The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1921-02-25
NOTE BOOK SKETCHES
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Mcintosh Brothers, returned from an
eastern trip week ago. On this visit
he also ran down to Lexington, KY,
for the purpose of seeing and hearing
something of the southern tobacco sit
uation of which so much has been writ
ten both in the tobacco press and the
dsily papers Mr. Mcintosh found that
conditions in the southern Burley dis
trict are everything as bad as have
been reported in the press. The 1918
crop brought great prices; there was
great demand for southern tobacco, and
it was good quality crop. The sue
cess of year ago tempted a great
many people in the Blue Grass region,
as well as elsewhere, to increase the
acreage. Land skyrocketed in price,
rents jumped out of sight, labor prices
were confiscatory, fertilizers unbeliev-
ably high. The investment of the to-
bacco growers was higher than ever
before. Now, all these conditions were
in the hands of the growers to make
the best of, but the growing season of
1920 proved to be one of the worst in
the history of the South. Long and
heavy rainfalls washed the leaf and
soaked the gum out of it, and at the
time of harvest the grower found that
he had about one third of his crop which
was good Burley, another third was of
medium quality, and the last third was
bad. The Kentucky Burley is not
cigar leaf; it is tobacco used for ci-
garettes and manufactured tobaccos.
When the buying season opened last
fall slump had registered in this type
of tobacco. and the southern grower
was up against it. In spite of every
effort the market has not recovered to
any appreciable extent Mr.. Mcintosh
said that the day he visited the Lexing
ton auction sales floors, over 500 loads
of tobacco stood on the streets waiting
for chance to get their sample bas-
kets or the sales floor The tobacco is
brought in loose on poles, loaded on
wagons and covered with canvas.
Farmers had to wait as long as week
to get on the floor, and sometimes their
board and lodging while waiting to sell
cost as much as the tobacco brought.
Mr.. Mcintosh talked with a farmer
whose tobacco in 1919 brought him
Sc, 500; this year the same acreage
brought him 5000. The situation is
pitiful, Mr.. Mcintosh said The poor
sells for cents a pound, the best as
high as SO cents; but even this price is
only one half of the prices of last year.
The average price may have been be-
tween Is ard IA cents.
**#
operative mark citing is given much
attention these days. The agricultural
experiment station of the u. w. has
recently printed bulletin which bears
the title Marketing by Federations. !"
1t calls attention to the success which
the cheesemaker federations in Wiscon-
sin have experienced, and this in spite
of the fact that they so far handle only
about IA million pounds of the 240 mil
lion pounds produced in the state. The
bulletin also points out that if the pro-
ducers are going into the marketing of
their goods on scale to control prices,
they must be willing to take all the
chances that the private middlemen are
now taking, and that the financing of
storage plants and goods in storage be-
comes a necessity. The middleman is
as much part of the marketing prob
lem as is the marketing itself, says the
bulletin; the only difference in the CO.
operative handling of the marketing
would be that the middleman would be
| salaried man employing salaried Of
! flee force to handle the goods from the
producer to the consumer. Risks,
due to changing prices, which private
agencies have been accustomed to take,
must also be taken by the cooperative
| agencies. Farmers should realize,
therefore, that in marketing products
through the efforts of their own feder-
| ations they must be willing to be hit
| by losses just as private middlemen are
hit some times,'' says the bulletin, and
! the cooperative agencies assume the
/ responsibilities formerly confronting
| the private middemen." The bulletin
also shows how cooperative marketing
may succeed, namely, ''by controlling
farm products from farm to consumer.
To be successful it must practically
| have monopoly of the handling of any
one type of produce. If cooperative
sellers are to succeed in q competitive
market, they must be able to furnish a
| type of goods the standard of which is
superior to privately handled goods.
The number of the bulletin is 322.
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