The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-28
AMERICAN ALMOND SUPPLY
STsTEM ENT ABOUT 4
 REPORTED CORNER.

The SheIIed Nuts All Imported-Cali-
 fornia's General Crop Better Than the
 Europcan-O,her Features of inc Nut Trade.
 Press reports from Chicago concern
 ing the alleged cornering of the almond
 output of California for the present
 year by a Chicago combination are
 misleading, according to men ir the
 business in this city, It has been re-
 ported that salted almonds, we'll | known table delicacy, will be greatly
 increased in price to the housewife
 owing to the California crop falling into
 the control of two Chicago firms. The
 nut which is exclusively Salted, how | ever. is imported into this country;
 none of the Californian nuts are sheled because of their inferiority to the imported nut, it ia asserted by prominent New York importer In the first place, tho entire domestic crop of almond nuts will amount to only about 200 cars thia year, as against an esti- mated crop of 400 cars Last year the | California cron was 9 failure. aggre-
  there was a full crop that year, so no discommoding results were felt in the American markets From the fact that the almond nut harvest in Europe is failure this year, a ready market for the domestic article is insured, and the Californians have so prepared them selves for such a contingency that they have already raised the price three cents pound and may raise it still more before the present season expires,
 On September il the nut growers met and organized, and fixed the price on almonds at from 111a to If cents pound They also fixed the price on hardshell walnuts at 765 cents pound; and on soft shells at S15 cents pound They accepted an offer from two Chi cago firms to sell for them their crop at these figures on a 6 per cent. com mission. No part of this arrangement applies to shelled almonds.
 There is a story back of the action of the California growers in organizing and in selecting middie-men to watch the markets and act quickly when the opportune moment arrives. The grow CTS are not satisfied alone with selling the almond nut; they want to compete in the shelled- almond market, and say that their product is fully as good in this form as the foreign. If they can only prove this assertion to the satis- faction of the big confectioners it will mean market for over 1G,00G, 900 pounds year additional to the pres ent output, which is restricted now to the almond nut.
 The imported shelled almond comes from the Mediterranean ports, Spain, France. and Italy. From seventy-five to eighty per cent, of the total import comes in through the port of New York, the remainder being divided be- tween Boston and Philadelphia. Large quantities of the foreign product are shipped even to the Pacific coast The Californians sought to correct the ten dency to importation by getting Con gress to impose a heavy duty on the imported article. They sent advocates to Washington to influence the passage of bill making shelled almonds duti- able at ten cents a pound A New York merchant, who is said to be the largest importer of almonds in this country, had that figure reduced to six cents a pound which is the present duty The California growers now hope by or ganzaton to hold back the crop until they get desired prices, in view of the failure of the European crop. The portion of Europe from which the shellled almonds come, however, are not affected thie year, and the importa ton of these will be as heavy as ever The new consignments are already coming in. The great consumers of the imported shelled almonds are the bet ter class of confectioners. One New York candy manufacturers buys $100,- 900 worth each year. The Jordan va riety, which comes from Spain, Is the only almond salted for table use.
 The reason why the native almond l cannot compete with the foreign is said | by the consumers to be the fact that it | is fibrous and tasteless while the other is meaty and brittle and has the pecul- far flavor characteristic of tropical grown nuts. The same may be said | of sheled wanuts and filberts, Con sumers refuse to take the domestic va rieties if they can get the foreign. They | say the meat of the domestic walnut is | too dark and prefer the nut grown in France. The annual importations amount to about $750,000 year. The flberts. $200,000 worth of which is inn ported yearly, come from Turkey, where they attain a size and flavor which are found best to meet the de- mands of confectioners. London is the great storehouse for nut-growing Eu- rope, and thence they are imported to various parts of the world.
 Fault is found with the present duty on imported shelled nuts, because it is the same upon the twenty and twenty five cents a pound varieties that it ia upon the grades which sell at from thirty to fifty cents pound. The inn porters want the varieties taxed ad valorum, or else to have the grading of and selecting done in this country, in- stead of giving foreign labor the benefit of this work and obliging the American to pay for it in the price of the artcle.--New York Evening Post,