Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1904-01-04

money on your cotton borrow 1t
rather than sell it at or below
cost. What should storing cot
ton and borrowing money cost?
Say your banker is willing to loan
$50. 90 on each bale. that is, six
cents on each pound. Money at
six per cent interest can be*had if
the cotton is safely stored or
placed in the bankers possession.
Add storage charges and insur-
ance, and cotton can be carried
for a year, even under present ad-
verse conditions at $500 per
bale, or for six months at $3.50
per bale, or for three months at
Is cents per bale, if placed in the
bankers possession and safely
stored, whereas the recent abrupt
declines have reduced values at
the rate of five or ten dollars per
bale in less than a month.
Will not the bankers in every
cotton centre take up this grave
situation? They shouldabe the
leaders in every community. If
anything is to be done they must
cultivate the friedship and conf
dence of the cotton grower and
let him understand that the in
terests of both are mutually de-
pendent upon their cooperation.
Will they not advise their farm
er friends that if cotton is safely
stored conservative loans will be
made to tide over this crisis in
the cotton market? Arrange to
carry the unsold portion of the
crop until next season. The boil
weevil aud diversification of crops
will bring about a demand for this
surplus carried over into next
year. Every merchant today has
on hand %overcoats carried over
from last years which deteriorate
much more than cotton does, be-
cause he was not offerd a fair
price last year, and it paid him to
carry them over and suffer the
cost and deterioration of doing so
rather than dump all his stock of
overcoats on the market last sea-
son. Had all the overcoats in the
world been dumped on the mark
ct last winter many a poor fellow
would still have gone without one,
yet such a dump of overcoats on
the market would have caused
overcoats to have been sold far
below cost, and have ruined the
overcoat trade. Will not u
bankers see this and cooperate
with our farmers in carrying the
unsold portion of the present
crop over into next year? Hold
ing cotton for a few weeks is worse
than not holding it at all. Such
half-hearted action is worse than
no action. "After taking hold
of the plow," my father often
told me, "never look back To
look back at such a time and dump
the accommodations of several
weeks On the market is to pillow
up the seed already planted, and
force the price of cotton lower
than it would have been to mark
ct each days output daily. The
present conoltion is a crisis de-
manding heroic action on the part
of our bankers and farmers. They
should be the closest allies. They
need each other and must draw
near to each other if they would
better their own condition and
that of the cotton states and ter
ritories to the full measure of
their ability to better it.
Let every banker who resds
this suggestion call by telephone
the editor of his weekly newspa-
per and tell him to write an edi-
torial stating that his bank IS
ready to loan the farmer thirty
dollars, or such amount as he is
willing to loan, on each bale of
cotton which the farmer will safe
ly store, at 6 per cent interest, or
such rate as he is willing'to name.
The weekly newspaper man will
write the editorial cheerfully, and