REPORT OP THE STATISTICIAN. 431 



ers, an idea of monopoly. In many cases, however, the lower limit 

 of 10 bushels is broken and 5 are sold, if the buyer proves cautious. 

 There is usually a pretense of limiting sales to one person in each 

 township, while the general practice is to sell to all who will buy and 

 can pay. Sometimes the sale is made for cash, but very rarely; a 

 note payable at a local bank being received as a rule and sold or dis- 

 counted at once. When due, it is collected by the buyer, an "inno- 

 cent " third party. 



The scheme is intended to run more than a single year, but if ex- 

 posed too early the agent sometimes fails to appear after harvest to 

 "sell," as "nominated in the bond," the promised quantum of grain. 

 Otherwise he returns, takes orders among other farmers, and receives 

 notes due in twelve months, giving each a bond of the local company 

 formed by the first growers for the sale after harvest of double the 

 quantity sought. He gives these notes in payment for the oats, but 

 takes $2. 50 per bushel commission. Selling twenty bushels, he pock- 

 ets $50, or $100 for forty bushels. He may thus realize several thou- 

 sand dollars in the neighborhood, leaving the local company to sell 

 after the next harvest the two bushels for each one sold, at the same 



Erice. If the excitement can still be kept up, and confidence retained, 

 e can fleece scores of other farmers in farther commissions; but the 

 fraud is usually exposed in the second season, if not in the first, leav- 

 ing the first growers reimbursed by becoming swindlers themselves, 

 or engaged in numerous lawsuits with fellow-farmers who have been 

 swindled. 



The losses that have accrued are already immense; these returns do 

 not give them, except in a few instances ; it would require further time, 

 and prove a difficult undertaking, yet it is claimed that in some coun- 

 ties they would reach $10,000. Probably $100,000 would not cover 

 them in Ohio, and possibly the aggregate for all the States would 

 reach several hundred thousand dollars. A loss of $100 by one man 

 is common, and some cases are reported of $1,000. 



One of the early promoters of the scheme in northern Ohio, Henry 

 L. Bacon, was last year sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in the 

 Ohio penitentiary, by a court at Akron, for forgeries in connection 

 with this fraud. Otliers should follow speedily. 



The i-eturns relating to equality represent invariably that these 

 Bohemian or hulUess oats are of inferior quality, not worth as much 

 as ordinary oats. One of the most competent judges in the country — 

 Mr. Ferdinand Schumacher, the well-known oatmeal manufacturer 

 of Akron, Ohio — in a letter to the Commissioner of Agriculture, dated 

 September 30, 1885, makes the following statements in regard to them: 



I do not want them for oatmeal even at the same price with common oats. I do 

 not know of a mill anywhere using them for oatmeal, and I do not know of a farmer 

 sowing them more than twice. I do not know of any section in this country where 

 the experiment with them has been a success. They have no standing in any of our 

 grain mai'kets. 



Mr. W. S. Walker, chief clerk in the office of the secretary of state 

 of Ohio, replying to a question as to the responsibility of one of the 

 Bohemian oat companies of that State, said: "These' seed men are a 

 set of swindlers. There is not a dollar of security here for their 

 bonds. Don't deal with them." "Our courts," says H. Talcott, 

 treasurer of the Ohio State Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, 

 "are full of lawsuits," referring to lawsuits growing out of contracts 

 made in connection with Bohemian oats. In one county (Wyandot) 

 over a dozen cases are said to be on file against Bohemian oats agents. 



