Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-12-07
The Future Cotton Subb1y

~ URIOUSLY enough while cotton grow
Y ers find the market sluggish for
their lates crop, keen students of the
industrial and commercial future are Won
dering whether the demand fol this product
can be supplied? Writing in the November
ATLANTIC, Mr.. Melvin T. Copeland points
out that cotton has come to be strongly COM
petitive with wool, silk and linen, as we'll as
widely used in other than textile fields-in
book binding, for instance, and the manu-
facture of betting for machinery, and the
composition of automobile tires this last
mentioned item alone taking from ten to
twenty per cent of the earths output of high
grade long-staple cotton. In the years i'm
mediately preceding the World War the per
capita consumptiO4. of cotton cloth was about
nineteen pounds in the United States, from
two to eight pounds in South America, from
six to eight in Northern and Western Europe,
from three to six in Russia and Southeastern
Europe, from two to three in Asia, and from
one, or less to two and half pounds in
Africa. Even if the rate STOOD at these fig
ures, increases in population vculd multiply
the demand in point of quantity; but as cot
ton fabrics improve and standards of living
advance and lew markets are opened while
old ones are more intensive cultivated, the
rate of consumption is certain t, go upwards
if the material and its finished products can
be procured at affordable prices The ques-
ton, then, as Mr.. Copeland ccnceives it, is
whether in the years and decades ahead
enough equipment, enough labor and enough
raw material will be available to supply the
worlds growing demand for cotton products!
The first two factors, he thinks, will ADJUST
themselves, though they certainly will call for
vigorous and resourceful thinking. But when
it comes to the fuure supply of raw cotton
this far-looking observer finds major PROB
lem.
He does not see at present how or whence
sufficency of the fiber will be produced to
&n;1
and new markets. A little more than sixty
per cent Of the worlds supply comes from the
United States. and almost entirely from the
South Sea Island, with it's high value, is ex-
clusively an Americ n crop; its output is
comparatively small and is not increasing.
"Other kinds of long-staple cotton, inter-
mediate between Upland and Sea Island, are
produced in the United States in substantial
quantities. we are reminded; "but the sup
ply is far from adequate" among the OBJ
stacles to an increase in the production of cot
ton in this country, Mr.. Copeland considers
especially serious the boil weevil, lack of la
Dor, and competition from food crops. Par
ticularly interesting is his comment on the
second of these difficulties. Observing that the
cotton crop requir "a highly unbalanced
supply of labor he goes on to say:
"Labor-savin, machinery has been applied
far less extensively in picking cotton than in
harvesting the other staple crops. Two to
three times as much labor is required, for ex-
ample, to grow and picl an acre Of cotton as
to cultivate md harvest an acre Of corn. The
chief difference comes during the picking sea-
son. In order to keep the fiber free from
leaves and dirt, and to make sure that all the
ripe cotton on the plant is picked without in
turing the immature bolls, cotton is picked
mainly by hand. For three and ,one-half
months each season the cotton farmer needs
a much greater supply of labor than during
the remainder of the year. This seasonal
peak i. not easily met. A universally success
ful machine. with practically human 1ntelll-
gence, for picking cotton, ~ould be god
send to the south and to the cotton manu-
featuring industry of the world"
The conditions here set forth are all too
familiar to the farmers of the South, but it is
we'll that they should have been recounted
by stinguished writer in widely read
and highly regarded a magazine as the AT
LANTIC MONTHLY. When the country at
large and the world at large understand
something of the hazS rds and difficulties Pc
culiar to the raising of cotton, they will not
wonder at the growers disappointment over
the trend of TIL autumn's market. 1t Is evil
dent, however, from the underlying condi-
lions which Mr.. Copeland has set forth. that
prices which lii to afford the producer
fair return cannot, in the very nature OF the
situation, be permanent.