The Prescott daily news., 1917-11-07
PAGES WEEKLY LETTER
The Value of Cotton Grading and
 Stapling Shown in the Work.

Stapling Shown in the Work.
 Little Rock, Nov. 6.-The last two days our cotton classer, MT. c. E. Atkinson, classed 32O samples of cot ton. Of these S7 were middling; 132 strict middling; 87 good middling; 8 strict good middling; middling fair, and 10 strict low mddling. In staple 75 were 1 1-16; 65 were 1 IT; 31 were 3-16; 3 were l IA; were 1 5-16, and 1 was 1 3-8.
 Taking into consideration the grades above middling, on a basis of the allowances on the Little Rock mar ket, this lot of cotton is worth $262. 80 above middling. On a basis of pre- mlum allowance for staple, it is safe to estimate that this lot of cotton would be worth at least $2,0O0 more than the value if all were short cot ton This lot of samples came from all parts of the State, and the owners of the cotton now have full informa- tion on which to market their cotton. and they can sell it intelligently and demand it's value. In the absence of this information they would no doubt sell it on their local market as in the past without regard to grade or staple and would get the market price for middling cotton. If so there would be a loss of from $2,5OO to $3 ,O0O on the entire lot. The usual custom in local markets is to buy cotton on a middling basis, unless the cotton grades below middling, in which event it is bought according to grade. This is the re- bort made by the government after a thorough investigation over the entire cotton belt in 1013-14. If you are sell ing cotton that will grade above mid ding and are not having it graded be- fore selling, the chances are that you are losing money. The grading costs you nothing. All you have to do is to send your gin sample, taken by the ginner and sealed. Send either to me or to the U. S. Bureau of Markets, Little Rock.
 The following is the difference in price of the different grades of cotton according to the Little Rock quota tions, based on a 500-pound bale:
 Strict middling soc bale above Imiddling.
 Good middling, $1.SO above middling
 Strict good middling $2.5O above Imiddling.
 Middling fair $310 above middling.
 Strict low middlng sells for S1.25 below middling.
 Low mddling for S3.75 below mid ding.
 Strict good ordinary S6.25 below middling
 Good ordinary $8.75 below middling.
 When you know the price of cotton on your local market and know the grade of your cotton, you can easily determine it's selling or market value by taking the foregoing scale and add | ing or subtracting.
 We are chasing cotton every day and have two government classers most of the time. and will gladly serve you.
 When cotton was selling at 20 cents advised the farmers to hold and they would get 25. When it got to 25 I ad- vised to hold for 30. Cotton reached the 30 cents mark but dropped back a little. Do not rush your cotton on the market. The cotton crop is very short and l believe cotton will be selling at 40 cents before another crop is made. Of course the highest price will not be reached until the bulk of the cotton is out of the hands of the farmer. Last year the farmers sold their crop at an average of less than 20 cents, but by June following it reached 27 cents. Remember this.
 WILL SHOW PREFERENCE TO WIVES tNn nEDENnENT