The Green Forest tribune., 1908-11-20
Is Cotton Too Cheap.

The business farmer will conduct his operation like any otber business man. There is good reason why the South should hold cotton for higher prices. The whole crop is not needed by the mills in three montEs and some one must hold it until it is needed. We think it will pay the South to hold it and give it to the world as it is needed at fair value.
 The first item that merchant or a manufacturer would consider would be the cost of store and stock, or man. ufacturing plant: then the cost of op' eration, plus the services of the man. ager, plus profit. would determine the price at which the article of com merce or manufacture should be sold Is not the farmer entitled to just as much. There has never been in the history of this country if we except the civil war period, time when the price of every thing that is needed for the making of q crop of cotton was high CT than at the present time. The price of live stock, the price ot grain, hay. labor, all are at top prices, and lave been for more than year; every com modity under the sun is relatively higher than cotton, and the planter of cotton who makes out of his product only a little more than the cost of production is going backward, put ting himself in debt to make clothes for others.
 During the cotton season of 1906. 1907, cotton reached the highest price we had seen since the year 1876, bar. ring the season of 1903-1904, when the market advanced to over 16 cents per pound for middling cotton, under con- ditons that nearly every one interested in cotton is familiar with, conditions which forbid using that year as a fair example in an argument for higher prices, for in that year was raised one of the smallest of the crops of recent years, following the carry ing over from the season before very small visible supply. In the seascn of
  of trade to reckon with, the second largest crop on record, crop of 13,- 540,000 bales, with a visible supply from the previous season of S64, GOO bales. In that year there were taken for foreign and domestic mills 12,976,- 900 bales, leaving surplus at the end of the year of 1,2S5,000 bales, visible supply The highest price reached was at the very end of the season, when the trade knew that there was a surplus mentioned, indicating that there was, and is, an actual need for that much cotton to be carried as surplus stock Statistics show an in crease of consumption that more than keeps pace with the production of cotton. and we have passed the day when eleven million bales is consid- cred a normal crop; more likely is It that we need crop of thirteen mil lions. and anything under this means a short crop. Last year, in spite or the miserable trade conditions, the mills took 11,800,000 bales of cotton, and it takes but 10 per cent increase over these figures, apparently an ab, surdly low estimate, to bring the amount needed to over 13,000,000 bales, Now, after the bad weather and the setbacks that the cotton plant has suf- fered in the last few weeks, it is not likely that We will have crop any where approaching such figures, and there will be consequent shortage os supply. The present price of cotton IS too low. There should be marketed only enough to supply the actual de- mands of consumers.
 Farmers Union National CottoD Committee.
 G. R. Hightower, Secretary.