The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1905-01-10
THE COTTON SITUATION
Atlanta Constitution Advises Far
mers to Hold and Plant
< Less.
Editorial Atlanta Constitution.

The government cotton statistl-
clans may not BE far aheld in their hit
or miss guesses as to the production
of 1904 The growing season, and
especially the harvesting season, was
ideal, and this: fact, taken in conjunc-
ton with the large increase in the
acreage planted makes it certain that
the production records of all previous
years have been broken.
Let US admit, as a postulate, that
approximately 100000 bales have
been raised. That amount of cotton
is moderate response to the de-
mands of consumption following an
exceedingly short crop year and abb
normally high prices. The manu-
featuring world raeds 100000 bales
of cotton, and but for the bear panic
makers would pay fair price for it
ten cents as a minimum.
The farmers have raised no over
plus OF cotton this year. Not a
bale. The demands of consumption,
the following manufacturing season,
will demonstrate the truth of this
assertion. Already more than mil
lion of bales of cotton in excess OF
the normal movement up to this date
in previous years have been purchas-
ed fc7 the spinners at home and
abroad, and purchased, in the main,
at comparatively fair prices. Over
: half of the entire crop had been
marketed at around ten cents before
the statistical panic was precipita-
ted.
If this proves anythings, it proves
two things, namely, that the mills,
at the outset of the cotton harvest,
with full knowledge that the crop
was a record-breakers were ready to
take it at it's normal value, and that,
but for the speculative gamblers, the
farmers would have continued to dis
pose of the raw staple at practically
its normal value until the last bale
was marketed, notwithstanding the
redundant government statistics.
It is the professional bears and
market-squeezers that have played
the mischief, and knowledge of the
inherent heaIthfulness of the situa-
ton, from the only logical stand
point Of supply and demand, should
encourage the farmers who have not
yet sold their cotton to enter upon a
seige of holding with the utmost con-
6dence as to consequences. 1t is
one thing to gamble in futures and
quite another thing to produce the
cotton. So far as the unsold portion
OF this years crop is concerned-the
actual cotton-it is not figuring at
all in the fictitious figures on the
change blackboards. The farmer
- is holding on to it until the dealers
in wind find out that wind is not cot
ton, he will, as sure as there is a
law of supply and demand, realize
the honest value of his holding.
A general cotton holding move
ment was never more iustihable, not
for sentimental reasons, or because
the farmer is wrought up over the
market situation, but because the
world needs the cotton and will pay
its value-when it is forced to by the
real owners of the staple bringing
the spectators, who own nothing, up
with short shrift. The only way
to do this to to hold to the cotton!
Let there be 100000 bales
there is not 100 per cent, or more dlt-
ference in value between the 10000
900 bales of last year and the 12,ooo,-
600 bales of this year. There is
only one kind of an argument of
possible economic logic by which such
a discrepancy could be arrived at.
The people of the earth continue to
wear clothes, and they have more
money with which to buy them than
ever before. The mills go right OF: in
creasing the number of their spindles