Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-22
AFTER ALLEGED RING
TOBACCO GROWERS COMBINE FOR
MUTUAL BENEFIT.

The Maryland Tobacco Growers Associa-
ton has arranged for an important meeting
to be held at the Maryland Agricultural
College January 4. at which determined
effort will be made to extend the domestic
and foreign markets now open to the ASSOC
citation, to introduce new and better sys-
tenn of grading tobacco and to meet the
restrictions heretofore imposed on the
growers by the few buyers of tobacco.
One of the first things the growers want
to do is to introduce standard for grading
tobacco, so that the farmers will be certain
when crop is packed just what 1t repre-
sents, and approximately what It ought to
bring at current market prices Few people
realize what an extensive crop tobacco is in
Maryland The crop last year was 33.e00
hogsheads. about hogshead to the acre
1t is thought the amount OF this yield can
be materially increased by proper breeding
and selection Of seed. But the grading Of
the crop is regarded as almost equally inn
portant.
Just now the farmers are suffering acute
1y from a restricted market. 1t is said
that there are but seven buyers in the
world, one of these representing the Ameri-
can tobacco trust and the others several OF
the foreign governments, where tobacco Is
monopoly. There are thirty commission
houses in Baltimore alone. but, 1t Is said,
they are completely at the mercy OF the
buyers, and the circle is SO small that the
buyers are able to agree among themselves
practically when and what they will buy
and what price they will pay for it.
Thus they will only examine samples from
the bonded warehouses at certain hours of
the day, and, it is alleged, they forbid the
growers to sell outside their charmed circle
or at higher than they put. the market
prices, under pain of being boycotted alto
gether and having their crop left on their
hands.
Growers to Break Ring.
The growers. however. are determined to
break the ring" If they can. and one Of
the main objects of. tie association at the
coming meeting viii he to accomplish this:
The growers say that it can be done. and
point to the experience of certain growers
in Tennessee who organized closely on the
same lines. They put up the price of to-
bacco from and fraction to 1ih or ~
cents a pound, and the buyers were forced
10 take Ii because they needed the crop.
This was done. however, in comparatively
restricted district and with excellent or
ganizati ton.
There was another case in the past year.
too. 1t is cited. where one man with a
good deal of money at his command or
ganized the growers, advanced them money
on their crops and carried them till they had
won out from the buyers. In this case to-
bacco that had been rejected by the buyers
in the spring because the farmers wanted
more than 3h cents for it, was finally taken
py the buyers at cents in the fall They
had to have the tobacco for one of the for
eign markets, and there was no other way
to get 1t.
The Maryland growers believe that they
VIII be able to do equally well. and when a
satisfactory system of grading is estab-
hshed they will try hard to make the buy
ers meet their terms, If they have to hold
BACK the most of the crop from the market