The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-12-17
TALKING ABOUT COTTON.

The Manufacturers Record prints many
tables of figures about cotton production
and cotton manufacturing, and seriously
discusses the question: us there danger
of permanent shortage of the cotton crop
of the Southern States?' 1t thinks that
there has been deterioration of the Seed
due to the selling of the best seed to the
cotton oil mills: that the tenantry sys-
tenn has lessened the fertility to the soil;
and that labor conditions do not warrant
a belief in a large crop. To these it adds
the boil weevil. 1t says the world will
within five or ten years demand fourteen
year. and the South must get ready to
raise it.
The South can remedy the evil of sell
ing its best cotton seed to the oil mills
where it prevails. We think it prevails
to very little extent. Our observation
has been that cotton farmers do not sell
their best cotton seed, but save them for
planting, and We think the Record is mis-
taken in thinking that this is one of the
elements that will contribute to short
age in the cotton crop.
AS to the lessening of fertility because
of the tenantry system, that is not wide
spread, and will be remedied when cotton
year in and year out pays fair profit on
the cost of production. Whenever cotton
brings less than eight cents, farmers have
little encouragement to change the sys-
TEN.
The Lion in the path" to large crop
is labor. The public works, lumber camps
and railroad construction have drawn
much labor from the farms because those
interests could pay higher wages. There
has been also some exodus of labor to the
posed There has been large exodus
from the country to the towns. The farm
ers, with present labor conditions, are
raising almost as much cotton as can be
grown in the South. The only thing that
will materially increase the size OF the
crop will be a reasonable certainty that
cotton will not go below ten cents. Men
cannot profitably make cotton at the pre-
vailing prices for labor and fertilizers for
less than ten cents. The high prices that
ruled last summer and the splendid prices
now prevailing, due solely to the work
ings of the law of supply and demand,
will encourage farmers to try to raise
more cotton, though it cannot be large
Nv increased unless there is new sup
ply of labor. OF course if the price of
cotton could remain at eleven and twelve
cents, the farmers would secure labor
from other sections and make enough cot
ton to meet the demand that is urgent
enough to pay good prices.
The Southern farmers have found from
experience that they have generally re-
ceived more money for a small crop than
for large one. To largely increase the
crop at once would be to work their own
undoing, even if labor could be had. The
keep down the size of the crop year by
year until the needs of the world will
make the purchasers willing to pay not
less than ten cents pound for it. Just
now the cotton mills are in trouble-un-
dergoing the same hard times troubles
that depressed the farmers in 1894. But
as soon as the present money stringency
is over, the demand for cotton goods will
justify a fair increase in the price OF
goods, and the manufacturers and farmers
will both do we'll on ten cent cotton and
better prices for the product of the mills.
The argument of Attorney General
Knox in the Northern Securities case