The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-14
DON'T KILL BREEDING COWS AS WORLD NEEDS MEAT
Wade's Letter

The tremendous rush of
 and peanuts are breaking the markets and threatening to break the producers. The markets are restricted by the anti hoarding law. Every buyer of cotton seed and peanuts operates under fed eral license. The license is limited in the amount of stocks which he may keep on hand. He is also limited to 5o days as to the time he can keep stocks OH hand. His storage space is limited and crowded. He is limited for funds with which to buy owing to the great volume of money required to finance large stocks at present values. If the onrush of products crowd these condi- tions, dull demands at lower prices are natural consequences. Peanuts are fol- lowing this trend at the present time and cottonseed would do the same II it were not for a fixed and protected price. Markets have appetites just like animals and oversupply is Just like over feeding, which tends to destroy the ap- l petite and waste begins
 There are no more oil mills this year | than there were last year, yet there are | in Alabama 150,000 tons more cottonseeu and an increase in peanuts. The fixed price of cottonseed caused these seed to | flow directly to the mills to the extent of monopolizing all storage space, strain ing the mills and banks which finance l them with funds-lto take care of the ! influx of seed These mills have not had sufficient time to work up the seed | to reclaim space and to sell the oil, meal iand hulls to replace the value of the , seed and release capital with which to handle the peanut crop Consequently ! the peanut price not having been fixed | must wait or be sacrificed. The only protection the mills have is to withdraw | from the market or lower the price to l discourage the onrush of peanuts now attempted to be put on the market It sometimes happens that the manufac' turer who falls out of the market or lowers prices in self defense is unjustly classed as a greeey speculator.
 l The farmer holds the remedy by hav- 1 ing the unlimited privilege of holding | his producst off the market until the appetite of the market becomes keen' which it will do just as soon as space and money can be prepared to handle them. There is no law or war time rule that forces a farmer to sell his products within a specified tlme pu the men to whom he must sell are sc regulated.
 The farmers who do not owe money and who have money to meet thel needs, as d rule, are just as rampant to sell all of their crops within two ol three months, as are those who oW' money and are pressed by their credi tors This condition is a habit that dc presses prices and brings q hardship t' all. If those farmers who do not need t sell proucts to pay debts would with hold them from the market, better price for all would be the result. More com mon knowledge, common sense and nor patience in marketing crops and col lecting money is needed to master tn situation.
 | Peanuts cannot be sold for their valu on a congested market or otherwise pro ltected until the federal food administra ton either releases it's restriction or ike a price.
 Are the farmers going to sanction tn
 injustice of restricted and unproft able market by continuing to sell thei
 products, or will they hold up their sale
 fong enough to demand and force
 square deal2 The power is in you wh
 produced these products so long as yo hold them in your possession. If yo
 release the products and then complain
 you will protest in vain. The govern
 ment of the United States is amenabl
 to it's people. Then use the advantas
 which you have to make it so.
 J. A. WADE,
 Commissioner of Agriculture and Indus l trieSx