Farmers Pleased with Payouts for Tobacco, Cotton from Cooperative Marketing, November 16, 1923

Farmers Prosper as Never Before. . . Co-operative Marketing Ushers in New Era of Prosperity Within Two Years

By S.D. Frissell

After two years of co-operative marking of cotton and tobacco, prosperity returns to the Carolinas with a flood tide that breaks all former bounds. With the value of the crops around which 80,000 North Carolina farmers have organized estimated at close to $250 million by the North |Carolina Department of Agriculture as compared to the value of $157,239,000 received for cotton and tobacco in 1920, the miracle of orderly marketing becomes apparent.

The farmers who have worked together to bring back prosperity to their states by orderly marketing are not unmindful of the cause for its return. Many thousands have joined the marketing associations within the past 12 months, the total signers of the tobacco association contract now running beyond 93,000 according to the latest count.

Rumors that the final payment to tobacco growers of the co-operative association in the Old Belt would bring their total receipts to about $20 a hundred were set at rest this week when it was announced from the association offices in Richmond that the total cash payments will average closer to $25 than $20 per hundred pounds and that another substantial payment will be made to members, both in the Old Belt and in Eastern North Carolina, on the crop of 1922 when the redried tobacco which is now selling well is finally disposed of. These figures can not be taken as final, as they are dependent upon the final sales of the association’s redried tobacco nor do they apply to every individual member of the association, because of wide variations in the quality of tobacco delivered.

The average of Edward Mabrey of Fuquay Springs, who received over $30 per hundred pounds first cash advance for an entire barn of tobacco, establishes a new high record for the marketing association. Over 750 pounds of Mr. Mabrey’s load of 820 pounds brought an advance of $32.50 per hundred. George Worthington of Ayden, whose load of 610 pounds brought an average of $24 per hundred, J.E. Eddies of Spring Hope, whose load of 692 pounds brought $143.63 and C.W. Bright of Greenville, who received a first cash advance of $263.91 for 1,304 pounds are among the many growers who have lately benefitted from the increased cash advances made by the tobacco association this year.Deliveries to association houses reached 7 million pounds last week. The association will open 20 more warehouses in Virginia Tuesday, November 20, to receive the dark tobacco of its members who last year delivered 60 per cent of Virginia’s crop of dark tobacco.

Continued violation of their contract with the Tobacco Growers’ Co-operative Association, following ?? of the court resulted in the sentence of 30 days in jail and a fine of $250 each for R.O. Stephens and T.F. Morris, of Rockingham county, who were last week adjudged in contempt of court by Superior Court Judge Henry P. Lane at Winston-Salem.

From the front page of The Pilot, Vass, N.C., Friday, Nov. 16, 1923