The Weekly Tallahasseean., 1901-07-04
SYSTEM IS ALL WRONG.
Prince Murat Plantation,

Prince Murat Plantation,
Leon county, Fla, July 1, 1901.
Editor Tallahasseean: Please allow
me the space to show wherein you are
wrong in trying to defend the city gov
ernment in the unjust discrimination
against the farmer, and show you
what a great evil it is both to the
buying public of Tallahassee and to
the farmers. 1t has but one redeeming
feature, it helps to pay your taxes, for
the market house stalls are rented
for about four times the amount that
would be asked for the same floor
space accommodations by a private
individual, clear profit to the city
of 300 per cent. on the investment.
This the farmer has to pay, for the
butcher must buy his meat on foot
cheap enough to meet this terrible rent
1t amounts to about 81 per beef, when
it ought not to exceed so cents, max
ing the unjust discrimination" cost
the farmer $15O.
1t has made the butcher the monarch
of all ne surveys. IAere are only so
many stalls, and no more, and the
half dozen men who rent them run
your market pretty much as they
please. There is no competition,
either in price or quality outside this
little monopoly.
They pay what Chey please to the
farmers and sell what they choose to
you. You are like the bOarder when
the servant used Rough on Rats" to
raise the biscuit; you can eat it or
leave it. You must buy your beef
there. The city fathers say you are
not capable Of telling good beef anu
mus ~e protected! The State Board of
-Iealth gives you ample protection. If
there is any protection in the pres
ent market system the farmers have
not seen it. Last winter l took the
pains to fatten two beeves very nicely,
out the syndicate of butchers would
only give me $12 each for them. If
l had the privilege of an open market
they woulG have brought twice that
amount, but the butcners knew l must
either accept their offer or let my stock
die of old age. The local stock mar
ket has a black eye, and cannot re-
cover from it under the present system.
when a pIney woods steer will bring
as much as a stall-fed one that cost
twice as much to produce, who is go
ing % raise good ones?
We believe the consuming public
know good beef and are willing to pay
what it is worth were Lney permitted.
Three-fOurths Of the beef offered by
your market comes from the piney
woods. Now, eWe-necked, cat
hammed, wire-grass, ine-straw-fat-
loss, fair grade at a fair profit, and
a f1rst-Class thing at good profit, and
is satisfactory to all concerned. Leon
county is capable of producing as good
beef as any county and the farmers
would gIadly supply it. We can give
you as nice beef as Armour or as
Swift, but we can't do it for So to $12
many Of us have looked for a more
friendly market than the Syndicate
offers. This gives ThOmasville and
other sister towns a territory Of five
to ten miles more than the distance de-
mands, and causes more money to
pass through your pOstof1ee to buy
goods out of town than goes into the
till of any one concern in Tallahassee.
A man generally buys where he
sells. If he must hunt foreign mar
keCOhe will buy at one. It is not the
lack of the home customers, but that
the home customers are prohibited
from buying from us. He bought Mr..
Billingsley's hams and woulu have
taken more.
l know of a Tallahassee merchant
sending thirty miles for a Georgia
farmer to bring him hams. Tallahas-
see is a good ham market. 1t will
be just as good a beef market when
our erring city dads see the error of
their unjust discrimination. It
would have been just as easy for the
Georgia farmer to have sold hams with
maggOts at the bone as to sell rotten
beef" The rascality lies in the man,
not in the article he sells. Ask any
boarding house or motel man WHY he
prefers to buy his poultry and vege-
tables directly of the farmers. He will
tell you because it is always fresh. The
farmer has good name to make and
keep, and they divide the middle
mans profit between them.
Now, Mr.. Editor, if you want to
chew on wire-grass whangstring. all
right, but give others the privilege of
a personal choice. We will bring good
beef to town, red, tender, fat and inicv
if your city government will LET rs
We are willing to have your market