The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1914-04-24
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES

!: NOTE BOOK SKETCHES !
Tobacco growers are experiencing
late start this season throughout all
the cigar leaf growing states. A cold,
backward spring has prevailed through
out the country. So far, however,
Wisconsin growers see no cause for
worry for under the new system of
stirilizing the beds and sowing sprouted
seeds there is plenty of time yet to Sc
cure plants of proper size at trans
planting time.
A down east Yankee has discovered
that chicken incubator makes first
class place to sprout tobacco seed.
After the dampened seed has been
placed in an incubator two or three
days it is sprouted and ready for the
beds, and it requires but little atten-
ton in the meantime.
A paper prepared by the Lancaster,
Pa, Tobacco Growers association
warns against applying water to un-
cured tobacco. Applying water to to-
bacco to dampen it is attended with
great deal of danger. Any manner of
sprinkling when it is lying in heaps or
elsewhere is all wrong and causes much
damage later in the cure. Tobacco
dampened from natural atmospheric
moisture is the only safety and water
applied to gain weight is nothing less
than criminal, so the paper designed
for the purpose of improving the quail
ity of Lancaster tobacco states.
Important tobacco interests declared
last week that the big tobacco com
panies intended to abolish the practice
of giving away cash and all other cou-
pons with tobacco, thus saving about
$12, 900, 600 annually. The doing away
with the coupons is in line with the leg
islation at Washington calling for the
abolition of the system of giving cou-
pons with tobacco. The P Lorillard
company, it was learned, distributes
between $2,O00,000 and $4,000, 900 a
year in coupons; the American Tobacco
company. $2,500,0O0 and Liggett &
Myers, $4,000, 900.
F E;o.s,,. ,,,.,v,,, +x,,.r,.r x1,:Il Lo ;o+o,.
ested to know that historians proclaim
this, the year 1914, A. D., to be the
one hundredth in the history of the
cigar Not that there are any cigar
manufacturers who are hundred years
old-or that there are any cigars of this
vintage, we hope-but that the indus
try was born in 1914 and consequently
is entitled to celebrate this year it's one
hundredth birthday. It's too bad that
history has not provided us with the
exact date 1t is uncertain, mislead-
ing, befogging, TO celebrate for one
whole year something which happened,
they say, hundred years ago.
A very far-reaching decision was
handed down last week by the United
States Court of Appeals in the govern
ment's suit under the commodities
clause of the interstate commerce law
and the Sherman antitrust law against
the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western
Railroad Co., in which the court held
that there is no United States law or
decision of the Supreme Court pro-
hibiting the same set of individuals
from holding stock in two distinct cor
porations even though they may be en-
gagged in correlated business. This de-
cisiOn has its relation also to the disin-
tegrated tobacco companies. For the
cry has continued against these COM
panies that as long as the same set of
individuals are holding stock in them
the disintegration decree was ga
farce" But as this ownership of stock
in correlated business by the same set
of individuals has now been declared to
be lawful under the Sherman antitrust
law, the antitrust cry in the tobacco
trade would seem to have lost its last
peg.-Journa
One New York importer has the fol-
lowing to say of the new Sumatra TO-
bacco: "The Inscriptions have devel-
OPCd ouuICISuCly IO4 US W give a SOOu
guess at what we may expect. In gen
eral this crop contains less light tobac-
co, suited to American needs, than last
years did, Germany and the regies
want this same tobacco; consequently
it is bound to be high in price. The
only factor that would operate to bring
down prices later in the season is that
American manufacturers who buy at
the inscriptions have already bought
heavily and there will be less competi-
tion from them in the remaining sales.
The American importers know that the
commercial condition of the country is
none of the best; they know also that
there is quantity of old Sumatra in
this country, and | believe it may be
taken FOR granted that what Sumatra