The Monticellonian., 1905-01-12
Not Staggered By Cotton Slump.

- cotton and the equally wild re- ports that would create the i'm pression that the break in cot
 ton is going to cause a wreck of
 matter and a crush of worlds in the South. one would be led to imagine that the whole South IS
 staggered by the cotton slump.
 The decline is depIorable, and, of course, means a heavy loss to many, but it should not be for gotten that about 5000, 900 bales were sold at an average of i probably 912 cents, and that If 100000 bales more should ay-
 craze only ' cents, the total val
 ue of the crop, including seed /,
 would be over 5000, 900. 900.
 which has been exceeded but a few times in the South's history.
 Moreover, the great t increase in
 the production of grain and oth-
 CT diversified crops last year ad-
 ded a gain of over S10O,000,0O0
 to the value of the South's di-
 versified agricultural products as compared with 1902, and this years diversified crops will be equally as great, reaching in aggregate value about $l ,000,- l 000,O0 or double the value of
 the cotton crop.
 But there Is no reason for the
 South to become panicky over
 the cotton situation. It has
 many q time faced far worse con-
 ditions, and out of apparent de fat won victory. Even 13 3.000,- 900 bales, should the crop prove that large, and many good au- thorities still doubt such a yield, are not as unduly heavy, all
 things considered, as were H. 250, 900 bales in 1898. Then
 the world was carrying a great surplus stock accumulated through several successive years of large production, and the South was poorer, with com paratively little surplus money in it's banks and with many of it's 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 capi
 tai to finance large part of it's cotton. while the farmers are less in debt than since the war. The present price is almost as unduly low as 16 and r cents were unduly high, and as the Manufacturers Record warned the world against such specula- tive prices, so 1t would warn the South to-day against undue fright. On a declining market people are always more disposed to sell than on advancing prices, and in this is the danger that frightened by the decline, farm CTS will crowd their cotton to market and cause further break.
 "Cotton is intrinsically worth more than it is selling for, and that there will be a reaction in price Is just as inevitable as 1t was 17-cent cotton would de cline. A staple that does not de teriorate in quality, that. like pig iron, is as good twenty years hence as now, when below the cost of production. and 1t is to- day, needs only to be held long enough to make certain of high er figures Just how soon the tide will turn no man can say, nor can anyone say that it will not go lower temporarily, But the South's policy today should unqueStionablv be, not to burn cotton, not to crowd 1t to mar ket, but to store 1t and hold for the inevitable swing of the pen dulum, and in the meantime to plant less acreage in cotton and more ia diversified crops. The situation is in this way abso- lutcly in control of the South it. self, and will have no one but the South to blame if it does not hold back permanently million or lore bales and then reduce it's acreage about ten per cent compared with last year. The