The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1899-01-06
CORNER IN SUNFLOWER SEED.
A Chicago Firm Makes Handsome
Profit in the Operation,

1TOut the opeTdIlOHs
"Apropos of the recently announced
corner in broom corn" said a dealer in
bird foods, "a similar deal in sunfiower
through this year. Sunhower seed is by
all odds the most popular parrot food on
the market. Though it is occasionally
imported from Russia and Australia the
bulk of this crop comes from the West
ern states. with Kansas in the lead. The
Chicago house that made the corner
bought up the crop in the fields and ad-
vanced the price at one jump from
cents to 31@ cents pound, or 371a cents
a bushel
"The firm is making big thing out OF
it, for very little seed is coming into the
market from outside channels. l secured
small lot at special price from Jer
se.y " f1U hard te1r sIrHnuwers
this year and who made nice little sum
as a result of the increased prices, but
only comparatively trifing amount is
grown in the East.
1.-THE crop is one that makes heavy de-
mands upon the fertility of the soil. and
the stalks which form nineteen-twen
tieths of the bulk. have no commercial
value. If some way could he found fo1
utilizing the stalk pith, which is of par
ticularly fine quality. sunt1owers would
no doubt become popular as 4 farm crOl
in the East. The market for the seed
could be almost indefinitely enlarged, fol
it makes valuable poultry and stock
food. and is also used for human con.
sumption as a substitute for peanuts IN
candy.
Incidentally" added the dealer. 'the
birdfood market presents unusual op.
portunities for speculation. Early in the
summer it was apparent there would be
a shortage in the supply of wild seeds
that so to make the canary mixture. II
was Il good wheat year. and such years
the peasants in certain European coun.
tries that supply the bird food are too
busy with the wheat harvest to gather
the wild seeds at the proper time. As
result prices are away up and the men
who had foresight and the requisite cap
ital to buy before the old crop was ex-
hausted are in clover. New York Sun.
Does College Education Pay?
Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American
Biography contains, in round figures, 49,.
600 names. Of that number few over
5000 are the names of college graduates
and 10000 approximately are the names
of those who are not college graduates
1t is extremely difficult to estimate with
! any degree of accuracy the number Of col
lege graduates who have lived i'll oul
country since the beginning of our his
tory. Suppose we adopt the usual esti
mate of 10000 Five thousand of these
have done such work as to deserve recog
milton; that is, one man in every thirty
sent out by the colleges and universities
has reached some distinction. This pro-
portion seems pitifully small: and our case
seems already lost. But let us put over
| against these college graduates those who
| are not graduates.
AS the male population of the United
| States grows up and passes through the
age of college education, a little more
! than 1 per cent. actually graduates from
| colleges and universities-for ease in cal
| culation, let us call it per cent. Then
| if we count the graduates in our country
since the beginning of our history $50,
| 600, the non-graduate males of graduate
age number 100000 OF this vast null
titude only 10000 have done such work
| as merits recognition in an encyclopedias
of biography. Only one in every 1900 OF
the non-graduates has attained distinction
while one in every thirty of the college
graduates has been equally fortunate
That is to say, the boy who takes time
to prepare himself for his work by sub
hitting himself to the discipline fur
nisllcd by the college or university in
creases his chances of success fifty fold
Prof. John Carleton Jones i'll the Fo
rum.