The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1909-03-05
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES

I
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES !
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The Commissioner of Corporations,
who has been delying into the affairs
of the big tobacco trust, has just made
public some of his findings. He says
the concerns controlled by the trust
produce 81 per cent Of the cigarettes, 81
per cent of the little cigars and only
14.7 per cent of the cigars manufactur
ed in this country. Of the other man.
ufactured products like snuff, fine cut,
smoking and plug from 10 to 96 per
cent is controlled by the octipus. Hav-
ing been successful in other branches
it is surprising how small a hold the
trust has on the cigar manufacturing
trade after some years of hard work to
break into this business.
~
The Tobacco Leaf insisted, when the
buying movement began last year in
| the fields of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,
Ohio and New England, that the proper
way to buy tobacco is to wait until it
has been cured and is in merchantable
shape The news comes that those
| firms who initiated the buying are now
again in the market after certain
grades, and that their purpose is to av-
erage down the price on their total
| holdings. 1t seems that some of those
early purchases have not Gurned out all
that could be desired, and that when
the undesirable leaf had been taken
out, the sound cost more than the buy
ers were willing to pay. Ii they had
waited until the tobacco was cured and
sorted, they would have known what
they were getting. IN. Y. Leaf. Sound
as this advice apparently is, buying to-
bacco in fields has become such well
settled custom in this state that no
amount of preaching is likely to change
it. Remove the speculative feature
from the tobacco business and there is
very little in the game wcrth staying
for.
THE CIGAR LEAF GROWER AND THE
PACKER.
Whenever. from whatsoever cause,
they do not receive fancy price for
their crops, our cigar leaf growers in
dulge in denunciations and propositions
which smack more of imported social
ism than of the native American soil.
Whelfser those causes have their origin
| in a general financial setback of the
country which is bound to depress val
ues of all products or the inherent de-
fects of the crops themselves, which
naturally restrict their usefulness in
consumption, our cigar leaf growers do
not seem to take them into considera-
| ton. Because they have seen the price
of their crop double in ten years, be-
cause they have in one decade reaped a
golden harvest that lifted the mort
| cages from their farms and provided
| them not only with all comforts but
also with great deal of aff1uence, they
seem bewildered at the sudden change
broughr about by the panic of 1907 by
| which the price of leaf tobacco has been
| levelled down to the basis of the anti
boom period. But instead OF letting
reason and circumstances explain the
| fall and retrogression, instead of trust
| ing to the healing power of time and
awaiting in patience the recuperation
| of the sorely disarranged digestive con-
sumption of the country they set about
| to find ready scape-goat in the pack
er. Let it be we'll understood, it is not
| the Trust our cigar leaf growers are up
| in arms against, but the individual
packer. The convenience of pounding
| a Trust for any and all evils he may be-
| lieve himself to be victim of seems to
be denied to the cigar leaf grower. And
| so he falls foul of the poor individual
| leaf man who takes the crop off his
hands before it has yet reached the
stage of recognizable merit and who
hands him over the cash for it before 1T
has passed through the final process Of
curing when it generally develops de-
fects largely depreciating its value.
| That's the man whom the Pennsylvania
| grower wants to force to pay higher
prices by resolution of his association.
| That's the man whom the Wisconsin
| grower as a member of the lniqultous
Society of Equity wants to treat as an
outlaw as the Kentucky tobacco grower
treated the Trust And that's the man
whom The President of the New Eng
land Tobacco Growers Association pub
| licly denounced as a trickster whom the
| COOdCCO SIOWOI oIIOulA SCC liza W.
| all this because the packer has failed to
pay the grower for his crop last year
the abnormal and excessive figure of
the boom year of 1906. That the pack
er lost on the boom priced 1906 crop the
accumulation of life's toll and busi-
ness risks does not seem to concern the
tobacco grower at all. That the pack
er in years gone by when he really
| made some money on a good crOD had
to give it up again when the next year
he paid the grower the same price for
poor crop does not seem to impress
itself at all either on the conscious or
on the intellect of the grower. That
there are in the entire packing trade of
the country very few and far between
wealthy concerns and none excessively
so has probably never been reflected on
by the grower He has become spoiled
by the excessive gains made in years
/ leading I'M to 1906 He has been in