The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-06-07
and the increased acreage no bumper crop

and the increased acreage no bumper crop
was raised.
High prices have brought every available
shred of their cotton into the market. Farm
ers were SO eager to realize good prices that
chine and thrashed out the cotton. More
than, quarter. of q million bales Of this
years crop is threshed cotton. AS result
of this you will find when the end Of the
be the smallest ever known"
HE SAID, BUY COTTON"
81 started to put my theory regarding the
cotton situation into operation last October.
1 wrote to every cotton mill friend l had
and advised them to buy their cotton then.
1t was the first and only. letter that wrote
advising the purchase OF cotton.
My arguments were SO convincing that
practically every large, cotton merchant
shared my opinions: They realized that that
there would be a demand for every bit OF
cotton that could be raised. Those who
combated the opinion 1 held were persons
would produce a surplus Of cotton. The
world thought that cotton was too high.
These who combated the advance tried to
Il may be absolutely wrong. but the cot
ton situation is of serious enough import to-
day to demand most exhaustive investiGa-
ton. Unless the present neglectful condi-
tions are remedied we shall cotton SELL
ing on a much higher plane than 1t has this
year. Cotton has simply got to reach a
higher plane.
'Just see how the world is increasing Its
spindle capacity. Cotton Is used in almost
every commodity except the woods and min
erals. Every day sees some new use discov-
cred for it. 1t is cheaper than wool or silk.
and for that reason the demand for it is
bound to increase at a tremendous rate.
Unless the Government takes hold this cot
ton business is going to prove serious
, matter in few years. Even now. in some
from one State and transplanting it in an
other in the hope Of lettering the production.
They are beginning to realize down here
that something must be done.
THIRTY DOLLARS A TON FOR SEED.
Farmers whose cotton was killed by
storms and did not have seed for replanting
have had to pay as high as $50 ton for
new seed, and some couldn't get any at all.
the condition of the new crop must be seri-
Gus. ] have never before heard so many
complaints from the farmers because of the
REORGANIZATION of the seed. In Texas they
have had bad weather. The. first seed has
gone to the oil mills. and they've got the
poorest seed to replant. And then the
farmers wonder why the cotton seed doesn't
''These views of mine may be laughed ct,
but here's something else besides frozen
into consideration-the boil weevil: Our
Government me has appropriated rosts $4,000 to
study the ho boI esS has seouTg dsv,s
tated the State of Mexico, and they can't
grow cotton in that State any more. One
IldIlltE tlldl hutN NSlS wen llstu severe
thousand acres destroyed by the boil weevil
five years ago. He waited five years and re-
planted. Not n spear of cotton was raised.
for it was stung by the deadly insect. Here
are few figures that count. In Texas the
boil weevil was discovered in sixty-nine
counties in 1901. Last year it had invaded
129 counties. The only theory or suggestion
that the Government experts have been
able to, offer to the farmers is that they
plant their cotton earlier. so that 1t would
b& well up before the boil weevil came out
of the ground. In some instances this has
accomplished good results.
PRODUCING POWER LESS
Here's one more feature of the situation:
You ask the cotton manufacturer what pro-
duction he gets from cotton to-day and he
will tell you that the producing power is
from 10 to Is per cent less than it formerly
was. In other words. it takes that much
more raw cotton to obtain the same num-
Der of yards of manufactured product as
heretofore.
so deteriorated has the cotton of our
great South become under the neglect of
the farmers that the manufacturers assert
that where five or six years ago they Oh
tained 100 yards of cotton they are now only