The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1905-09-08
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES



Heavy storms occurring during the
week covering quite broad sections of
tobacco territory have done more to in
jure the prospects of splendid crop and
unsettle the buying movement than any
thing that has preceded during the season.
Close to half the crop probably had been
secured when the latest damaging storm
came. The injury done by hail which
the storm in few locali-
ties is not to be compared with the dam
age which tremendous downpour with
heavy winds has wrought to the fields of
matured tobacco about ready for the
sheds. So many growers will have crops
of partly sound and partly damaged to-
bacco as to cause good deal of uneasi-
ness about what will occur at delivery
time. No one believes that they will be
able to realize the price of sound tobac-
co for damaged leaf, but how will the
trouble be adjusted is what is worrying
the grower and some buyers as we'll. The
safe method to adopt seems to be to
keep the different qualities of tobacco
entirely separate at stripping time so
that which comes up to the require
ments of the contract may be delivered
at the agreed price. Ii a new deal can
not be satisfactorily made as to the
price of the damaged leaf, then the
farmer cannot be held to deliver it, and
may sell to any other buyer. 1t must be
a matter of mutual concessions, but the
fear is that there is plenty of trouble
ahead. Were it not that buyers were in
such hurry to contract for the tobacco
long in advance of it's being ready for
market, such conditions as are now pres
ent could not occur.
***
Buyers have been riding quite exten-
sively in the growing districts since the
storm of Friday, taking notes on the ex
tent of the injury done to crops under
contract and advising with growers re-
garding the trades. 1t is very much like
going to funeral in some cases, so they
report as growers can now see bow hun
dreds of dollars have been Topped off
from their crops. A few buyers are con-
graduating themselves that but few of
their purchases were included in the
stormed sections. Altogether, however,
the salvage is going to be much larger
than at first supposed.
20 *x~
The u. S. Tobacco Journal sounds a
note of warning to the tobacco men who
are clamoring to buy standing tobacco
in the fields and calls attention to the
effect upon the market of the free ad-
mission of Philippine tobacco. Having
established the fact that foreign mo-
nopoly exists in the buying of the tobac-
co Of those islands, it says: Free trade
in this 80 cent tobacco means swamp
ing this country with Philippine leaf by
the monopolistic 'Campania General de
Tabacos.' Supposiug they send only
five million pounds over the moment our
Protectionist barrier falls at the behest
of our Philippinized Secretary of War,
it's very presence and the likelihood of
it's steady increase is bound to have such
disturbing effect on our leaf market
that prices will drop like in panic and
the packer of 1905 domestic leaf will not
realize fourth of his investment.
This is no overdrawn picture. With free
tobacco, free cigars will also come pour
ing in and the cigar industry will become
as demoralized as the leaf trade. To in
vest under such a gloomy prospect in
1905 crops now is like playing with fire.
Therefore, Look out!''
TX
At the present writing the tobacco
growers in all the cigar leaf tobacco
producing states appear to have the
game pretty much in their own hands,
and to be making the most of the situa-
ton. Wisconsin, the greatest producer
of binder tobacco, with her tobacco crop
still a long distance from maturity, is
fairly ove-run by an army of buyers who
are paying from s to 121s cents per
pound for the crop, and that, too, in
spite of the fact that the damage from
hail in that state has probably been the
severest in decade. Here, in Lancas
ter county, a somewhat similar state of
affairs exists. Tobacco growers who are
not scared by prospective hail storms
ana possible early IrOSLS uO uOL ouCopI-
age this buying. They do not believe in
selling an article before it is grown and
housed, and we think with them. Of
course, certain conditions are attached
to these sales. The packer who does not
exact them is unwise. Hail has already
come and more may follow. Winds
may whip and break the leaves. The
season has been an unusually wet one,
and good many low-lying fields have
had more than was good for them
through inundations. Too much rain
sometimes carries rust in it's wake. But
even this is not all. The crop will be
housed in a very sappy condition; rarely
more so. That means danger in the
barns, unless the growers give it more
than their usual attention. Any or all
Of these causes may result in trouble be-
tween the buyer and grower, and juries
are generally called on to decide what is
sound, merchantable tobacco and what
is not. These are contingencies which
must be kept in view under the condi-
tions at present prevailing. 1t is time
for both sides to keep level heads. 1t is,
of course, a big temptation to sell when
one is offered big price for his product.
r iC misc to ho1iovo thnro ia