The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1922-05-17
FORMER KINSTON MAN SAYS
TO KEEP OUT OF WEED POOL

The following letter from Leon
Oettinger, former resident of K;ns
ton and wcl-known and related here
on the failure of the cooperative mar
keting nool for the sale of tobacco
in the Kentucky Burley district. will
be of interest here. The lett i fol-
lows, comes from LeXington, dated
April ~:
"In answer to your letter asking
for information regarding the pool
here.
"Personally I think the pool is one
of the worst things that has ever hap
pcned tc the farmer. In the irst place
The men who organized the pool prom
ised the men who signed it tina; they
would not declare it formed until rs
per cent. of the tobacco had been
signed up. They had men who had
not raised tobacco for two years sign.
with al ltheir signing they had
little over 10O,OO0,O0 while the in
dependents sold 60,000,000. So they
really had only 60 per cent.
'Thc pool here has been formed
on broken promises. The men in
charge of the drive told the farmers
every warehouse in Kentucky was
promised them and if the farmers did
not sign they would have no place to
sell it. In this way they forced a
great many farmers to join that
wanted to stay out.
'In my opinion the salary list out
here will amount to more than it
cost to handle the entire crop in
former years. This is outside the
common labor. Then the interest the
they buy will all come out Of the far
mcrs' pocket. In other words it will
cost the armcr about three to five
times as much to sell his tobacco
through The pool as it cost him to sell
at auction.
"Thc third reason when the farmer
sells his tobacco over the loose leaf
floor he gets his money and has the
privilege Of rejecting any that the
price does not suit him. In the pool
he has only the privilege of bringing
it to the receiving station, after that
it is entirely in the hands of the AS
sociation. When they formed the
pool here they claimed that the COM
panies would ave to take the tobac-
co as it was graded in by the Associ-
alton. | have seen the buyers reduce
the grading as much as five points.
If they did not want the tobacco the
way it was they would tell the pool
representative they would take it at
a lower grade After the farmers
bring it in to the pool they have to
wait about a week for the money they
are advanced, and that it not over Il
third Of what the tobacco would sell
for armcrS here who brought their
tobacco have only had the one ad-
vance on it. | understand that there
will be another distribution soon but
no one knows just when.
GAS you know this years crop was
the shortest that has been raised for
good many years, and it is the con-
census OF opinion among tobacco men
who really know the conditions that
the pool instead of raising prices ac-
tually caused the tobacco to sell for
much less than it would have if there
had been no pool. The buyers seemed
to know that the officers of the pool
were extremely anxious to sell this
tobacco. The business men here are
very much down on the pool now as
ttnn2y claim it has hurt business very
much.
II k!.Tow Of several instances here
whore crops were divided, one half in
pool, the other half being sold over
the floor Invariably the crop on the
noor sold from three to four times
higher than the farmer was advanced.
The farmers here are very much dis
satisfied vcr the way things were run.
For every satisfied farmer in the pool
/ can show you dozen who would
like to get out.
"The tobacco here this year aver
aged twenty -onc cents over the breaks
aud tho OOOl aIvancpe wore On1y