Imperial Valley press., 1915-09-21
SCALES BELIEVES
IN COTTON'S FUTURE

F. q. Scales. an aggressive ana daf-
ing speculator, has given ont signed
interview. He said:
"In 1919 the United states. pro-
dncpd two il,250, ,000-bale crops. II
YOU look mp the records you VIII ilnd
that the crop Of 1899 was crop be
low the consumptiNe requirements, ana
The price of cotton. regardless of the
biz carry-oyer from the Two former
crops, practically doubled i'll value.
"In 1909 the United States produced
the first i3,500.000 crop and cotton
sold at Z cents. During this lime
lhe Southern Cotton Association was
formed, and held a meeting III New
Orleans. and many of Nou will remem-
her that Theodore Price, who was very
bparish, wrote. an article Which lie
termed An tndeliVereq Address, tax
ing issue with the purposes Of Tins
convention. which WAS trying to de
wise means to protect the price of col
ION. in fact practically ridicuin% The
idea of advancing cotton when there
was such an enormous amount ol col
ton 10 be carried over into The next
wear. Nevertheless in 1908 we had an
II 400 900 crop and cotton again, re
gardlrsS of the big carrY-oNer, prac-
tically again doubled itself in price.
Again i'm 1903 there was big crop
raised. in excess of consumption, and
we entered 1909 With another big car
ry-oXcr. The same thing occurred
again. Cotton sold at SA cents in
1908 and in 1909 sold for i6 y cents.
al seems to me that it is evident
from these facts thai the bears ar
gumenls are mythical.
81 am not going 10 advise farmers
What to do with their cotton. / can
only give them my idea of the future
of prices. | am thoroughly convinced
that the present price is rldlculouslY
low. considering the above condition,
and those farmers that sell cotton at
present prices are deceiVing no one
hut themselves and rOhbing no one
but their own wives and children. In
my opinion, cotton during this season
will sell very, very high-hoW high |
do not believe any cotton man can say,
within , cents a pound, because it will
go cents pere pound higher Than The
normal range of vision of even an op-
timiSl.
al am not going To discuss initiation
D1 money III tOlllit'llpl Niill '''''li'
for. the world we'll knoSW that this has
been an enormous influence i'll the
shaping of prices on everything. This
is written on the assumption that The
war will continue for another year or
two years. The war came ON uneN-
pectedly who knows but what
it will end in a slmilar manner, and
ii do not believe there is man living
that would be willing TO be short on
cotton over night 1T i3 cents pound
if he knew that peace would be de
clared. Personally, | would not be
short and guarantee to Stay short one
month after peace was declared even
were the price ID cents per pound.
"Were peace declared, Germany and
Austria would want 5000, 600 bales out
of this crop-an amount too large to
give out of so small a crop-and SEN
timent has already cryStallized itself
so tenaciously to the idea that a dec
laration of peace would restore cotton
TO better than normal levels, and that
it would leap, not by points, but by
cents.
AT the close of business September
! 10 | am long less than 5000 bales of
cotton, and these opinions are, there
fore, not predicated upon my market
position,
! "Short sellers of cotton must go int