Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1908-05-13
WHAT is DOING IN THE WEED LINE.
Bad Weather for Delivery and Plants
Outside Facts and talk.

Weather of the past two weeks has
been anything but conducive to growth
of plants in the tobacco beds. Cold
rains have retarded growth and there
is liable to be late setting and small
plants.
Roads have been so deep in mud that
farmers have found much difficulty in
making deliveries of contracted crops.
J But each daY the weed is coming to
market and with fair roads little of
last years crop will remain in farmers
hands =: another fortnight. A mere
| fraction of last years acreage remains
unsold. There is much talk that acre
age will be greatly curtailed the pre-
sent year. The CENSOR believes this
will be the right season to keep good
the acreage.
That our condition is amplified in
other growing sections of the state is
shown in quoting from the Edgerton
Tobacco Reporter:
The movement that seems destined to
clean up the balance of the '07 crop
| goes steaily on. While the volume oI
transact. .ons are falling Off the buyers
now IN The field are as actively engaged
in hunting up the remnants as at any
time. There cannot be much more than
ten per cent of the crop remaining un-
sold, which few weeks more at the
present rate will absorb. The bulk of
the transaction continues to be made at
low figures, mostly under cents.
A somewhat better feeling is noted
in the eastern markets for cured leaf.
but nothing like normal conditions vet
| prevail. Some tobaccos are moving in
moderate way but at prices that fur
nlsh little encouragement to holders of
old stock
| A week of cold rains has held back
the growth of the young plants, which
are appearing plentifully in the beds.
A few days of warm weather will doub-
less bring them up to the average con-
ditions.
Packers handling the 1907 crop are
almost unanimous in their report that
the crop is yielding lighter than any
! previous one in some years past. The
average yield of tobacco delivered does
not much exceed 1000 pounds per acre
| the state over, which must be taken
into account when n. sking up the esti-
mate of the Wisconsin crop. Taking
this fact into consideration, it is doubt
| full If over 35 to 81 million pounds will
be marketed of the 1907 growth. An
other fact that ought not to be lost
sight of is that larger share of the
crop has gone out of the state in bun
dies to the scrap manufactures, stem
meries, the stogie factories, or loosely
packed for export than ever before. A
season of cheap tobacco has been
great boon to these interests and they
have loaded up with larger stocks of
| Wisconsin leaf than ever before in the
history of our state. That portion of
the crop which it is designed to reach
! the manufacturer without being
cased is estimated at 40 per cent of
the entire growth, leaving somewhere
from go, 600 to rs, 600 cases to be packed
in the usual way in the warehouses.
Then deduct the amount packed by the
larger cigar manufacturing concerns,
it can readily be figured out that there
will be less of the '07 Wisconsin crop to
| supply the binder trade than any time
within the past ten years. This is the
condition the trade will wake up to
| sooner or later.