The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1912-02-02
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES

the working people IN the tobacco pack
ing points of the state in the preparing
of the crop for the cases has never
been definitely figured out though it is
admittedly large sum. 1t has been
roughly estimated that more than
million dollars is expended each year in
the warehouse handling of the crop
after it leaves the farmers hands. Of
course the great bulk of that amount
is paid for asserting, grading and pack
ing, and goes directly into the pockets
of the working people-men and women
who seek employment in this work.
This work comes in the winter months
when there are less avenues open for
those who must work to live, and to
these it is a great boon. 1t is reported
at GAINESVILLE that since the opening of
the warehouses the poor commissioner
reports large falling off of demands
for aid. Experienced hands are able
to command good wages in the tobacco
warehouses, and all lines of business
in the packing points feel Immediately
the starting of the tobacco handling
season. In Edgerton alone about S5, 900
week is paid out to the tobacco help
now each week, going to class OF peo-
pie who put it again in circulation, and
the pulse of trade is therefore quicken
ed. Stemming operations which In
late years are being conducted in the
summer months at several of the pack
ing points also helps fill out the interim
SO that the tobacco business is all the
time furnishing more and more en-
ployment to the working classes, CIV
ING steady and substantial work to
many hundred people.
*.*
A leaf tobacco merchant had the fol-
lowing to say in regard to some recent
ly published governmental statistics re-
lating to the 1911 acreage and produc-
ton: '"These government reports, un-
less read with a knowledge of what
happened during the growing season,
are misleading. The reports that were
published last week indicated, for in
stance, that the binder-growing states
show a large increase in production.
AS matter of fact, the binder sltua-
ton this fall is going to be very serl-
GUS, owing to an actual shortage. 1t
l. true that more pounds of tobacco
were raised last year in the binder
growing states than usual, but it is
also true that the quantity of service
able binders is very small, and the Sc
riousness of the situation is caused by
the fact that this follows year when
the binder production was even smaller.
The New England production is stated
by the government to be equal to that
of a wear ago. Included in this, how
ever, is an increase over last year of
5000 bales of shade-grown, which is
1 ,25O, 900 pounds of tobacco. If this is
deducted from the government figures
it represents decrease of 5000 cases
of binder tobacco, as compared with
last year. Furthermore, frost, hail and
storms took out 10000 cases of Broad
leaf and Havana Seed at the lowest
computation. Instead of a big crop,
serviceable for binder purposes, there
is an actual shortage of $4,000 cases,
which is already reflected in the prices
that packers are demanding for their
Havana Seed seconds, and the predic-
tion is made that none of this crop will
be for sale under twenty-five cents a
pound. In the great binder state of
Wisconsin there is an apparent increase
of Is, 900, 600 pounds over the 1910 pro-
duction. However, when we consider
that the 1910 crop gave only 25, 1000
cases of binders, and that the 1911 pro-
duction of $1,000, 900 pounds will give
only SO. 600 cases of binders, instead of
the normal product of 10000 to 100, 900
cases, it will be seen that the reported
increase is more apparent than real.
Drought, the grasshopper plague and
storms confined the binder production
practically to the northern section of
the state. The trade should remember
the excited buying of this tobacco last
fall by the great manufacturing con-
Germs. and with the best information at
my command, I cannot figure over
8, 900 cases which can be offered on the
general market"
The prediction made few years ago
by the United States Tobacco Journal
that we are going to be the cigarette
smoking nation is more than amply
verified by the statistics of the output
of our tobacco industries for the calen-
dar wear 1911. From these statistics
our readers will learn that the output
O1 OUI 1AldCAoCAJ AcAOC JO0A IL
tax-paid cigarettes was nearly ten
thousand millions. But tremendous as
this amount is, it does not cover the
entire quantity Of our cigarette con-
sumption. At least several thousand
million cigarettes were consumed which
had not to pay direct internal revenue
tax as they were being rolled by indi-
viduals themselves from packages of
smoking tobacco and of which no Of
| fetal record can be kept. The increase
in the tax-paid cigarette consumption
last year amounted to 1,184, 124, 915.
Contrasted with these figures the out
put of our cigar industry makes a
rather despairingly poor showing. Its
total output last year amounted to
| 8, ATT, 1872, $40, showing an increase OF
only $50, 346, 315. Time was when the
average yearly increase in the output
of our cigar industry figured around
five hundred millions. The present
fancy of the American public for the
cigarette in spite of it's boycott in sew
eral states by hoosier legislatures is
undoubtedly responsible, in part at
least, for the slow growth IN the IN
crease of the CIGAR conSumDtiOn as it