug makes him go up 5
cents in price to the irritation of the local
buyers, who remind him of the surplus
IN Italy.
''All goes into macaroni. So does the
Swiss wheat, and you needn't talk to me
about Columbia River and California
products now standing in bags in the
ield. 1t all goes to London around the
Horn and sells at to cents higher
there because it is so dry the. voyage
doesn't hurt it. It's Canada and India
and Russia that's going to hurt us, if any
thing is"
Eyes, and Argentina!' retorts the buy
or. Reports from there"
ooh, get out, that's on the other side
of the world, don't harvest for four
months, and it doesn't enter into the WISH
BILE supply yet
"TheSe farmers knows too much for
their own good, growl the buyers. Mean
while the farmers stand together and per-
haps go home without selling. The buy
er, in the end, makes his money on small
margins and handles large quantities.
He is really allowed only q small COM
mission. Only now and then does he
make shrewder bargain or find farm
er who must have money.
"Well, l guess I'll go home and put in
winter wheat until the price comes round
my way he announces as he drives
away, and he keeps up this assumed in
difference by not appearing for week,
saying, when he comes back again: II
sec there will be nearly three billion
bushels this year. Guess the specula-
tors won't starve if my wheat lays where
it is. Got it insured to-day" So he has
the buyer at his mercy, and in the end
he gets the highest price if he is shrewd
enough to know what that is.
He rebels 365 days in the year against
competing with the heather of China
and East India where wheat is still
thrashed with the fail, saying that q
hundred coolies don't represent the cap
ital put into a thrashing machine; and
Argentina, cultivated by Italians and
Spanish immigrant labor, seems an I'M
warranted invasion of his rights.
Saturday is the day generally agreed
upon as the day to sell, because then the
farmers are gathered in the market
towns in the greatest number. Then ac-
tual wagon loads of wheat are hauled in
and before the horses are unhitched and
the farmer tilted back against the front
of his favorite store, buyer saunters
over and makes an offer, which the farm
err declines.
Brought this in to SELL did you?'
ooh, / guess l can haul it back.
Horses haven't got anything else to do"
"Well, so long. That's the market
price, Best | can do"
In a few minutes another buyer ap-
pears and makes the same offer The
price is agreed upon beforehand among
the buyers. AS the hours go by other
farmers come in, and perhaps sale is
made Then, as the farmers begin to
hitch up again, the buyers begin to bid
against each other in their efforts to Sc
cure the wheat. A miniature Board of
Trade is thus organized impromptu, and
the storekeepers come out of the shops
to see the fun. One after another the
loads are purchased and driven off to the
warehouses or freight cars standing on
side track, for the buyer may be under
orders for an immediate delivery in some
big city.
With the selling of the wheat trade
begins. The merchants order fresh
stocks, for they know the farmers wives
and daughters will be in to buy. The
blacksmith and machinist do thriving
business, debts are paid, the banks have
money to loan, the saw mills and grist
mills begin to run and building is re-
sumed. This is the whole secret of the
90 N1,n Ing IN, HI,
treasure house of the earth revives con-
fidence, irrespective of the gold reserve
held by the nation.