Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-02-27
Ehrtttttg Glrat

These are the views of q man who
has studied the Central Pennsylvania
provision market and who believes
that the solution of getting low prices,
comparatively speaking, when you
want to buy foodstuffs is to study
where provisions are to be had and to
order early from your home merchant.
This man has been visiting this section
of the State on business for years and
this is his idea: Every winter Mr. and
Mrs. Harrisburger and their family
live on what has been stored up here
abouts during the summer and fall
and VIXEN they use up what they have
bought or what the butcher and the
grocer got at low prices months before
they have to pay more. Do you know
how they do in some thrifty western
communities? In the fall some of the
business men get together and send
orders for various articles of food for
winter delivery; sometimes, if condi-
tions are favorable for storing, for
spring delivery. They do just like the
average sensible man docs VIXEN coal
is down in price in the spring and
summer. They give an order and IN
many instances pay cash for 1t or
specify that they are paying at so
much for delivery at such time. Now,
the southern chick and the southern
egg commence to come into your luar-
kets in December and January and
you pay stiff prices for them at retail
during the winter. The southern po-
tato will also start to come in before
long and TIE same is true of other
vegetables. There is a tremendous de-
mand for food for export just now
and there is great demand from the
cities to make up the difference
caused by this unusual foreign trade.
| The agents for foreign governments
came into this very section of your
State and bought up your produce last
| fall and they have been working down
! south buying foodstufts this winter.
| Why can't you Harrisburgers do the
same thing? Suppose you try some
club buying through one of your own
business men. And, remember, order
early"
Here is an odd one. In one of the
city markets Saturday was farmer
who has been coming to town for &.
years. I'm not coming back until
things get down in price again." said
! he. Here / am asking the same price
| as other people and the folks won't
buy chickens and they get mad at
what ask for eggs and cabbage. EV-
eryone else is asking those prices and
when l go outside to buy anything |
have to pay a darned sight more than
year ago. 1 can't make any money.
So l guess l won't come in for
while"
canny on the foodstuffs and don't you
let any one fool YOU" remarked
| commercial man in the corridors of
the Commonwealth the other evening.
"I have been talking to some of my
friends in the provision trade and
they tell me that the people here have
bucked on $3.50 potatoes and thirty
cent cabbage. They have been Civ
ing up meats for some time and turn
ing to scrapple and sausage and they
have cut out eggs when they have
gone up. Now they are commencing
to throw the vegetables off the list
and what do you think they are buy
ing? Large stocks of breakfast foods.
The old fashioned oatmeal is coming
back into its own and corn meal mush
is one of the most popular of dishes
just now. In other words, people arc
going to buy the stuff they heard
their grandparents talk about and
hope to heaven no one tries to corn
those things"
Some one who has followed the
gyrations of the food price list of late
yesterday asked in n very solicitous
manner whether there was any bug
that would affect ice. He asked it of
a man who has a job at the Capitol
which requires him to be thoroughly
posted on the various crawling, wrig-
Cling, creeping, flying pests that spoil
every crop every now and then and
send up prices when the war can not
: be blamed. The scientific man thought
: the inquirer had been affected by the
: high cost of living and his remark
thereon drew this retort: well, L
see the ice men are harvesting eigh-
teen-inch ice and that their icehouses
are being jammed to the roofs. I'll
bet ice will be up, away up, for some
reason next summer and / just natur-
ally wanted to know on what they
/ / lxHFnrs 70 h1orn 1n wiz I,A
scarcity. The can't blame the weather
and they can't pass it off on capacity
of their big storehouses. What is it
going to be?"
, Farmers living in this section of the
State are making complaint about the
manner in which they are being
talked about by people to whom they
have refused to sell potatoes. These
farmers have refused some tempting
offers and are being accused of hold
ing out for higher prices. This is their
side of the question: "The folks who
have been giving us fits for refusing
to sell potatoes are dead wrong" said
one man living across the Susque-
hanna. 1--WE have to keep potatoes to
seed or we won't have any next year.
If You think it is easy to sit on your
potatoes when they are selling around
$3.50 you get another guess. But If
we sell where will we get off next
spring when we have to seed We have
to live and we have picked potatoes
for seeding with care. OF course, we
don't want to sell them, although If
we would we would get a fine profit,
but we would also have to run chances
of paying high for seed potatoes next
spring and maybe getting stung' on
what we buy We know what kind of
potatoes we have and I don't like to
have threats made to burn my barn
because I am looking out for myself
and maybe for some of the people who
are Shooting off their heads"
Among deaths taking place among
the men prominent in affairs of the
Susquehanna valley the last few days
was that of George G.. Wood. of
Muncv. a member of the Legislature
from Lycoming in three sessions and a
historian of note. Mr.. Wood was the
third generation of his family to sit
in the General Assembly and he was
an active figure among the lawmakers
in the eighties and early nineties