The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1909-10-29
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES



The results secured through the sam
| pling of the '08 crop, which is now well
under way, have proven very satisfac-
tory to packers. The percentage of
damage sustained in the sweating pro-
cess will fall much below that of recent
years, and it is an agreeable surprise
to many. Aside from an occasional bit
of black rot there is very little found
to be classed as damage. Even the
shorts and low grades came through
remarkably free from imperfections.
The must and mold affection, which cut
so large a figure in '05 to '07 crops,
rather unexpectedly do not appear in
| the '08, and the absence of this trouble
is chargeable to the fact that the crop
was dry weather one and allowed to
i thoroughly ripen before being harvest
| ed. It has come to be generally ac-
cepted theory that immature tobacco is
1 the cause Of the mold damage that SO
frequently affects the leaf in the cure
and responsible for quite severe losses
| some years. The '08 tobacco has also
taken good strong sweat and is in
better condition for the manufacturers
table than usual at this date. These
are doubtless some of the reasons why
| the '08 occupies the center of the stage
when buyers come into the market
The supply, however, of binder leaf in
the crop is limited and promises soon to
be closely taken up, as probably 40 per
cent of the crop will grade as shorts
and put up mainly for filler purposes.
***
Suits that have recently been piling
up against the Burley Tobacco Co., Or
ganized pa in Kentucky for maintaining
| the price of southern leaf demand dam
ages reaching almost to million dol
lars. The cases are brought in the u.
S. courts under the Sherman antitrust
law, mainly by independent manufac-
turers who seek to get away from the |
hold-up carried on by the pool, which |
claims to contract about 60 per cent of
the Kentucky crop. The basis of the |
action, however, grew out of the trans |
actions in the 1906 crop.
The brief which the American Tobac-
co Co. has prepared in it's suit with the
tgovernment, soon to be tried, contains
a chapter upon the supply and demand
question which it elucidates as follows:
s'The fact is that it would be short
sighted policy on the part of The Amer
lean Tobacco Company to attempt to
control and lower the price that the
| farmer receives for his leaf tobacco.
Leaf tobacco is only one of the pro-
ducts that farmers in leaf tobacco sec
| tions can grow. In North Carolina,
South Carolina and Virginia it is grown
on lands that may be profitably planted
| in cotton, and it is the policy of large
| farmers to raise at the same time cot
| ton and tobacco, increasing or dimin-
ishing the acreage in the one or the
other as price conditions make it to the
interest of the farmer In the Ken
tucky section, Blue Grass fields are
broken up to raise Burley, and the
/ same farmers raise the Blue Grass and
live stock and Burley tobacco, varying
their acreage as it is profitable from
| time to time to do so. Every section
| that grows tobacco also grows other
crops, and it would be suicidal in to-
bacco manufacturers, even if they had
| the power, to put down the price of to-
bacco so that it could not stand in COM
petition with these other crops. An
other fact is not to be forgotten, and
| that is that there can be an over-supply
produced on tobacco of any type. 1t
tobacco becomes so high in price as to
be out of relation to the other crops
that the land will produce, such lands
will gradually go into tobacco, and the
over supply will be diminished, and
ultimately prevented, only by reduc-
tion in price. If there was only one
buyer, that one buyer has got to pay
the farmers profit or he won't be able
to buy it, and if you have competition
enough to get the price too high then
you will have a crop following the high
prices so large that the price will have
!! to 90 down because of that over-supply.
would rather have the price
fixed at IL cents pound if we are to
have it steady and uniform and you
wouldn't have the ups and downs of
the price, than have it fixed at eight
and drop to FIVE and up to fourteen,
because we can protect ourselves, the
consumers and the dealers and every
body else better by having it stable and
uniform. We are not speculating on
our customers or on the farmer. We
are doing a straight legitimate business
and all we want is to get our raw ma
terial as cheap as anybody else and we
don't care what that price is. No pur-
chaser's trust will ever be success
full in reducing the price of leaf tobacco
until it combines the purchase not only
of tobacco but of cotton, fax and other
crops that will grow on the land; and
no farmers combination will ever be
permanently successful until it includes
| thousands of acres that never, as yet,
| have been used for the growth of to
lbacco, but which are capable of such
luse. The purchaser who, with lack of
competition, attempted to fix the price
OF his purchases too low would be only
preparing the way for future abnor-
mally high prices that he would have to