The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-19
SOUTHERN PROGRESS
srUYvEsANr rfsH WRITES or
 CONDITIONS.
He is of the Opinion That This is
 the Most Prosperous Section of the Country-shep- person on Cotton.

Baltimore. Sept. 1s.-(special. )-Presi-
 dent Stuyvesant Fish of the Illinois Gen. tral Railroad Company, writes to The
 Manufacturers' Record as follows:
 T fully agree with you as to the South being at this moment the most prosper ous part of the country. It has had good crops and fair prices for . number oi years past. It is and has been selling its lumber at high prices, and in the South. certainly in the Yasoo delta, the
 cutting down of standing timber adds to
 the value of the land. which condition
 does not prevail in the heavily timbered districts of the North. where. on the cut
 ting down of the forest. a sandy or rocky
 desert Is generally left.
 Tn the Mississippi Valley we have this
 year an absolutely assured good crop of corn, and our prospects with respect to
 cotton are fattering. Moreover. the South
 particularly the agricultural South, has
 not lost a dollar by the tremendous liQui-
 dalton which has taken place in Wall
 Street. nor does 1t owe a dollar in respect to underwritings. At the present moment the farming population of the United States are. in my opinion. the richest of
 any class in the community. and among them the farmers of the South seem likely to fare best in the near future"
 Prosperity of Southern farmers Is trace
 able in part to the good prices which cot- ton has brought during the past two or
 three years. and despite the efforts of foreign cotton buyers to create the tm- pression that the South's supremacy in cotton may some day be contested by other countries. there Is not much danger
 on that point. After a thorough investi-
 gation of cotton conditions abroad. Col
 onel Alfred B. Shepperson. the cotton sta-
 tistician of New York, writing from Lfv-
 erpool says:
 While yarns and goods have nowhere
 advanced to the parity of cotton, the spin
 ners who bought a large proportion of
 their cotton In the early part of the sea-
 son at an average cost of not over hve-
 tenths, have had a remunerative season,
 and many spinners on the Continent and
 in England are in this class. The manu-
 lecturers who sold their yarns or goods
 for future delivery on the basis of a low
 CT price for cotton than they had to pay
 when they bought 1t to enable them to i'll
 their contracts-and there were many in this situation-have had, of course, a very unsatisfactory season. The effect was ex- actly as if they had been speculating in cotton futures and had got on the wrong side of the market. In general average of the matter the losses of these unlucky ones have about offset the profits of their more conservative and fortunate neigh
 
 ton manufacturers have probably made no money during the season. Many of them however, are in a much better con- dition than at this time last year, as the
 stocks of yarns and goods in the mills and in European markets are much small CT. It may be added that nowhere In Flu
 rope are the mills burdened with large
 stocks of high priced cotton"
 Colonel Shepperson. referring to the fact .f ,ntt have increased about 50o,Ooo bales during the season, says: ..There is no doubt that more careful | cultivation and preparation would greatly | improve many of the varieties of India cotton and a continuance of high prices for American cotton would be the great l est incentive to such improvement. Tax | ing a broad view of the matter, l cannot regard as an advantage to our Southern States the enhancement of the price of American coton--after the great bulk of 1t had passed out of the hands Of the planters and farmers-to such an extent as to encourage an increase or cotton production where 1t is now grown and to stimulate its cultivation in every part of the world which offers the slightest hope of successful results.
 'The European newspapers frequently refer to the efforts for promoting the cultivation of cotton in the British, French and German possessions in Af- rica, the West Indies. Australia. etc, but I do not find that any substantial
 progress has been made in any quarter. Indeed, some of the published reports from Africa indicate an amazing ignor- ance of the nature of the cotton plant and the proper methods of cultivation. The promoters of the various
 plans to grow cotton in the wilds of Af-
 rica and in the West Indies and other countries where 1t Is now cultivated. are
 simply chasing rainbows.' With proper treatment cotton can be grown in many
 countries which possess the suitable con- ditions of temperature and rainfall. It is perfectly evident. however, that 1t will never be grown on a large scale in any of these new fields of production unless