AMERICAN TOBACCO TYPES, USES, AND MARKETS 65 
A grower has the right of rejecting the bid. He exercises this right 
by turning his ticket—folding it with a crease, tearing off a portion, 
or otherwise mutilating it. 
Bringing up the rear of every sale are a bookman and a clip man. 
The former draws off the information necessary to the accounting 
records of the warehouse. The latter, armed with a pad of forms on a 
clip board, prepares a statement or “‘farmer’s bill’ covering the lot or 
lots sold by each grower. Each computes the total value based on the 
number of pounds sold, multiplied by the selling price of the respective 
lots. Their computations must agree. The clip man then hands the 
statement to a bill boy by whom it is presented to the office where the 
warehouse charges are computed and deducted. If desired, the farmer 
may immediately obtain a check for the net proceeds of the sale. 
The warehouseman’s business is to provide the facilities by which 
the producer’s commodity may be offered for sale. In doing so he 
undertakes heavy expenditures in the form of capital investment and 
salaries. It is true that ‘‘the house’’ frequently bids in a basket of 
tobacco to avoid having a dissatisfied grower-customer and later sells 
it for its own account. Aside from such transactions, which are not 
always conducted at a profit, the warehouseman’s revenue is derived 
from warehouse and selling charges, which vary in different States. 
In North Carolina, for illustration, the charges are regulated by law 
and are as follows: Weighing fee, 10 cents per bundred pounds; 
auction fee, 15 cents per lot up to 100 pounds and 25 cents per lot 
above 100 pounds; commission, 2% percent. 
Payment to the grower is made by the warehouseman, who issues 
a check against his own account. Settlements between the warehouse- 
ae and the buyers or the companies they represent are usually made 
aily. 
The above represents the usual and proper relationship of the ware- 
houseman to the selling and buying interests which meet on his floor. 
Occasionally, however, the warehouseman is associated more or less 
secretly with speculative buyers who seize opportunities to buy in lots 
at less than their true value, sharing in the profits of later resale. 
Just how widespread this practice is cannot be said, but to the extent 
that it does exist 1t is vicious and should be prohibited. The effect 
is to give the warehouseman an interest in farmers’ tobacco being sold 
at less than its true value, and is in direct violation of the relationship 
of principal and agent existing between the farmer and the ware- 
houseman to whom he entrusts his tobacco. 
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE AUCTION SYSTEM 
Numerous advantages and disadvantages pertain to the auction 
warehouse system of marketing, viewed from the standpoint of the 
tobacco grower. Chief among the advantages are the rapidity with 
which a crop, large or small, can be disposed of, and the promptness 
with which the grower can realize on it. Tobacco of almost any con- 
dition or quality can be disposed of,, and, viewed in the aggregate, 
prices respond with a considerable degree of nicety to the prevailing 
conditions of world supply. A study of average prices shows a strong 
correlation between broad movements of prices and such factors as 
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