The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-20
WHY COTTON IS SHORT
MIR sULLx, THE BULL LEADER.
 ADVANCES NOVEL THEoRY.


 Cotton Seed Industries Consume Best
 Seed, and the Poorest are Planted.
 Sterilization and Impoverish-
 ment of Seed Responsible
 Daniel !. sully in New York Presa
 The present serious condition in the cotton markets of the world and the dan- ger threatening the textile industry of the United States. of England, France. Ger many, Russia, Switzerland and Spain can be traced to only one cause.-the steriliza- ton or impoverishment of the cotton seed. Serious as is the situation today. and high as prices are, the situation. win be more serious and the prices higher and higher each year until measures are taken by which proper seed can be planted for the growth of the cotton crop.
 Paradoxical as 1t may seem. tho cur tailment of the cotton crop Is a natural result of the growth of the cotton-seed industry. A quarter of century ago the cotton seed was the bane of the cot ton planter. He had great difficulty in getting rid of his surplus seed. It was burned. cast into the rivers used to i'll gullies and hollows and hauled away at no little expense. But since the dis covery of the uses of cotton seed oil. cot ton seed hulis and cotton seed meal the demand for the seed has grown to great proportions. The South is dotted with cotton seed oil mills, land what was once regarded as refuse now brings nearly 900 year to the South.
 This would be magnificent asset were it not for the fact that the oil mills de- mand the heaviest and richest of the seed. leaving only the poorest for the planter to put back In the ground for the planting of his next crop. The fierceness of com petition is such and the prices paid for seed are so large that within the last five or six years the planters have impoverish- ed their seed supply to the utmost limit Poor seed brings poor cotton yield Increased acreage is no remedy. even if it were possible under present conditions to extend the acreage much beyond its present limits.
 Thoughtful men of the South see no prospect of a change In the immediate future, Surely none can be expected as long as the spInners have to scramble for cotton to keep~their mills going and the cotton seed mills pay top notch prices for their supplies.
 The statistics of the last six or seven years show more conclusively than any thing I could say how important part this impoverishment of the cotton seed is playing in cotton affairs. Since 1897 the acreage planted to cotton in the United States has been increased from 24.- OOo, 900 to approximately 2s,0o0,000 acres. Yet the yield has steadily decreased. In 1897 the South raised Il, ,200,000 bales of cot ton on an acreage of A,0O00oO. This sea- son, with an acreage of 2S. 900. the gov- ernment's estimate is 9.sS2.00O bales. Take the average yield an acre year by year and the deterioration Is shown more con- vincingly.
 In 1S97-9S the yield of lint per acre planted was 224 pounds. Tn 189S-99, it was 2S2; in 1S99-19O0 210; in 190-01. 21i: in 1901 02 1SS; in 1902-0S, SS; in 1903-04 Government estimate). 76.
 But even these figures do not show the real decrease in the yield per acre. In 1897 and 1898 cotton was extremely cheap and what represented hundreds of thou sands of bales of lint were left unpicked in the field, because the planters did not think 1t would pay for the picking. This season, however, there isn't a cotton plant in the South that hasn't been picked Of every ounce of its product.
 The world absolutely requires 10.70OOo bales of cotton this season. It could use 12. .OOO.0O0 bales and there would be no surplus.
 Cotton Is the most valuable money crop of the world today. It is used in more of the worlds staples than any other of the sarths products Its uses are con- stantly widening, and yet we are face to face with the condition of a constantly shortening crop. It is idle to charge the big advance in prices to manipulation or the market. to weather condition fin the cotton belt to lack of moistures lateness of planting or to any other of the stock causes Every student of the cotton world who gives serious consideration to the subject will come back to the basic trouble of the improvement of the seed. This subject Is of far greater import ance than the average man realizes. It is of as great importance to the North as to the South, not only because of tho manufacturing industries of the North that are dependent upon the cotton crop, but because everybody wears cotton goods and because the financial world de- bends upon the cotton crop to maintain the financial parity between this country and Europe Without our cotton the money market of the United States would be in a sad way. Cotton bills are payable in gold, and 1t is through the payment for cotton exported to Europe that we main- tain our gold balance with the rest of the world.
 You can not look for any change in the South until the danger from the tmpover- Ishment of the cotton seed Is brought home to the planter. At present he is blind to the menace. The present crop will bring to him at least 50,000,000 more than any other crop he ever raised. That would seem to prove that he is favored by fortune. The crop of next year perhaps will bring even much greater returns. But there is an end to all things, and sooner or later 1t will be realized that what is now a Godsend may bring about disaster.
 The world must have cotton. If 1t can not get enough from. the South it will get it elsewhere. It is true all efforts to find cotton land equal to that of the South have failed some by reason of transportation difficulties and some from other causes climatic and otherwise. Man is ingenious and persevering. how ever, and should a cotton famine extend over a period of ten or more years we will find a rival of the South developing in some other land.