The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1916-11-03
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES

No one can recall time, especially
in the last twenty years, when there
was such scarcity of cigar leaf to be
found in the market for the medium or
smaller manufacturers to draw from,
or time when an Indifferent class of
tobacco was held at such high prices.
Even the odds and ends have been
cleaned out of the warehouses and sold
to meet the demands of the export
trade or smaller factories And the
real pinch has hardly yet come. Just
where to find old material, leaf ready
for the manufacturer table, will be
the problem for nearly year to come.
A greater opportunity therefore for
the larger concerns who buy direct
from the producer to corner the 1916
crop never before presented itself. The
mattel Of price to them was of small
consequence if they could control the
entire production of the year when
there were no reserve stocks obtain
able to tide over the season. If the
smaller competitors could be shut odt
Of the buying field by high prices and
the market bare of old stock, trade
would eventually come to the big con-
Germs who were already enjoying the
lion share of the manufacturing busl-
ness. Such scheme is one that high
finance enjoys, and we leave it to our
readers to judge how we'll they have
embraced the opportunity. The move
ment of the 1916 crop in all the cigar
leaf states at least points suspiciously
towards monopoly program.
IS
There were 400 acres of tobacco
grown under shade in the Connecticut
Valley this season, which is estimated
to yield upwards of 10000 bales of
cured and graded leaf. The crop was
produced largely by corporations with
from 100 to 800 acres under cloth COW
ering. The 1915 yield was only trifle
over Is, 600 bales. The section produc
ing shade-grown leaf is in the hotbed
of munition factories and the question
of labor has been a difficult one besides
the increased wages amounting to 70
pa cent greater than heretofore. The
labor situation, as bad as it is, is not
the only thing the Shadegrown farmers
have had to conteed with. The price
of cheesecloth at the beginning of this
wear was 80 per cent higher than last
year, and the prices now being quoted
are nearly double what they were last
year. The quantity of cheesecloth that
could be bought in 1915 for 81, cost
So. Is for the 1915 crop and will cost S4
for the 1917 crop. Mating, manure,
cotton seed meal, wire, mule and
horsefeed and construction costs are
some of the things that are costing
more, in addition to labor in the field
and in the warehouse. The average
Shadegrown producer is convinced that
these high costs are going to last for
another year at any rate, and in fact,
the general belief is that they will be
worse next year.
The State Department has won de-
cided victory for the American tobacco
exporters, it is believed. According to
the announcement made at the Depart
ment, the British government has re-
voked the requirement it imposed some
time ago that tobacco shipped to neu-
trail European countries must have been
bought and paid for before August in
order>to be landed in Holland or the
Scandinavian countries without being
consigned to the Netherlands Overseas
Trust or covered by guarantee that it
would not be sent from Denmark, Nor
way or Sweden into Germany. The
British government has taken more
reasonable attitude now, in the opinion
of Department officials and of men
connected with the tobacco export
trade. 1t now requires that in order
to escape the restriction regarding con-
signment or guarantees, tobacco must
have been put through under bill of
lading at interior or seaport points IN
this country before August 81, assum-
ing that the sale was contracted fol. by
July Is. The whole requirement that
tobacco must have been bought and
paid for and actually have changed
ownership by August is repealed.
The effect of the British action, it is
expected, will be to release total of
several million dollars worth of tobacco
shipped by August 81. either by rail to
American seaports for export or by
ocean to neutral ports, much of which
latter tobacco is being held up at Rot
terdam and Copenhagen, through Brit
ish influence, because it was not act
ually paid for, as claimed, by August
4, although quantities of it are con-
signed to American houses in Europe.