t OLEOMARGARINE. 521 



TOMPKINS. Yes, sir. 

 KNIGHT. How do you figure it out? 

 , TOMPKINS. By taking the quantity of oil off the market where 

 it is sold at present ; it will depreciate the value of the whole amount 

 of cotton-seed oil, because the surplus product is what controls prices, 

 not the whole quantity. 



Mr. KNIGHT. What is the quantity of oil? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. The quantity of oil is from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 bar- 

 rels. It is difficult to state the amount exactly. 



Mr. KNIGHT. What is that quantity 1 ? k 



Mr. TOMPKINS. It is from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 barrels of oil that is 

 produced. 



Mr. KNIGHT. You do not grasp my question. That is what I have 

 been trying to get at in the cotton seed business. What do you con- 

 sider to be the relative value of the production of oleo in this country 

 to cotton seed oil? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I consider the finest pressed oil about 5 cents a gallon. 



Mr. KNIGHT. That is not the question at all. What is your market 

 for cotton- seed oil to tnese manufacturers? How much do you market 1 ? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. We have their testimony for that. I think they can 

 give you a more accurate estimate of it than I can, probably. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Is it not true that the Internal-Revenue Commissioner 

 shows that you sold to them last year less than $500,000 worth of that 

 oil? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. I could not answer that question. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Well, it is a fact. I think the committee will accept 

 my statement, because this is a matter of record. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. But that may not be any measure at all of the quan- 

 tity of oil that goes into the product, because it may have gone through 

 several other channels. We know that they use cotton seed oil to the 

 extent of 10 to 30 per cent and that it furnishes a large market for it. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Do you not know how much they actually use? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. According to their testimony, I say. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Do you not know how much, exactly, they use accord- 

 ing to their own testimony? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. That testimony stands for itself. 



Mr. KNIGHT. What I want to get at is, what is the value of the 

 product? According to the Secretary of the Treasury it was about 

 $8,800,000, as I understand. 



Mr. TOMPKINS. It is not a question of the value of that. It is a 

 question of what will be the cause of destroying that market and 

 limiting the sale of cotton-seed oil in the markets that are left. 



Mr. KNIGHT. I want to ask you this question : You claim there, as I 

 understand, that the loss of a market of a half million dollars' worth 

 of cotton-seed oil would lower the value of your product to the extent 

 of $2,000,000? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. In a differential market it might easily. 



Mr. KNIGHT. Then why would it not be a good investment to burn 

 up a half million dollars' worth and thus advance the price? 



Mr. TOMPKINS. We are not in the business of burning up. Each 

 man would have to burn his own oil, and you can not bring about a situa- 

 tion of that kind. It might bring about the same result if you did. No 

 individual man is going to burn his own product, and I doubt if the law 

 would permit a combination to do it. That is not the question at issue. 

 We have this example before us: That the production of a cotton crop 

 of 11,000,000 bales carried the price to 5 cents, and the production of 



