Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-05
A CROP THAT EN8LATES.
Some one writing to the Dallas Ne,

| New York and Liverpool is Sc to 81 per bale
more than that for delivery during the winter
months. All authorities concur in saying that
the demand in September and October will be
! enormous at full prices, and that after this de-
mand is pretty well supplied prices viii go much
lower. In other words there win be premium
of s. to S. bale on cotton marketed in Septem-
Der and 81 to 50 per bale on that marketed in Oc-
tober. Let every newspaper in Texas urge its
readers to hurry their cotton forward, wrapped
! in iute, cotton or whatever they can get.
The value of such advice could better
/ be determined If the writer had given
| his name so that all men could know
whether he was on the side of the cotton
! bulls or bears As the effect of crush
ing'' any product to market and thus
swelling the supply is naturally to
| lower the price, the advice would seem
! to be in the interest of the cotton-buyer
rather than in the interest of the pro-
Queer. If prices in September and
| October are going to be higher than
later on in the season, regardless of
the supply possible in months so early
| in the season, the advice would seem
to be in the interest of the producer
But this question occurs: If there is
ground for the belief that cotton will be
higher in September and October be-
cause of can enormous demand, - will
not the decline be fastened by hurry
ing the cotton forward to the speedy
supply of that demand? Editorially,
the Atlanta Constitution thus urges the
planters of Georgia:
If the farmers wish to get remunerative prices
for their cotton, they should by all means hurry
the first of the crop to market as rapidly as pos
sible.
There are reasons on which this advice is based
that ought to commend themselves to the COM
mon sense of the farmer.
In the first place, every sign and symptom
points to the fact that those planters who are
fortunate enough to bring in their cotton early
viii get from three-quartsrs to one cent pound
more for their cotton in September and October
than they will for cotton carried to market
during the later months.
In the second place cotton picked before kill
ing frost is denominated ''green cotton"' and
always loses from eighteent to twenty pounds per
bale. If the cotton is carried promptly to mar
ket, this loss or shrinkage will not fall on the
producer but those who are better able to
bear it.
In the third place, the early marketing of
the crop gives the planters money to Hquidate
their debts and thereby stops interest that runs
night and day.
These are reasons that certainly ought to run
with the common sense views of the farmers.
But there is another that ought to have some
weight. 1t is a well known fact that the mills
are heavily stocked with manufactured goods
and that with these stocks on hand they will
not continue to buy high-priced cotton.
If the farmers desire to try the experiment
of holding their cotton to try and force prices,
they can try it with the crop that is left after
they have reaped the benefit of the present
high prices; they try it after they have sold
their green" cotton and paid their debts.
This advice is based on plain, practical com
mon sense. with no theoretical trimmings, and
the farmers who follow it will thank us before
the year is out for giving it.
While the farmers of purely cotton
sections are wrestling with the problem
Of what is to their interest in this matter
and resolving the question of the honesty
Of those who advise them, THE GAZETTE
would appeal to the farmers of this sec
ton not to stake their all on cotton.
Cotton is not only "a credit crop' that
poems the farmer to the merchant and the
merchant to the factor, but it is proverb
in Mississippi, where men raise cotton,
get deeper in debt and have naught to
look forward to except the chance of 60
ing in debt to make another crop, that
cit takes thirteen months IN the year to
raise cotton. - The man who confines
himself to cotton-Paising is q financial
slave, and all the alliances, oranges or |
political parties in the country cannot |
emancipate him while he raises cotton and |
buys bread and meat. The cotton raiser
is never his own master, from the time !
he gets can advance from the mer-
chant with which to buy ''bacon for his |
hands, until he is advised to ''hurry his |
cotton forward - because the merchant !
needs the money to meet the loans that |
enable him to ''carry the planter -
Cotton is King, - and the most ex-
acting tryant that ever ruled people.
Where a man can raise small grain.
meat, fruit, poultry, ETC., and find
convenient market tor it, he rivets the
letters of financial slavery about himself
when he puts his dependence on cotton.
In this grain growing country no more
cotton should be planted than will sup
ply work when there is no other farm
labor to be performed. and the man
tho raises cotton in this JUav ooD o1or5
to sell his crop at his own sweet will, and
the arguments of those who may, or may
not, be writing in the interest of dis
treSsed merchants can have no interest