The Greeley tribune., 1903-10-01
CALLIT GOOD
SOME LOOK ON EARLY FROST
AS BLESSING.
Views of John c. Mosher and
A. ]. Eaton on Produce
Situation in North
ern Colorado.

Never In the history of the Gree
ley belt has the shipping of potatoes
been so great in September as during
the past two weeks. The demand
was good and supply Of marketable
potatoes has been equal to the de-
mand, but it has been impossible to
get enough cars. The daily average
out of Greeley mas been twenty-five
cars. Thursday morning there were
thirty empties in the yard, but sixty
could have been loaded. That this
section will suffer the next three
months for want of cars there is ev-
cry. reason to fear and it looks bad
for potato dealers and the beet sugar
factories.
This scarcity extends to the tank
cars. For some time the Greeley
factory has had forty car loads of,
molasses that it wished shipped to
the Longmont factory to be clarified,
but up to thursday only one tank
had been forwarded.
John G. Mosher, firm of Mosher &
Parker, produce dealers, is very
conservative business man and ne
keeps well posted in the agricultural
aaffirs OF this community. Thurs
day Tribune man had a talk with
Mr.. Mosher as to the estimated dam
aye to potatoes bv the severe frost OF
Monday night, September IA, and
to inquiries he responded as fol-
lows:
"I'm inclined to believe that the
frost was in the nature OF blessing
While the potato growth this year
was exceptionally good, 1t was notice.
able in the majority of fields that
they were ripening slower than usual
and had 1t not been for the frost
they would yet be green and far from
maturing. But the frost killed near
IL all the vines and this FASTENED the
ripenlng and maturing Of the vege-
table. As proof of my statement look
at the situation today. With the
present demand for potatoes and the
continued market supply. we will
have $50 car loads shipped by October
|. This will easily be 400 more
car loads than in previous years at
this date.
We are sure of having killing frosts
by the latter part Of September and
had nothing interfered with the po-
tato's growth, they would not have
been fit to dig before the tenth OF
October, and this would have greatly
curtailed the time for either shipping
them or storing them in dugouts.
1T is well known that scarcely farm
er has sufficient storing room Tor his
potato crop and this compels him to
sell part Immediately after dig
ging.
Then other complications or i'm
pediments confront the farmer and
the dealer, towit: The scarcity OF
transportation facilities and labor.
With the digging of ,ebeets soon to
begin. the farmer would have, under
the most favorable circumstances, all
he could do to get his digging and
hauling over before the heavy frosts
set in. But with his hauling In
creased and labor quite scarce, you
can readily see that II his potato dig
ping time had been shortened he
stood to lose good sum Of money
no matter what the market might be.
And I'm strongly Of the belief that
the frost of September IA did more
good than harm, barring exceptional
cases where the farmers fields had
suffered from hail, thereby setting
back the potato growth from two to
three weeks. "
Said A. j. Eaton of Eaton in re-
sponse to similar inquiries:
The frost did far more good than
harm. Had it not come, the crops
of potatoes and garden truck would
have been so large that we could not
have handled them with safety and
profit before the fall freezes had set
in: and in that case i am under the
impression the loss would have been
much greater. What benefit is 1T to
farmer to raise specially large
crop of potatoes and lose from fifteen
to twenty-five per cent Of it through
his inability to sell or store 1t before
severe weather time.
II was talking with a neighboring