200 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 193. 



2. While the crop is growing it may be sold at a fixed price per pound, 

 to be delivered on or before a certain date at a warehouse or shipping 

 point agreed upon at the time of sale and in specified condition. In all 

 cases of sale by contract the buyer makes a payment on the crop when 

 he contracts for it in order to make the contract binding, to which both 

 buyer and seller agree. This method is very common when the crop 

 looks promising and the tobacco outlook is satisfactory, especially after 

 a poor year from the standpoint of both yield and quality. A large pro- 

 portion of the 1916 crop was sold in the field because of the anxiety of 

 the buyers to procure a supply after the disappointing season of 1915. 



Harvested tobacco may be sold as follows: — 



1. After the tobacco is cured and stripped it may be sold to be delivered 

 as agreed upon at the time of sale at a certain price per pound, or to be 

 assorted into certain grades with a price for each grade, or a flat price 

 for all grades. 



2. After the grower has assorted his crop he may sell it by grades or 

 for a flat price for all grades. 



3. The grower may assort and case his crop, sweat it and put himself 

 in the position of a tobacco dealer. This last method is adopted only by 

 large growers who have suflScient capital to carry a crop. 



In the marketing of tobacco the buyer has every advantage. He knows 

 the condition of the market. The farmer, on the other hand, is primarily 

 a grower, and as a usual thing wants to sell when the crop is harvested. 

 Lack of operating capital often forces the farmer to sell early. The small 

 grower is obliged to sell immediately because he needs the cash to pay 

 biUs, purchase farm supplies and plant a new crop. 



Under the contract method of sale the farmer has all to lose, with no 

 correspondmg gain, the buyer, little or nothing. With one the matter is 

 intensely personal, with the other entirely impersonal. The buyer repre- 

 sents big organization familiar with trade conditions, prospective con- 

 sumption and competing agencies. If the buyers do not work together 

 they are not as shrewd business men as the writer gives them credit for 

 being. It would be good business. The farmers have done little col- 

 lectively to obtain trade information or to control the mechanism of 

 processing Or distributing the product. Having no knowledge of the 

 market, and not belonging to a farmers' shipping organization, he is at 

 the mercy of the buyer. Perhaps the only way for the average farmer to 

 improve his prospects is through some co-operative organization for 

 collective bargaining, the purposes, organization and scope of which are 

 discussed later in this bulletin. 



Defects of the Contract Method of Sale, 

 1. Farmers naturally do not have as great interest in their crop after 

 it is sold as before. They are likely to become careless h) handling the 

 tobacco. 



