The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-02

| substitute for a bale that ordinarily l the farmer would produce in 1905 | Second. This brings usf to the sec- l ond plan. which consists simply in dinary warehouses. or in accordance l with what is known as the Waco or | bonded warehouse system. President Harvie Jordan thus a1ludes to bonded | warehouses: We also secured in this State (Georgia) the enactment of Q | law bonding local warehouses, which | guarantees the delivery of all cotton | represented by the receipt. A gener- | al plan of cooperative ownership of these warehouses by farmers. mer- chants and bankers will more quickly solve the problem"
 | In favor of this plan over all others | is its simplicity. Ordinarily its gen. | eral adoption would be impossible be- cause of the necessity that farmers l are usually under of selling cotton l promptly in order to meet their ob1i- 1 gations. The present condition does | not to so great an extent as usual pre- sent this difficulty. The good prices | obtained this fall in most cases en- | abled farmers to settle their most pressing obligations. The tenants and others constituting the class unable to ] hold cotton have already sold at good | prices. Most of the unsold cotton now | belonging to farmers is owned by men | able to hold it. Large amounts are in the hands of merchants and a pros- porous season has no doubt made them | better able than usual to hold, and certainly if money is to be borrowed | on cotton in order that the staple may be held. no class of men should be better able to negotiate such loans to | advantage than merchants.
 The holding of cotton by individuals liable to sell at any time and at any price would not so effectually in- crease the price as if the surplus | could be held under such conditions | that sales of this surplus could not be made before next September, or un- til certain price is reached.
 | Third. This brings us to the third | class of remedies proposed, namely. | the withdrawal from market until next September of about one-sixth of the crop of 1904. Various means of l effecting this have been proposed. One | Is the making over of one-sixth of | the crop by the owner to prominent commission merchants or other disin- | terested and responsible parties under | 8 contract requiring the withholding | of this cotton from sale until next September. Careful thought should be | given to this suggestion (which, be- lieve, was first published by an Ala I | means can be found to overcome the 1 obvious difficulty of making this concerted and widespread movement. l The minor difficulties of making sucb l contracts valid by consideration on l each side, of selecting as custodians of | such cotton men of commanding, uni- versal confidence, and of meeting the | expense of storage and insurance | could probably be overcome by the or- | ny,tw tAn nf 1 trolled by the owners of cotton.
 l To this the objection will be made | by the advocates of destroying the ] surplus that the sale of the 1904 sur \ plus in the fall of 1905 would merely postpone the era, of low, prices until September, 1905, when the new crop l plus the stored cotton would be sold. l This surplus would not result in | low prices for the 1905 crop if this | storage plan is accompanied by a wise l reduction in the cotton acreage in | 1905. No single influence, next to l present low prices, would do more to 1 reduce the acreage than the certainty l that a large amount of the present l crop will be for sale next fall, thus | threatening continued low prices un- | less the acreage is curtailed.
 l Though we may all now be in the | dark as to a thoroughly feasible plan | for enhancing the price of the cotton l now unsold, 1t is self-evident that there must be a reduction in acreage and de- l sirable that there ber a decrease in the cost of producing cotton in 1905. l It is the plain duty and interest of every cotton grower to attend the meet ings called for the purpose of consider ing the cotton situation. The Com missioner of Agriculture of Alabama
 has suggested Tuesday, January 10, as the date for these meetings at every court house town in Alabama. However sceptical one may be as to the prac- ticability of any plan for effecting i'm
 provement in present prices or for
 securing a general decrease in the cot ton acreage. he should attend these. meetings. Let these meetings be oc- casions for free and pointed, but brief,
 discussions, and not for speech making or aimless talking.
 Let us take this much encouragement.
 The present condition will in time cor
 rect itself. As the high prices of last
 winter and spring are largely respon-
 sibIe for a crop that now proves too
 high for profit so low prices continued
 until May. 1905 will restrict the acreage
 and improve the price of the coming
 crop.
 Let us get little comfort too from
 the fact that the present low price of
 cotton should increase the consumption
 of cotton goods and the uses to which
 cotton may be applied, which in turn
 should strengthen the prices of future
 years.
 May I suggest that if it be admitted
 that a part of the crop should be
 rendered unfit for the spinners' use,
 a wiser course than to burn 1t would
 be to utilize the surplus for some new
 or unusual use. The use of cotton
 as bagging at once suggests itself. as
 was advocated and to a slight extent
 practiced, during a former period of
 low prices. To discover other unusual
 uses for cheap cotton is a task worthy
 of an inventors thought.
 When an production of wheat
 occurred some years ago millions of
 bushels of this cereal were fed to livestock. Unfortunately cotton is
 almost worthless as foodstuff and abso-
 lutely worthless as fertilizer. The boil
 weevil will take care of the surplus
 and of a great deal more in few
 years, but it could not keep pace with
 the increased acreage in 19O5
 J. F. Duggar.
 THE WAY TO INDEPENDENCE.