Evening star., 1936-07-16
NEW DEAL To AID
TOBACCO GROWERS.
U. S. Plan to Remove Sur
plus Is Revealed at Mary
land Outing.
BY GORDON EAMES BROWN,
Staf1 Correspondent of The Star.

Stan correspondent OF Inc star
CHESAPEAKE BEACH, Md, July
16.-PromiseS of New Deal aid, de-
pendent on farmers cooperation, were
given to some 1000 Southern Mary
land tobacco growers and their fam
lilies here yesterday as the husband
men momentarily halted their recre-
ational pursuits at Seaside Park to
hear administration spokesmen dis
cuss their problems.
Gathered at the annual outing Of
the Maryland Tobacco Growers Asso-
citation, the farmers were told of New
Deal plans to remove the price-de-
pressing tobacco surplus from the
market and were warned they must
provide grade uniformity in their
product if they would regain the
greatly depleted export market
State politics was injected into the
economic discussion as Baltimore's
Mayor Howard w. Jackson and Prince
Georges County's Senator Lansdale
G. SaSscer. Democratic candidates for
the governorship, addressed the near
capacity crowd in the pavilion.
United States VIII Act.
J. B. Hutson, director Of the East
ern-Central Division of the Depart
ment of Agriculture, declared the Fed
eral Government expects ito step in
and do something about it" If the
present Maryland tobacco situation
does not improve. He said the New
Deal might divert much of the cur
rent surplus to by-products to effect
price rise.
The speaker referred to the three
phases of the farm problem now under
consideration at Washington as a
study Of methods to expand the do
mestic and foreign mark g, to adjust
supply to the market Level and TO en-
courage a system Of agriculture which
would keep cost at minimum.
THE maintenance of a better-bal-
anced system Of farming means larger
yields, which mean lower costs, which
mean more profit to the farmers" he
declared, although we must con-
stantly remember that surplus gluts
the market and lowers prices"
Foreign Markets Analysed.
Analysing the foreign market for
Maryland tobacco, Lynn r. EdminSter
former chief of the Export and I'm
port Division of the Soil Conservation
Commission and now associated with
the Trade Agreement Division of the
State Department in Washington,
pointed out that about half of Mary
land tobacco was exported before the
depression. Since 1929, however, this
market has declined even more sharp
ly for the Maryland product than for
other States, he said.
Actually" Edminster declared,
France Is now taking less than one
tenth of the Maryland crop exported
to that country annually from 1923 to
1929" Predicting that much of the
loss would be restored under the recent
trade agreement with France, in which
she agreed to purchase 20,500, 900
pounds of American tobacco at not
less than $3,200,000, he said the State
Department had received complaints
concerning methods of packing In
Maryland.
These complaints indicate one of the
reasons for the decline in your ex-
port trade" Edminster said. 1T has
been charged that some Maryland
farmers pack their product in the
fashion Of the seventeenth century,
arbitrarily placing their tobacco in
hogsheads without consideration OF
grade uniformity; that some ship
ments contain such extraneous matter
as sticks and stones. and that the
grade Of tobacco purchased has been
lower than the samples"
Must Meet Competition.
Edminster pointed out that Mary
land growers must compete with the
kiln-dried or fire-dried tobacco OF
Tennessee and Kentucky exported to