The Hop Growers' Stone Wall
Farmers organize to challenge monopolistic dealers and price manipulation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The hop market is an exception to the steady produce trade, as there seems to be a concerted action among the growers all over the United States to hold out for better prices, as a letter received by James Hart of Slaughter, Washington, would indicate. The letter is from W. Eagle, a leading grower in Albany County, New York, and it states: 'We can sell all our hops at from 26 to 29 cents, but we are holding out like a stone wall. Once in a while some small grower lets go and we are having one of the greatest battles that has ever been with the dealers. Everything is being done by the papers and dealers to hurt us. The Albany Argus gives New York state 140,000 bales, when the fact is we will not have more than 100,000 to 105,000, as the bines are running light weight. Then when we make complaint, they call us liars. But let them talk. We are keeping hops out of the market. We are getting our members in blocks of ten to thirty and are going to have one of the strongest organizations ever started among farmers. The brewers are beginning to take notice of us.'
“We can sell all our hops at from 26 to 29 cents, but we are holding out like a stone wall.”
This 1892 report captures the eternal struggle of agricultural producers attempting to bypass middlemen and set their own prices. Today, this 'stone wall' sentiment echoes in the ongoing tensions between independent farmers and the concentrated corporate distributors that define the modern food supply chain.
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