Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1909-11-05
DANGER SCENTED FOR NEXT YEARS
COTTON PRICES.

Daniel Sully, king bee of former
spectators, is predicting twenty cents
for cotton. Down in New Orleans the
leader of the bulls say fifteen cents is
entirely too cheap. Other spectators,
on that side of the market, unite in
or nearly all. of these men, never
handled bale of actual cotton In
their careers. They are SPECTATORS,
gamblers, to put 1t accurately, in the
South's great staple product, not gov
erned in the slightest by any special
interest in this section or any gem
uine desire to promote the welfare of
its farmers, This year they may be
for high prices and next year they
may be endeayoring to unduly force
values down. There is nothing stable
In their friendship for cotton. Tenn
porary personal interests govern
them entirely in every act of their
business lives.
But while Sully and his coadjutors
on the bull side of the market are
doing their level best to create the inn
preston that even the present phe-
nomenal values are too low the feel
in6 is becoming widespread that there
is an acute danger in the situation for
the cotton planters. The fear is gen.
eral that out of the high prices, the
result entirely of lessened produc-
ton, there will grow an enormous
crop in 1910 and return to or 6
cent cotton. The danger is not a pure
ly imaginary one. If falling off in
the crop can put the price up to 10
cents, proportionate increase in the
crop can just as easily put it down
below 10 cents. II cotton planters
from one end of the South to the
other, forgetting the lessons of the
past, turn cotton wild again, ignore
corn and oats and hay, and vastly
increase their acreage in cotton, and
If weather conditions in addition prove
favorable, a record breaking crop is
a foregone conclusion and prices will
be disastrously lowered, not only for
1910, but for 1911 as well. The evils
attendant on over-production are not
confined to the year Of excessive
acreage. The next years values are
almost invariably affected by the
heavy stocks carried over to meet the
new crop and hold down its value.
The danger that threatens the South
next season will accordingly not only
hang like a cloud over 1t in 1910, but
also in 1911.
The cotton planters have the situa-
ton entirely In their hands if they
could be brought to see it as a unit
and to act in accordance with the die
tates of sound judgment and their
personal interests.
With no heavy stocks carried over
from this crop to next year, and with
the acreage held down so that pro-
duction cannot, exceed say IL 600, 000
bales, what is there to prevent the
South from marketing the crop OF 1910
at - cents and better? Certainly moth
ing. The world wants the cotton; It
must have it, and if production is
clearly beneath the probabilities of the
worlds consumptive demands highly
profitable prices must ensue.
II is time that the South waxed rich
from its great staple crop. 1t can GER
tainly do so in the next few years If It
acts wisely. BY holding down the pro-
duction of It's food supplies its farmers
can, inside of the next three years,
make themselves the most prosperous
agriculturalists in the world. VIII
they do it or will they reduce them
selves once more to state of flnan-
cial desperation by ignoring the les
son of this year. and the lesson of
past years, and by bumper crop of
cotton in 1910 bring mortgages ga
lore upon their farms and debts in
Vulnerable as their burden? It Is
solely up to them to deci le and to act.
&c he