Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1910-02-01
RENIGGING ON COTTON CON-
TRACTS.


TRACTS.
Many bitter complaints have been
made this year about cotton planters
renigging on their contracts. Plan
ters who sold ahead at II to II cents
and found the market had gone
against them refused, or failed, to
deliver the cotton entailing heavy
losses on the buyers. If the market
had gone against the buyers of course
the planters in question would have
been only too eager Il was air
rights in the premises nnt -
to force the buyers to live up to the
contracts.
Fortunately the complaints in this
immediate section have been very
limited. The cotton planters here
abouts as a general proposition live
up to their contracts for future de-
livery. In times past they have made
money by selling part of their crop
ahead of it's production. This year
some of them, perhaps the majority
of them, lost money by doing so. But
on the average it is quite probable
that they are ahead of the game, that
selling ahead has really been profit
able to them when a term of years
is considered
Some of the buyers are quite bitter
against farmers who have failed to
meet their contracts. In some Sec
tions the number who have thrown the
buyers down is said to have been
very great. A special to the Savan-
nah Morning News from Albany gives
an insight into the situation as the
buyers see it. After reading it in
full one cannot help but feeling that
if cotton planter does not intend Z
meet his contracts for future delivery
he has no business to enter into them
To sell ahead with the purpose of de-
Iiyering if the market is in favor oil
the planter, and refusing to deliver
if the grower finds that course profit
able, really needs a strong term 81
disapprobation to cover it. But here
is what the Albany man says in part
It is a perfectly safe assumption
that the cotton buyers doing business
in this section will be exceedingly
careful in making contracts with far
mers for the delivery, at stipulated
prices per pound, of cotton to be made
on acres barely planted, or on which
the young plants are but a few inches
high.
The last cotton season has brought
some valuable experience TO the cot
ton buyers doing business in this part
of the country. Incidentally, it has
brought losses running into hundreds
of thousands of dollars
Some of the larger cotton concerns
doing business ip~ this part of the
country ssS>9zyd5nt cotton through
their representatives in scores oil
counties Of this state and Alabama
1t was a perfectly legitimate transact
ton, and there was no reason to doubt
thatthe average farmer would be good
for his promise to deliver his cotton
at the price which it had been agreed
to pay him.
What actually happened is told by a
cotton man who speaks out of an
abundant experience:
The faith and the breach of faith
of cotton planters have gone by COM
munities. In a few towns and coun-
ties l could name, the farmers who
sold have proved to be nthe square
nearly every one coming up with his
promised cotton.
"'But these are little more than a
drop in the bucket to those who have
laid down and left the buying firms
with the bag to hold. I could give
the names of some towns in this state
and Alabama where not a single con-
tract of the scores that were made
last spring has been respected. There
is a certain town l have in mind al
the present moment in which the
business houses close at 6 o'clock Oh
prayer meeting evenings, to allow the
merchants and clerks to attend serv.
ice, and yetthere is in that town not
a solitary signer of a contract to de.
liver his cotton at a certain price
who has not laid down fatty ant
Internationally"
nc COtJOu men nave Hdu W pay
their contracts with foreign buyers
and the losses they have sustained
have been tremendous. They declare
they will sue the men who have
thrown their contracts and the civi
branches of many of our courts vii
be fairly flooded with these suits a
no distant date, but it vii ltake a Ions
time to dispose of them, and in the
meantime the unfortunate buyers
are out many, many, many thousands