484 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



capital of $1,000, divided into shares of $i each. The farmer delivers 

 his tobacco to the association prizer, who presses it in hogsheads for 

 delivery to authorized warehouses. There it is sampled, and the 

 sample sent to the nearest saleshouse and to the headquarters at 

 Guthrie. Grades and prices are then put on the tobacco, and it is 

 sold at these fixed prices by the salesmen for the association to all 

 who wish to buy. The farmer is not permitted to make any individual 

 selling contracts nor to dispose of his tobacco at a lower figure than 

 the one fixed upon by the accredited grader. 



The Planters' Protective Association has assisted the farmer in his 

 efforts to obtain a higher price for his crop, in some instances doubling 

 the size of his returns. An evidence of its growing success is the fact 

 that, whereas it controlled only 40,000,000 pounds of the crop in 1904, 

 it was enabled to obtain about 80,000,000 pounds of the crop 

 of 1907. 



Taking example by the experience of the Black Patch, the growers 

 of Burley tobacco organized a similar association at Winchester, Ken- 

 tucky, in January, 1907. The members of the association agreed to 

 deliver their unsold crop of 1906 and the whole of their crop of 1907 

 to county boards to be deposited in warehouses and held until buyers 

 met their terms. So great was the enthusiasm that the pool obtained 

 about one-third of the crop of 1906 and over half the crop of 1907 

 about 100,000,000 pounds of tobacco in all. 



The farmers secured loans on their warehouse certificates sufficient 

 to satisfy their immediate necessities, and were ready to wait until 

 the trust was prepared to meet the prices demanded for the pooled 

 crops. In the fall of 1907 a conference was held, but the representa- 

 tives of the trust believed at that time that they could get all the 

 tobacco they needed at lower prices than the Burley society was 

 willing to accept. With 100,000,000 pounds of unsold tobacco left 

 on their hands, the farmers' situation would be hopeless when the 

 1908 crop began to come on the market. But there was one desperate 

 remedy and the farmers agreed to take it. The members of the 

 Burley society pledged themselves to raise no tobacco in 1908. The 

 majority of them fulfilled that pledge, and the result was that 

 the society finally succeeded in selling 75 per cent of its pooled crops 

 to the American Tobacco Company at a "round" price of 17 cents a 

 pound nearly double the selling price of the leaf prior to the forma- 

 tion of the Burley Association. 



