Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-01-04
LYING REPORTS CAUSE TROUBLE.
Good Part Of the Crop Was Sold Above Nine
Gents and Average Ought TO be Fair.

stn's anu average uugnt 10 % FAIR.
Baltimore, December 3l.--A special
dispatch frop, New York to the Manu-
factarers' Record says:
To judge by the wild dispatches about
the South's burning cotton and the
equally wild reports that would create
the impression that the break in cotton
is going to cause &. wreck of matter aud
o 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 deplorable, and of course,
means heavy loss to many, but it
should not be forgotten that about
6,000, 900 bales were sold at an average of
probably 81 cents and that If 1000, 900
bales moro should average only I cents,
the total value of the crop, including
seed, would be over $500, 100000, which
has never been exceeded but few times
in tho South's history. Moreover, the
groat increase in the production of grain
and other diversified crops last year
added gain of over S10O, 1000, 900 to the
South's diversified agricultural products
as compared with 1902 and this years.
diversified crops will be equally as great,
reaching in aggregate value about 81, ,OOO,-
600, 900, or double the value of the cotton
crop.
But there is no reason for the South to
become panicky over the cotton situa-
tion. 1t has many time faced far wors.
conditions and out of apparent defeat
won victory. Even 100000 bales,
should the crop prove that large, and
many good authorities still doubt such
field, arc not as unduly heavy, all things
considered, as were 11,250,000 bales in
1898. Then the world was carrying a
great surplus stock accumulated through
several successive years of large produc-
tion, and the South was poorer, with
comparatively 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 an ample capital to finance
large part of its cotton, while the farmers
are less in debt than since the war. The
present price is almost as uuduiy low as
16 and II cents were unduly high, and
the Manufacturers Record warned the
world against such speculative prices, so
it would warn the South to-day against
undue fright. On declining market
people are always more disposed to sell
than on advancing prices, and in this is
the danger that, frightened by the de-
cline, farmers will crowd their cotton to
market and cause a 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 it
was that 17-cent cotton would decline. A
staple that does not deteriorate in quail
ty, that like pig iron is as good twenty
years hence as now when below the cost
of production, as it is o-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
anyone say that it will not go lower tenn
porarily. 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 moro in
diversified crops. The situation is in
this way absolutely in control of tho
South itself, and will have no one but the
South to blame if it does not hold back
permanently million or more bales and
then reduce it's acreage about 10 per cent.
compared with last year. The South
holds the dominating position. If it will
only use its opportunity and market it's
cotton on business principles, then it will
secure a fair price.
Outside of a few spectators nobody
wants such low prices. The spinner is
no more pleased at this terrific break
than the farmer. Now let the South put
itself together show that it can and will
protect it's own interests, and it will re-
ceive the worlds applause.