The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-11-23
COTTON AND TOBACCO PRICES
CONTRASTED.

The producer, the manufacturer ana
the consume are all interested IN pre-
serving the law of supply ana de-
mand. Anything that operates 70 pre-
vent the automatic operation or that
law is dangerous, even if for a time IL
seems 70 work good to a portion OF the
people. The trusts are organized Tor
that and therein is found
their chief evil or danger. A trust
may sell it's product for a time below
the cost Of production, and those VINO
buy at such prices may be benehtted
by such cheap prices, but experience
shows that after the trust crushes
higher prices than would regularly
prevail under healthy competition.
The best example Of the evils of
trust control of a product of the
farms is seen this year in the pre-
vailing price OF cotton and tobacco,
the chief money crops Of North Car
DINA. It is estimated that the cotton
crop will be in h neighborhood Of
10, $500, 900 ba1es-a very short crop.
There are spindles enough In the
world to make q crop of 12,5O0,0OO
bales necessary to keep them run
ming. This means that the cotton
crop Is short about two million bales
this short crop. the natural working
Of the law of supply and demand
would mean hat the farmer should
receive much higher prices for cotton.
Inasmuch as no trust controls the
price of cotton. farmers have re-
ceived this year fourteen cents for
the crop SO far sold as against eight
cents for last years full crop. Farm
ers are satisfied and the world recog-
nizes the justice Of the higher price.
How is it as to tobacco? The price
of that product was regulated by the
law of supply and enand before the
trust came to control the tobacco mar
kets. Now the law of supply and de-
mand has been superseded by the law
of trust greed, and growers of the
weed are forced to take whatever
price the trust is willing to pay. It
fixes the price upon q system of en-
the farmers to grow it.
When it ha- taken q crop Tor less
than the cost of cultivation, and the
farmers are about to abandon it's cul-
the trust puts up the price
after buying The bulk of the crop for
less than it is worth to
farmers to make another crop. It
ais pays fancy prices for extra good
grades as q bait. And the farmer,
whose land is adapted to growing to-
bacco and who has barns and is equip
ped fer the production Of that crop,
cannot as easily abandon that crop
and go into something else as the
editors can tell him to do. The
fancy prices and the better prices at
the close of the season, moreover, en-
the farmer to think thai
trust is run by men who are as wise
as serpents if they are not as harm
less as doves.
If the law Of supply and demand
operated to fix the prices of tobacco
as of cotton, the tobacco farmers this
year would be getting an average of
at least fourteen cents a pound, for
the tobacco crop is shorter than last
If we may judge by the sales, it
is very short in North Carolina. The
total tobacco sold on the warehouse
floors in North Carolina-.frst hand
the three tobacco months
1908 and 1908 shows hat 24,t3S,3t5
>o--J- fo., lr-, ~,,~ -~II 80 ..---x
September and of 1909 than
was sold i'll the same months Of 1903.
If the law Of supply and demand op-
Grated as before the tobacco trust was
the tobacco me this