The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1905-04-26
The Cotton Acreage.
Conservative estimates from the


best informed sources, based on the
output of the mills so far, the num-
Der Of spindles, existing contracts and
the known, and the prospective de-
.mand. place the worlds consumption
of cotton this year at approximately
100000 bales; there are close OBJ
servers and calculators, however, who
believe that the mills will not work
up' as much as 11,000,0 900 bales even.
The American crop from which the
spinners have drawn and must con-
tinue to draw their supply is now set
at 13,50O,00O bales. This means that
there is the strongest proba aoility that
the old crop will still be awaiting
when the crop of 1s05-6 begins to
come forward July 100000 bales Of
MANUFACTURES. is there any wonder,
then that the topic uppremost in the
mind of the South today is the neces-
sity for q s1ns:' crop from this sea-
sons planting, or that reduce acr.'-
age" is an argument down there that
possess almost the incentive and the
potency of a battle cry? "Five-cent
cotton" with all its commercial de-
preston and other attendant evils, is
till TOO fresh in the minds Of the
southern people for them to crave
repetition Of it,
And a price for the staple danger
ously near that point is what will al
most inevitably happen if only an av-
erage crop for 1905-6 were to be piled
onto a carry-over Of 100000 bales.
The advice of the growers associa-
ton organized at New Orleans last
winter was an acreage curtailment OF
25 per cent for this season. There IS
a very general disposition among the
planters to follow it and, as weather
conditions this spring are making the
planting season backward, the situa-
ton is being taken advantage Of to
preach reduced acreage from every
platform and house-top and in some
instances from the pulpit, even. 1t
is emphatically sta condition and not
a theory that confronts the southern
cotton industry this year, and upon in
telligent concert of action in keeping
the size of the crop down depends the
stability and the prosperity of many
another industry IN the United States
during the next year and half. Ev-
ery cotton manufacturing centre and
the jobbing trade generally are es-
pecially interested in preventing a
crop whose size would mean not a
profit but a loss to the planters.
The crop Of 1s04-5 was raised from
a planted area of 31,730,371 acres. The
proposed reduction for this season
would bring the acreage down to ap-
proximately 24,OO0,ooo; but unless
every planter feels himself under a
personal obligation to cut his cotton
fields fully % per cent, the aggregate
acreage will far exceed that figure.
And even with an acreage Of only a.
100000. favorable weather and other
conditions might not reduce the crop
anything like 25 per cent; hence the
additional advice Of the planters that
they cut down the volume of fertilizers
commonly used. That a low acreage
does not necessarily mean "short
CROP may be seen from the following
comparisons:
The largest crop. except one-the
present-in the last eight years was
that of 1SsS-s-11, ,256,0O0 bales, rais;-
ed from 24,s67,0oo acres; the next
season, with an acreage Of 23,521, 600
"a reduction Of only SIS per cent
the crop fell to 9,422,00o bales or
more than 16 per cent; in. 1878 the
acreage was 24,319,590 and the crop
1925, 600 bales; in 1900-o1 the acre
age 25,557,1S0, the crop 10,339,oOO
bales; but in 10000, with an acreage
of almost 2s,000,0O0 the crop was only
1O,0O2,0 900 bales, or less by 337,O00
bales than that from a 25,557, 900
acreage. A 25 per cent reduction
from the present one in the crop of
1905-06 would mean a product Of
about 10,125,000 bales; but, as the
foregoing statistics show, the acreage
now proposed has in the past eight
years produced two crops in excess
Of 1000, 900 bales each. So the
product peracre must be kept down
as well as the acreage.
It would be unwise of course, as
permanent policy for the South to
scheme to keep the price Of cotton al
ways high by cutting the acreage and
reducing the per acre product, for its