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COMING COAL YEAR'S 

 - COMPLEX PROBLEMS 



As the n.ew coal year opens, April 1, the outlook is far from favorable. 

 An immediate rise in miners' wages, a later rise in freight rates and a gov- 

 ernmental tangle to which no one knows the solution, are the chief factors 

 in the complex situation which greenhouse men have to consider. 



EADEES of The Eeview 



Rwill remember that in the 

 early part of last summer 

 growers were advised to 

 buy coal heavily in ad- 

 vance, without waiting un- 

 til increasing demand had 

 forced the price up and 

 the supply down. Yet dur- 

 ing the winter just passed, 

 many were the reports of ranges re- 

 duced to a pitiably small coal supply, 

 of valuable stock either ruined or re- 

 tarded in development and of frantic 

 endeavors to keep the temperature 

 above the danger or disaster point. 

 Some growers hauled their own coal 

 long distances, after having paid famine 

 prices for it; some cut down growing 

 timber and fed the green wood to the 

 boiler fires, and some either installed or 

 began to think of installing oil burners 

 in place of coal. A few fortunate ones 

 had coal deposits on their own land 

 and were able not only to save them- 

 selves but to help others. They, how- 

 ever, were rare exceptions. 



Now, again, the question is arising as 

 to how soon and how much to buy. The 

 experience of the winters of 1917-18 

 and 1919-20 suggests an early laying in 

 of as ample a supply as can be afforded, 

 since there is no surety that 

 the next winter will be so 

 mild or the growers so well 

 supplied as was the case in 

 1918-19. 



But the beginning of the 

 coal year of 1920-21 finds a 

 situation too complex to be 

 so easily dismissed. The min- 

 ing cost of coal, the cost and 

 availability of its transpor- 

 tation, the demand of other 

 industries than that of flower 

 growing — these and other es- 

 sential elements in the prob- 

 lem are so uncertain that 

 even careful analysis can 

 only reach tentative conclu- 

 sions and leave the future to 

 unfold its own mysteries. 



Summer Safest. 



Because of considerations 

 of price, supply and trans- 

 portation facilities, the sum- 

 mer is usually thought of as 

 the best time to buy coal. 

 There are three possible ex- 

 ceptions. The requirements 

 of that particular consumer 

 may be smallest at that time. 

 That is, of course, true of the 

 greenhouseman, but it is un- 

 derstood that he is buying 



for storage rather than for immediate 

 consumption. Secondly, the buyer may 

 have to pay long-haul prices in order to 

 get good storing coal. But almost any 

 bituminous coal will store reasonably 

 well; the chief danger is that the coal 

 dust in mine-run coal will give rise to 

 fires from spontaneous combustion, a 

 danger which can be most easily elimi- 

 nated by storage in water, where such 

 storage pits are possible. Finally, the 

 grower may not have adequate storage 

 facilities. That problem, of course, 

 must be worked out to accord with his 

 particular requirements and available 

 space. 



Inadequate Transportation. 



Coming more closely to the present 

 situation, there are two main obstacles 

 to sufficient production of coal for next 

 winter, inadequate transportation and 

 a possible strike. Labor itself is avail- 

 able in adequate supply; its restlessness 

 has been due in part to the fact that the 

 car shortage has cut down, often by half 

 or even more, the amount of coal which 

 can be produced. Since there are prac- 

 tically no storage facilities at the mines, 

 bituminous coal must be put into cars 

 as soon as it is mined and, consequently, 

 any shortage in cars at once affects the 



N\OR€ PROPS. 



Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune. 



quantity of coal which can be taken 

 from the mines. 



Inadequate transportation is due 

 chiefly to the lack of enough cars, the 

 mislocation of cars in various parts of 

 the country, the use of cars for storage, 

 the withdrawal of ore-carrying cars 

 which were temporarily used in carry- 

 ing coal in the northwest to relieve the 

 shortage of other cars and insufficient 

 motive power to move what cars there 

 are. It has been estimated that 300,000 

 more cars are needed to bring the total 

 up to the present requirements and, 

 since the car manufacturers' maximum 

 capacity is believed to be 100,000 cars 

 annually, the solution of that part of 

 the problem evidently is at least a 

 three years' job. As a result of the 

 strike last fall, cars of coal were shipped 

 all over the country in the attempt to 

 supply the essential needs; those cars 

 are slow in finding their way home, 

 some even requiring six months or more. 

 The use of cars for storage is mainly 

 of two kinds, one the storage of coal 

 confiscated by the railroads and the 

 other that of coal waiting at tidewater 

 to be exported. Another factor which 

 may be effective next fall is that when 

 the grain crop begins to move, the re- 

 sulting scarcity of box cars may re- 

 quire the use of gondolas, 

 which would otherwise carry 

 coal, for the transportation 

 of goods normally carried in 

 box cars. While more cars 

 are being manufactured and 

 more are being returned to 

 active service, relief here is 

 slow, at a time when reme- 

 dies must be speedy to be ef- 

 fective. 



Strike Coming? 



The possibility, if not the 

 probability, of a strike of the 

 coal miners April 1 has been 

 suggested in the accounts of 

 the negotiations between op- 

 erators and miners published 

 yi m^ Review March 18 and 

 i^' T'le officers of the United 

 Mine Workers have sent no- 

 tices to the local unions in 

 the anthracite coal region 

 notifying them to remain at 

 work after April 1 pending 

 negotiations, since the opera- 

 tors have agreed to make any 

 wage award retroactive to 

 that date. But the situation 

 with the bituminous coal 

 miners, in whose affairs 

 growers are more closely 

 interested, is less hopeM 



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