The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1915-01-12
GoIdsboro Man Says Crop That
Clothes The World Is a
Beggar
Conditions Compel Farmers To
Rush and Crowd Market
Down and When The Price
Rises Most of Crop Has Been
Sold; Organized Selling a
Dire Need

DlIG VCCu
Goldsboro. Jan. 9.-One Of Colds
boro's leading business men, who also
is one of Wayne county's most in
dustrious farmers. in an interview
with your correspondent. discussed
the present cotton situation, which he
said would be a great benefit to the
North Carolina farmers, il they would
do likewise. In discussing the present
situation he said:
Farmers usually spoil the price Of
cotton and discount their years
work by rushing the crops to mar
ket With such haste that the world
thinks there is an avalanche coming
n proceeds to stand from under.
h avalanche fails to materialize
n prices climb upward slowly, but
not until the farmer has sold most
Of his crop.
THE method Of marketing cotton
that has prevailed in the Southern
States would seem like a comedy of
errors. bu for its serious and some
times traglc consequences. People
who have through heat and cold,
with few of the comforts Of life,
and with almost uncomfortable hard
ship, made the greatest crop in the
world, n principal article Of cloth
ing for its inhabitants, are usuall.
confronted at the end of their years
toll by a forced sale Of the prod
uct.
In all the forced liquidation that
IKE place in commercial ceDterS
there is nothing to with
that which annually depresses the
price of cotton. Behind a crop of
100000, 600 there is the pressure of
s2OO,OOO,O00 Of debt, forcing it on
the market in the short space of
two or three months. It is no won
der, under these circumstances, that
cotton ever brings anything like its
value nthe early fall, and it is no
surprising to see prices almost in
variably climbing after the pressure
is removed.
1T is the mockery of political
economy that n best product Of
the worlds ~husbandry, the least per.
ishable and the one in widest anG
most constant demand, is ANNUALLY
disposed Of at sacrifice sale.
"And this great financial tragedy is
not h result of ignorance or lact
, or No crop is watch
: ed so closely from the time when thu
sower goes forth in the spring nm.
til the last bale is brought into mar.
= ket. Millions OF the worlds work.
= ers wait on it for their emplovment
. by which they coin the fleecy stapl,
IHlO AouiiOlu wealth. 10 feeO am
clOthe their families. Boards q
:, trade, exchanges and government bu
f reaus IN all parts Of the world labo
INCREASINGLY to keep q correct &C
count of the growth and movement
4 or cotton; an army of scientists i
employed to detect and destroy tn
insects that prey upon the plant an,
threaten to reduct the value of tn
crop, and more scientists, in hundred
OF laboratories, labor constantly t
s enrich the soil that it may brin
forth a~bundantly Of the material tina
u IS to clothe the ~nakedness of tn
world. Yet in spite of all this, tn
same old tragedy goes On!
It The Of the West AT
more fortunate in the sale Of thei
wheat. 1t is marketed through
longer period Of time, lasting eigh
If or ten months, and If there is a ris
III price during the season, the pre-
IS ducer is largely the beneficiary.
is to adopt methods more like thes
that the cotton growers protectiy
movement was started, and it is nc
o. surprising that his organization Ia
the support Of the farmers"
i With the preSent~condition SO II,
1e favorable a way ought to |
lie found by which the annual sacr
ID fee of the cotton crop NAV h
oil avoided. Some of the ablest of on
OF business men. who are both plante,
re aho iihiiulde'uiefS nave pointed OF
in that the remedy is to hold back tn
IL crop and market il gradually o.
is have suggested the means nv -
this may be done when the prodnce
Is IN debt. These means denend -
the corporation of banks ana 49, .
houses, with a more CT
r. age system which will reduce +
cost OF interest and insurance TO
az point "here the farmer can aefora
ne, ho'd a part OF his crop on horrop
81 81 money when the market is hello
ne me value indicated by slnnlv =,
as en,and In the meantime, one hi,
certain, that the can /.