Cleveland County herald., 1920-12-16
NOT PLEDGES, BUT SCREWS

The indicated yield of cotton for this year of our Lord, 1920, is nearly 13,000,000 bales of spinnable cotton. Very litt,e cotton has been sold this year. There is a large hold-ove1 from last year-the largest in the history of the cotton industry.
 Unless there is heavy taking of cotton by the spinners-much heavier than now seems at all probable-we will enter the next cotton year with practically full crop on hand,
 In that event it doesn't take a very learned or astute person to figure out just what will happen to the farmers and the business inter ests of the South if a crop any thing approaching the crop of this year is gathered next fall.
 Whenever a market is glutted with any commodity the selling price of that commodity is bound to fall.
 We see it this year in everything that the farmers raise, cotton, corn, | WnedI, OdlS anu live SLOCh-
 The majority of the small farmers raise goodly portion of their meat and food and feed stuff But the 1 big man, who is not farmer, but merely cotton grower, who has from 15 tenants and up on his land, buys all the meat and supplies for these tenants and all of the feed for the live stock which is used on the place.
 The money for these supplies is usually borrowed from the banks and goes to the norther markets and is irrevocably lost to the South.
 The big planter figures that his profit on the land will not be great enough if he plants it to corn, so most of the large tracts are given over almost entirely to the produc- tion of cotton.
 We have planters right here in Arkansas who plant two ard three thousand acres of cotton each year, and they have to borrow large sums of money during the year to finance such immense crops. Everybody knows that cotton costs heavily to cultivate
 In the cotton reduction movement therefore, the attention of those who are fostering this movement is to go i after those hio falIoyuc
 In the delta of Mississippi where there are tracts of from 10000 to 30,000 acres under one management the matter is going to be difficult. What, for instance, will we do n the case of the big plantation of 30,000 acres at Scott, Miss? This immense plantation is owned by a party of Englishmen and was purchased for the purpose of raising their own iong staple cotton. There is anothew plan- tation in that state consisting of about 10000 acres which is owned by Dutch syndicate. There are several pretty good sized ones in Arkansas. John M. Oracle is one of the largest industrial cotton growers in the world, Col. Oracle may be easier handled than these corpora tions, but will he gracefully yield to the plan of reducing his acreage of cotton by one-half?
 Let us hope that it will not re- quire actual ruin to convince these men that their future salvation and the future salvation of the South lies in producing only half crop Of cotton during the coming year.
 With very little of the present crop sold the banks will not have the money to finance any extensive crop and thosG farmers who have not fortified themselves by raising enough food and feed stuff to run them are going to have to live close to the hub in order to get by.
 And therein lies the great hope for a reduced crop next year.
 When people are forced to do a thing they most generally do it.
 We do not believe that holding meetings and asking the cotton grow CTS to sign pledges will have any effect, because it has been tried and found wanting. But the banks and the supply houses can bring about the desired effect if they wish to do so. Let them put on the screws to the man who wants to borrow money or be furnished for his crop.
 Whenever the spinners are satisfied that there will be a big reduction in acreage the price will respond to that feeling.