The Coconino sun., 1912-03-22
To The Wool Growers of Ariz.

method ot marketing our wool IT
 Aaizona has been a difficult prob
 lem for years. It is one in which
 we should aid one another in all possible ways for none of us are
 well advised as to the market
 value of our wool when it is shorn
 in the early spring,
 Arizona is comparatively small field, producing a small clip of
 high grade wool. The buyers establish the price first in Arizona and then work north into the dis tricts producing the larger clip.
 Naturally they use strenuous ef-
 forts to establish low price in
 Arizona because of its influence on prices to be demanded by wool growers in adjoining states to be dealt with during the two or three
 months following.
 Is it any wonder that buyers in Arizona make combinations, buy in partnership, divide clips and work all manner of schemes to overcome real competition and thus depress prices? These buy CTS are paid liberal salaries to do that work and they do il we'll.
 A few weeks ago Gosney & Odell and Schnebly & Price sheared their sheep at Congress Junction. The buyers bought the Schnebly & Price clip at I7 cents and offered I7H cents for the Gosney & Odell clip. They conducted their cam paign of education on market values of wool so successfully as to persuade a majority of the wool growers to whom they could talk that these prices where all or a little more than the wool was really worth. The Gosuey & Odell wool, however, was consigned to Salter Bros. & Co.,, as in former years, and we are now advised 1t is sold for 22 cents in Boston which will net us about Io15cents at shearing corrals, 212 cents above the offer of the buyers. This is only one of many such experiences the writer has had in the last ten years, since our first arrangement with Salter Bros. X. Go. to handle our wool as brookers. It is due to them and to the many small wool growers in Arizona that these facts should be made known, and for that reason alone write this open letter. The writer has no interest in Salter Bros. &. Co.,, and never received a cent directly or indirectly from them for recom- mcnding them or securing consign- ments. We induced that firm to take up this business in Ari- zona. They have saved thousands of dollars for outfits in which we were interested and would have saved more had we given them a fair show by consigning to them every year without offering to sell at home. We are not blaming the buyers for their fine work, we are only trying to protect our fellow growers against bad methods of marketing their wool. The Peo- ples National Bank, a strong and reliable institution, is now standing behind Salter Bros. & Co.,, ready and anxious to furnish any financial support they and the wool growers they serve may need. MT. Foster, the president of this bank, on his recent trip west, after examining conditions of the wool business in Arizona, assured me of his confidence in the great saving to the wool grow CTS of the state by this plan of marketing their wool and of his desire to aid in the financial side of the business by any reasonable advances that may be required by the growers on their wool thus consigned. It is my candid opinion that the wool growers of Arizona could save $5o,ooo to SIoo, ,ooo per year by consigning