Country Hides and Skins. 
49 
While ideal conditions require the elimination of all these except 
the latter agencies, the opinions of the trade are divided over the 
practicability of dispensing with the services of the traveling hide 
buyers or agents of the large hide dealers in central markets. Their 
salaries and traveling expenses range from half a cent to 3 cents a 
pound of the hides they buy, depending on the volume of business 
they do and their efficiency in buying. Those opposed to these agents 
advocate marketing direct from producer to the large dealers who 
sell direct to tanners. They assert that the expense necessary to the 
maintenance of a traveling buying force should be paid to the pro- 
ducer or be used in reducing the cost of leather products. Those 
who favor the retention of these agents state that many hides would 
never reach the market and that there would be more damaged ones 
than at present, with consequent disastrous results to the country- 
hide industry, because of the absence of local ' competitive buying. 
They maintain that without the traveling buyer the producer would 
be at the mercy of the unscrupulous and unrestrained consignment- 
hide buyer. 
The logical agency, however, with which the small producer should 
deal when seeking to market his hides and skins direct, is the large 
hide dealer, who assembles the nondescript lots of hides from hun- 
dreds of small slaughterers and dealers and prepares and classifies 
them according to the demands of the tanners, to whom he offers 
them in carload lots. 
CARELESS HANDLING AND REPREHENSIBLE PRAC- 
TICES PENALIZED IN MARKETS. 
Another serious factor in the country-hide situation is an evil 
reputation, frequently deserved at present, but which persists even 
in meritorious cases. Many farmers, ranchmen, and small butchers, 
who see only the value of the meat on the animals which they 
slaughter, treat the hides and skins indifferently and carelessly, and 
look upon them as waste products for which any price is so much 
clear gain. Then, too, some of the traders and producers often resort 
to unnecessary and questionable uses of salt, pickle, and other chemi- 
cals in order to prevent shrinkage, to add false weight, or to replace 
the weight lost through natural shrinkage. Applying water to green- 
salted hides just prior to their sale for the purpose of adding weight 
is an equally reprehensible practice. 
These questionable and dishonest practices do not deceive experi- 
enced hide buyers and tanners, who demand liberal reductions in tare 
and in prices when purchasing hides thus treated. There does result, 
however, a national economic loss, since by this ill treatment the 
greatest usefulness of these hides and skins is destroyed. Such treat- 
