The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-01-03
THE COTTON OUTLOOK TO-DAY.

per prints a special New York dispatch to the
Manufacturers Record which sets forth the law
and the evidence so accurately and completely
that we adopt it in lieu of any utterance of our
own. Says this dispatch:
"To judge by the wild reports of the South's
burning cotton and the equally wild reports that
would create the impression that the break in
cotton is going to cause a wreck of matter and
a crash of worlds in the South, one would be led
TO imagine that the whole South is staggered by
the cotton slump. The decline is d eplorable, and
of course means a heavy loss to many, but it
should not be forgotten that about 5000, 900 bales
were sold at an average of probably 9h cents,
and if 1000, 600 bales more should average only
Z cents, the total value of the crop, including
seed, would be over $500, 600, 900, which has never
been exceeded but a few times in the South's
history.
"There is no reason for the South to become
panicky over the cotton situation. 1t has many
a time faced far worse conditions and out of ap-
parent defeat won victory. Even 13,OOO,O 900
bales, should the crop grove that large, and many
good authorities still doubt such a yield, are not
as unduly heavy, all things considered, as were
Il, 100000 bales in 1898. Then the world was
carrying a great surplus stock accumulated
through several successive years of large produc-
ton, and the South was poorer, with compare
lively little surplus money in it's banks and with
many of its farmers burdened with debts. Now
the world has but little stock of cotton outside
of this crop, the increase in demand has gone on
for six years, and the South is rich. with ample
capital to finance a large part of it's cotton,
while the farmers are less in debt than since the
war.
"Cotton is intrinsically worth more than it is
.oI,-- 81, o-I 3hoE fhara will he q vocation in
price is just as inevitable as it was that II cent
cotton would decline. A staple that does not
deteriorate in quality, that like pig iron is as
good twenty years hence as now, when below the
cost of production, as it is to-day, needs only to
be held long enough to make certain of higher
figures. Just how soon the tide will turn no man
can say, nor can any one say that it will not go
lower temporarily. But the South's policy to-day
should unquestionably be, not to burn cotton, not
to crowd it to market, but to store it and hold
for the inevitable swing of the pendulum, and in
the meantime to plant less acreage in cotton and
more in diversified crops. The situation is in
this way absolutely in the control of the South
itself, and it Will have no one but the South to
blame if it does not hold back permanently a
million or more bales and then reduce its
acreage"
In the foregoing dispatch, we have the situa-
ton in a nutshell. There is no reason for pes
simism. As we have quoted in our Current
Events" department, nothing false, nothing ar
tifcial, can endure" Seventeen cent cotton was
artificial, abnormal, and could not last. So seven
cent cotton is artificial, abnormal, and cannot
last.
The plan to burn a part of the surplus crop is
one an ordinary lunatic would be ashamed of.
Better put it aside to sell next year-or even
wears hence if that were necessary-and rest
and lot tho land rest until the demand should