Dry goods merchant

“ And when you remember that the purchases of dry-goods must be made in very large quantities, from a month to six or even twelve months before the buyer can sell them, and that his sales are many times larger than his capital, and most of them on long credit, you have before you a combination of exigencies hardly to be paralleled elsewhere. ”

“ And the traders who come with small cargoes, and others engaged in the business, buy them up from the merchants and sell them again to the common man, who cannot do without them, oftentimes at a hundred per cent. advance, or higher and lower according to the demand. Upon liquors, which are liable to much leakage, they take more, and those who buy from them retail them in the same manner, as we have described in regard to dry wares, and generally even more cunningly, so that the goods are sold through first, second and sometimes third hands, at one and two hundred per cent. ”

“ It is said that the big dry-goods stores mean to make arrangements whereby they can send their small parcels by tube instead of messenger, and save a good deal of money now spent for horses and drivers. ”

“ The quality valuation is, in fact, being extended as rapidly as the growth of knowledge will permit to the chief food materials of commerce. As this practice becomes fixed the dry-farmer will be able to command the best market prices for his products, for it is undoubtedly true that from the point of view of quality, dry-farm food products may be placed safely in competition with any farm products on the markets of the world. ”

“ The holds are fitted up like shops, with desk and counter; the stores supply all the wants of a primitive people—dry-goods, clothes and caps, saddlery, wool-carders, querns of basalt, and spinning-wheels; sugar, grain, tobacco, and, especially, the rye-spirits, with which all purchasers, male and female, are copiously drenched. These, and a multitude of notions, are exchanged for wool and eider-down, dried-meat, salt-fish, and a few fox-skins. ”

“ We will merely remark, in passing, that one of the largest retail stores in the New York dry-goods trade sells at its counters ten million dollars' worth of fabrics per annum, and that another concern in the wholesale branch of the same trade does a yearly business of between thirty and forty millions. ”

“ At some places the loans to farmers are being curtailed, but in the [55] majority of places the applications for loans are fewer than in several previous years. The hotels are crowded with traveling salesmen, all of whom appear to be doing good business, selling principally dry goods, clothing, hats, caps, shoes and articles of similar character, and very few provisions. Many places are purchasing a better class of dry goods than they had in twenty years back. ”

“ While the tide of trade turned distinctly after the drought, and there was a generally cheerful tone everywhere on account of the seasonable weather and favorable crop outlook, the heat and dry weather continued to affect trade in various ways for many weeks. The shortage in corn and potatoes led to an increased demand for rice, and trade in canned goods and dried vegetables was stimulated by the scarcity of fresh vegetables and fruit. In the southwest, especially, the scarcity of fruit and vegetables gave the local commission houses a large business in fruit and produce. ”

“ As far as possible each section, great or small, should confine itself to the growing of a variety of each crop yielding well and possessing the highest nutritive value. In that manner each section of the great dry-farm territory would soon come to stand for some dependable special quality that would compel a first-class market. Further, the superior feeding value of dry-farm products should be thoroughly advertised among the consumers in order to create a demand on the markets for a quality valuation. ”

“ They also thrust skewers through little pieces of meat, which they smoke-dry and sell retail. Great quantities of fish, fresh as well as dried, are brought to this market, in which are also to be had earthen pots, calabashes, mats, and salt; but the salt in the market is only sold retail; that which is sold wholesale is kept in the warehouses.
There are great numbers of hawkers in the streets, who cry the goods which they carry about with them, as in Europe. They sell stuffs made in the country, cured provisions, colat-nuts, honey, vegetable and animal butter, milk and fire-wood. ”

“ It is certain not to oust other plants that are more valuable, for as yet we have found little if any value in the products of our marshes. Since the country’s settlement it has been the aim of the thrifty to convert them into dry land whenever practicable. ”

“ The dry-fruit sellers derive their supplies partly from Duke’s-place, partly from Pudding-lane, but perhaps principally from the costers concerning whom I have spoken, who buy wholesale at the markets and elsewhere, and who will “clear out a grocer,” or buy such figs, &c. as a leading tradesman will not allow to be sent, or offered, to his regular customers, although, perhaps, some of the articles are tolerably good. Or else the dry-fruit men buy a damaged lot of a broker or grocer, and pick out all that is eatable, or rather saleable. ”

“ In the villages and towns water is a commercial article, and towards the end of the dry season it occasionally costs more than wine in wine- growing countries ; in 1873 a measure of two or three gallons was sold for a dollar. ”

“ After the crop has been gathered and stored, its proper use is another problem for the dry-farmer. The composition of dry-farm crops is different from that of crops grown with an abundance of water. Usually, dry-farm crops are much more nutritious and therefore should command a higher price in the markets, or should be fed to stock in corresponding proportions and combinations. ”

“ As usual in barbarous societies, a dry season, or a few unexpected caravans, will raise the prices, even to trebling; and the difference of value in grain before and after the harvest will be double or half of what it is at par. ”

“ God is all-knowing! If it abide [with me] half a score years, I will not sell it save at a profit.’
Then, in his anger, he walled up the door of the granary with clay, and by the ordinance of God the Most High, there came a great rain and descended from the roofs of the house wherein was the wheat [so that the latter rotted] ; and needs must the merchant give the porters five hundred dirhems from his purse, so they should carry it forth and cast it without the city, for that the smell of it was noisome. So his friend said to him, ‘How often did I tell thee thou hadst no luck in wheat? ”

“ The recognition of the superior quality of practically all crops grown without irrigation under a limited rainfall has done much to stimulate faith in the great profitableness of dry-farming. As the varying nature of the materials used by man for food, clothing, and shelter has become more clearly understood, more attention has been given to the valuation of commercial products on the basis of quality as well as of quantity. Sugar beets, for instance, are bought by the sugar factories under a guarantee of a minimum sugar content ”

“ Tobacco, coffee, molasses, cotton, castor-oil, rice, maize, eggs, poultry, salt-meat, and fish, all kinds of oils, cheese, and butter, can always be sold,—the supply being invariably below the demand,—and, besides providing clothing and other extras, which in this climate are a mere trifle, might be made to produce a handsome profit. ”

“ And if he bring pepper, or cumin, or ginger, or alum, or brasil wood, or resin, or incense, let him sell not less than fifteen pounds at a time. But if he bring belts, let him sell not less than a thousand at a time. And if he bring cloths of silk, or wool or linen, let him see that he cut them not, but sell them whole. But if he bring wax, let him sell not less than one quartanum. Also a foreign merchant may not buy dyed cloth, nor make the dye in the city, nor do any work which belongs by right to the citizens. ”

“ Flour, milk, coal, meat, wool, cotton and their immediate derivatives should be withdrawn from the circle of competitive commerce, and be no more subject to the fluctuations of a market manipulated in the interest of profit-making than the water-supply is. ”

“ If they should come down on us to sell our wheat inside of forty-eight hours—we're goners, boys! All that those fellows over at the Exchange have got to do is to shove down the market thirty points and our name is mud! The loss to the farmers who've shipped us their grain will kill this movement and every one like it in the West for all time to come. ”

“ It ain't as how we carry up many things as would pay for taking; soft goods for the stores up the river mostly goes by steamer, but them as ain't hurried, and likes to keep their dollars in their pockets, has their goods up by flats. I have got ten hogsheads of sugar, twenty-four crates of hardware, some barrels of molasses, and forty casks of spirits on board, eighty kegs of nails and a ton or two of rice and flour. ”

“ All the commodities of any country consist either of the rude produce of the land, or of manufactured goods. We have seen that the money price of the rude produce of land is altogether determined by the money price of corn. ”

“ It may therefore, be stated as a law, that any cultural treatment which enables the soil-water to acquire larger quantities of plant-food also enables the plant to produce dry matter with the use of a smaller amount of water. In dry-farming, where the limiting factor is water, this principle must he emphasized in every cultural operation. ”

“ He is not contented with the immense profit he derives from the sale of the superior paper he manufactures, but he takes the dry maguey leaves, boils them for days—until they are in a pulp—strains it; ferments the liquid and sells it for a kind of rum, which he claims will cure insanity, and I, for one, believe him. ”

“ In view of this knowledge, it is not surprising that thousands of farmers, employing, often carelessly agricultural methods developed in humid sections, have found only hardships and poverty on the present dry-farm empire of the United States. ”

“ "I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious. ”

“ So that it did not disturb the comparative prices of soap and pork and sugar and flour and lumber and on through the list of a world's commodities—and it would not—no one would experience either jolt or squeeze. With wheat at a dollar a bushel, a reduction to ten cents a bushel would work no injury if at the same time every other commodity in its price fell ninety per cent. ”

“ Other items, such as fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, are subject to periodic shortages. In addition, the quality and selection of many goods do not meet the desired levels. An official document published in 1972 decried the common practice of producing high-quality goods for export and lower quality goods for the domestic market. ”

“ Most kinds of agricultural produce might be conveyed to the markets held every week in all the towns, and there disposed of; but there were some commodities, such as wool, for example, the entire production of which was confined to one period of the year, while the demand for many descriptions of manufactured goods in any one locality was not sufficient to enable a dealer in them to obtain a livelihood, unless he carried his wares from one town to another. ”

“ The Grocery Supply Company is one of them. I buy barrels of sugar, barrels of flour, big boxes of prunes, and so on, from this company. Then I sell a few pounds of sugar, flour or prunes [145] at a time and make a little money each time I sell. You see I don't pay as much for the flour and sugar as I sell it for. The difference in price comes to me, and is what I live on, and sometimes it's little enough. ”

“ In attempting to save and transport wheat to them, much is lost by the weavil, and much spoiled by heat in the hold of the vessel. This loss must be laid on the wheat which gets safe to market, where it is paid for by the consumer. ”

“ In other cases the raw material, especially in the case of cotton, was the property of a town merchant or capitalist, who distributed it to the small domestic manufacturers in their houses in the villages, paying them for the processes of production, and himself collecting the completed product and disposing of it by sale or export. ”

“ But the sticks, when broken, are found all green and succulent inside, and full of a nourishing saline juice; and thus, even in long droughts, which sometimes last more than a year, this country is able to support stock in a most marvelous manner. ”

“ The windsor beans are thus an early crop grown for fertilizer, fuel and food.
This farmer was paying his laborers one hundred cash per day and providing their meals, which he estimated worth two hundred cash more, making twelve cents, gold, for a ten-hour day. Judging from what we saw and from the amount of mud carried per load, we estimated the men would distribute not less than eighty-four loads of eighty pounds each per day, an average distance of five hundred feet, making the cost 3.57 cents, gold, per ton for distribution. ”

“ When the crop is picked, it is weighed by the merchant before it is ginned, and 34 the farmer is credited on the merchant’s books with the amount due him, the balance in his favor being given him in cash. His concern with the cotton is thus ended. In the event that he is able to finance himself through the season he takes the cotton directly to the gin, and has it ginned and baled there, paying the ginnery for the operation, and selling the cotton directly to a local buyer and the seed to an oil mill. ”