AMERICAN TOBACCO TYPES, USES, AND MARKETS 63 
of 400 to 600 per hour are not uncommon. In the fire-cured and dark 
air-cured districts a slower rate of selling prevails. 
The number of warehouses in a market varies. It is unusual to 
find a market so small as to have only one; the number on some of 
the larger markets runs as high as 12 to 15. Lexington, Ky., has 
23 warehouses. On the more important markets, also, the warehouses 
contain more floor space. 
The auction scene varies but little, except as relative scarcity or 
abundance of tobacco makes bidding more or less spirited. The sales 
eroup (fig. 32) consists of an auctioneer, the warehouseman or his 
AMA 1480 
FicurE 31.—Burley tobacco at Horse Cave, Ky., ready for the auction sale. 
Larger piles are made of Burley than of most other types. 
representative, the buyers who may number from three or four to a 
dozen, the clerks who follow and record the sales, and usually a few 
farmers and hangers-on. The opening bid is made by the warehouse- 
man or his representative, and since it indicates the warehouseman’s 
appraisal of the tobacco it has an important effect on the price paid. 
If, as sometimes happens, the opening bid is much too low the suspi- 
cion may be created that the tobacco is of inferior quality, and in the 
subsequent bidding the price may fail to reach a proper figure. On 
the other hand, however, the buyers sometimes perceive the ware- 
houseman’s error and if the tobacco is particularly desirable, quickly 
run the price up to a fair level. Sometimes the first bid is too high 
and the auctioneer finds it necessary to drop the price back until 
there is a taker. 
Bids are usually made in quarter-dollar jumps until the price per 
hundred pounds reaches $15, although in some districts 10-cent jump 
bids are allowed when the price is very low. Bids of from $15 to $25 
