The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-25
TWENTY CENTS FUR
 COTTON PREDICTED
Price Is Nearly to the Fourteen
 Cent Mark Now
BIG BUYERS IN MARKET
Principal Argument of Bulls Is That Crop VIII Not Be Over 100000 Bales, While Demand Is
 Greater Than Ever.

New York, September 24-A rise of 80 points in cotton and a sudden upshout of speculation has come almost like ,hui.- derclar from clear sky. The tropical storm with tidal waves, high winds ard heavy damage in Louisiana, Mississippi aud Arkansas, as well as Tennessee and Alabama, has stirred the cotton world from center to circumference.
 James A. Patten has given out bullish irterviews and is long of the market. Some of his holdings of December and Sanuary he is understood to have reduced on the sharp rise, but he is credited with buying distant months like March and May. Other buyers have included Eugene Scales, Frank B. Hayne, William |. Brown and John w. Gates, as well, it appears as prominent tobacco interests. There is story, too, that very proini- rent oo tton men have bought heavily of cotton yarns.
 It is rare to see the price of cotton above 13 cents so early in the season. Even in 190S-O4. which saw the inception and wind-up of the Sully deal, did not record so early in the crop year prices as high as they have been. In Septem- Der, 1903, middling upland cotton at New York ranged from Il 20 to 12. 50 cents and the extraordinary prices of the season were not reached until about the middle Of the following March, when 1t. 65 cents was touched here, futures at the same tune mounting to about 17.5O cents In september 1904. middling uplands here were 1O.6O to lilo cents. In the same month of 1905 it was 10. .75 to 10. 95. in 1aoe. s.70 to 9.S0 cents and in 1907 Il .75 to IA bo cents, the highest prices in September seen up to that time. But on Thursday of the present week this quotation was overtopped. On that day B .55 cents was reached. Some of the more radical bulls are predicting anywhere from 15 to r cents Eugene Scales has predicted 9o cents. That was the price which Daniel Suliy aimed al fin the spring of 1904. He got within 2h cents of It.
 Whatever may await the cotton spec- ulative world, it is enough to say now that speculation has greatly broadened within the last week. It should be borne in mind, however, that the re- ceipts have been very large. The move ment into sight is even larger than that of last year in the high-record crop Bears think present prices discount all the bull arguments. But it is insisted that the big crop movement is merely a hurryins forward of prematurely open cotton under the stimulus of attractive prices. Briefly, the bull argument is that the crop is not more than 10,50O 900 to Il, : 000,000 bales, and that the worlds con- sumption of the American fibre is likely to be 100000 to 13,500,000 bales. The spindles In the south have nearly trebled within 10 years. The census figures show that consumption in the United States last season, ending August 31, was 50S5,- 3S0 bales, against 4,539090 in the same time last year, and that the number of active spindles in this country, north and south. reached 27.7S3, 491, against 27.505. .422 for the same time in the previous year. The stock at New York is steadily de- creasing and October, which was recently at a discount of 10 points under Jan uary. has overtaken that month. Some think the speculation, however, is getting too wild and the market overbought and would not be surprised to see at least a temporary sharp setback through the liquidation of long cotton.