The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-10
0PELIKANS HEAR ADDRESS ON COTTON Texas Editor Delivers In- teresting Speech to
 Farmers

Opelika, December 9.-( Special. )-N. r. Blackwell. editor of the Cotton and pi News of Dallas, Tex, addressed the citizens and farmers especially of Ore- lika and vicinity on cotton here this afternoon. He spoke on different phases of the cotton industry, including bet ter care of cotton after it is ginncd, , ffie necessity of cotton grading schools throughout the south, diyersification, holding of cotton, plans for financing same and the cotton exchanges and cotton future dealing.
 He said in part:
 q am eligible to address a crowd of farmers because l myself am farm CT, having cotton farms in Texas and Arkansas. This year the Aoll weeyil got my cotton in Arkansas and the drouth in Texas. As further quali- fcation I may say that l am 'agin the trusts
 'I want to speak to you briefly on the importance of taking care of the crop after it is made and ginned ana before it is ready for sale. Many farm CTS hold cotton in the lint by dump ing it on the ground and letting 1t lie there several months asbsorbing water and contracting country damages under the impression that they are going to unload lot of water on some- ocdy at a price the same as cotton, Don't fool yourself. The man who buys this cotton has to he responsible at ihe business end of the line or at the mill and has to make good all grades sold by him. Consequently, MT Cot ton Buyer gets busy picking off eoun- try damage and does not know where To get off whole then-neither does the owner of the cotton. l want to see cotton as well cared for as a 15 cent blIe of hay and then all this trouble ever country damage will be avoided
 "The necessity of cotton grading schools at all central points in the south, one in each county at the coun- ty seat if possible, is amazingly appar- ent when we realibe that there are only per cent of the cotton planters able to grade cotton and arrive at { correct estimate of the value of theil chief agricultural produce. Let us alter this condition by educating our son' for business as well as for the pro- fessions. There is no honest and intel igent cotton buyer but who had rather buy cotton from a posted man thai from any other. The posted man know. what he has and the man who is no posted may know but he has no means of proving that he knows.
 There is no escaping the absolut, certainty that this season we have both overplanted and oversod our selves in cotton. In the face of a larg, crop and the most unprecedented rusl tO market, trade conditions in EI. rope and the Orient are indifferent tt m wi when this adverse element will be re- moved by the restora tion or peace iI China, Italy and Turkey and then thes, countries will be heavy buyers to mak, up for lost time. The world, nt part thereof, will go naked, even | the great bear lairs do claim that tht consumption of cotton is growing less
 Tn the meantime the simple solution O the n alter is for all who have raised al excess of cotton and have any of it lef is to hold it, carry it over into next year crop and reduce the acreage fully one fourth. if necessary to make the neX crop with all cotton carried over, no more than 13000.000 bales. It is cheape to hold the present crop than to mak another one at the prices of cotton a present. The south would have beel s3O0.001,00o better off this year had W raised 2.G00,0G0 bales less cotton, to sa nothing of the cost of raising cotton o land sorely needed for food for man am his beusts Of the farm. The souther people have met every crisis in thct pas with a fortitude worthy of Spartan sres Why not now? To hold up 5,0J0,000 O 3.000.000 bales of this crop, and make al lowance for carrying that much into tn next crop, win very soon convince tn spnners of the fallacy of waiting to mill the market to the last point down. Trad conditions will advance with whoop Whel traders realize that the price Of dry good will advance to meet an advancing cot ton market, and the way to advance tn cotton market is to hold up selling til he spnners get hungry for it and tn bears who have sold the market shor and then gone out and lied about th 1G.O0O,000 bale crop will have to bid III the market to get cotton to deliver oi