The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1901-10-03
THE POTATO M.4RkET.

condition of the potato market has
given rise to more or less comment on
the same by the farming fraternity.
who were'not many weeks ago taken
upon onto the mount of High Prices of
''Tubers" and shown the promised
land. It was but a brief spell ago when
farmers who had potatoes to sell we're
receiving all the way from IS cents to
$1.05 a bushel. But the time and con-
ditions governed then as they do now.
and as they always do in establishing
prices of any products. When potatoes
were in great demand a few weeks ago
at ''any old price" it was 'between hav
and grass The old crop was we'll
nigh exhausted throughout the coun-
try, and from the common lunch room
to the luxuriously arranged dining
room of the fashionable hotels came
the cry for potatoes. In the twinkling
of an eye the common ''spud'' that fills
a long-felt want in humble way
sprung into greater prominence than
Klondike nugget, and the demand be-
came so great that the early potato
markets became the Mecca for horde
of buyers. It was not every section
that had ripe potatoes to sell, and in
the rush for the tempting prices many
a potato field was stripped of it's crop
before nature had put on the finishing
touches. But any kind of potato
went so long as it looked at all like a
potato. Farmers in many sections re-
allied a handsome thing from their
early crop.
But in the meantime the late crop
was coming along, and early in Sep
TENDER the markets commenced to
turn the flood gates open, and presto,
change. There were potatoes galore
being rushed to Chicago, St. Louis,
Kansas City, Omaha, and hundred
and one other places, and the result
was-a break in the market. Instead
of IS and so cents, the market dropped
to so, to So and down to 45 and lower
inside of two weeks. This awful slant
did not occur alone here in Princeton,
but every market throughout the DO
tato belt suffered like decline. With
the exception of an occasional track
buyer who peddles out his potatoes
along the railroads at southern points
or is buying to fill some specific order,
every potato buyer throughout the po-
tato belt is governed by precisely the
same conditions, generally speaking.
All the regular potato dealers have
buyers at all points. They all have
practically the same field to buy in
and the same field to sell in. Business
sagacity and luck are the only things
| that make a difference between DEAL
ers, and there are none of them who
have not had their eye teeth cut, and
who have not learned we'll their les
| sons of experience. A potato buyer at
Cambridge, or North Branch or Isanti.
or any OF the adjoining markets or any
contiguous markets has no advantages
of any consequences in trade conditions
over any buyers at Princeton, or at
any other competing markets. It may
| be true that at times certain markets
experience a squirt in values because
OF some urgent demand for particu-
lar class of potato, or because of a de-
sire to complete or fill an order in
| hurry, but those conditions are not
regular, and do not govern. Prevail
ing conditions always govern.
AS to the dealers they are in the
business to make profit and to do this
must take chances at times. They
know full we'll, as every farmer ought
to know, that the potato market is
very tickle and is variable to very
sensitive degree. Another feature is
the uncertainty of the market; which
can never be forecasted and is never
known until the entire potato crop is
marketed. We do not know how much
of margin potato buyer figures on
when buying potatoes, but personally
we are Of the opinion that he should
have reasonably wide one. He is at
all times liable to heavy shrinkage and
losses in handling the crop. One car
load of rejected" potatoes, will offset
the profits on a few bushels to say the
least. In buying potatoes he must
estimate on a certain percentage of
| loss, the same as a merchant estimates
l l.: