Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-02-18
COTTON CALAMITY
 CAN BE TURNED
 INTO PROSPE.RITy
Present Situation May Be Used To Advantage
 Ousley Says.

oiiN S-NPSt lCilSe Ol tue past, eNCtClSc Il ilttle patience, and farm wisely in 1919."
 Clarence Ousley. Assistant Secre- tary of Agriculture, thus conducted a summary of the cotton situation in an address today before the Cotton Con ference. The limiting factors of nor mal consumption, Mir. Ousley said, are the time necessary to restore the dis mantled mills of France and Belgium, to reorganize the mills of Germany and Austria, and for the impoverished peoples of Europe to recover normal buying power. The latter, he thought, IS "the most important in the long view, though the first two are more important in the short view" It should be assumed, he said, that for several years cotton consumers in Eu- rope will practice the strictest econ omy and therefore will not buy as much American cotton as they bought in the last years of their prosperity.
 Must Face All the Facts.
 The estimate of the best informed, MT. Ousley, said, is that there will be American cotton at the end of this sea son. But he pointed out that there was as much carry-over last year, and yet with small production cotton ad-- vanced by September to an aver age of B5.3S cents a pound Exports to the present time are more than half the exports at this time last year, and there is every reason to eX- pect largely increased exports from this time forward
 eff we look only at the presen sup ply, the temporary stagnatlon of movement and the industrial and poli- tical chaos in Europe" he continued, i've will despair of early relief, but if we look beneath the surface of the situation and if We have any faith whatever in the recuperative energies of manfind, we will realize that the remedy for the present embarrassment is in our own hands. We must know and must consider all the facts. When we know and consider only the favor able facts, or try to conceal the unfa- vorable facts, we only fool ourselves The cotton buying and manufacturing interests take the pains to be fully they know, also, how to appraise the very purposes and plans now being considered, for they know the econo- mic conditions and practices in the South and can fairly judge just what may be done and what can be done in the present situation
 . At the beginning of the planting season, he said, the South confronts a situation which may easily develop into calamity but which, rightly used, may be the means of another forward step in sound agriculture and regional prosperity. He pointed out : the similarity of the present situation to that of the fall and winter of 1914 when the farmers sold at an average of. 7 cents a crop of cotton that had had cost them from 9 to 12 cents. "But," he continued, "as we absorbed the record crop of 1914 in the smaller crops of the years following, so We may absorb the remainder of the crop of 1918 in another small crop in 1919."
 World Needs All But Can't Buy.
 The world, MT. Ousley said, actual ly needs more cotton than the United States has to sell, yet the United States can not immediately sell all the the cotton it has. Those interested in selling cotton have looked only to the worlds dire need for supplies, he said, while those interested in buying
 otton have looked only to the military, commercial, transportational, and political aftermath of the European war and seem to think that the pres ent chaos in Europe will continue indefinitely and to hope that the pres ent supply will be sacrificed.
 The solution of the problem, Mr. Ousley concluded, lies simply in safe farming. The task of freeing the South from bondage to cotton, for number of reasons, has been slow, he said, but the cause of safe farming was great ly promoted on the outbreak of the European war, which increased the demand for food and feed supplies and decreased the demand for cotton From 1914 to 1918, the cotton grow ing States decreased their production of cotton and greatly increased their production of food and fee dcrops.
 'lf we make the same progress ir food and feed crops in 1919 that we have made in the proceeding four years" he said, "there will not be land or labor enough left to produce more cotton than the world requires What is the ,inducement to produce more food and feed and live stock The answer is plain. If there is one thing that some clear in the confus- ion of the European situation, it is that for several years Europe will re quire large supplies of American live stock products. Meat and corn are the principal items of food, and they both promise to be high for some time tc