The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1921-01-18
The Cotton Situation.
From the Greenville (Ala) Advocate.

There is so much that could be said with
reference to the cotton situation, and SO mucn
OF what could be said that would be mere
conf lecture, that it is difficult to know or Tore
cast the outcome of the present emergency.
There are too many "ifs' in the matter
The biggest eff is the farmer himself
the man who raised the cotton.
He made a comparatively average crop this
year. but he made it at greater cost than
in the history of the staple. 1t cost him
around thirty to thirty-five cents pound to
raise.
Will the farmer sell his cotton at half what
it cost him and go broke doing it, to start
off again with everything mortgaged and the
old uphill fight all over again, or will he hold
it and by main strength and grit force the
man with the purse strings to give him what
it is worth9
If the farmer is determined to make cotton
bring him at least enough to break even he
can If he is weak kneed and loses his faith
in the eventual equalizing OF prices and sells
his cotton it is his own fault, for the banks
and merchants are anxious and willing to ad-
vance him money on his cotton receipts until
the price comes back to a fair one.
There are two reasons for the low price OF
cotton now. One is that the mills are in
their slack season. not running tull time and
have much cotton from the last crop bought
at high prices. Another is that the foreign
demand has not yet come in. Germany is out
of the running as a factor until she can get
straight at home, for the German mark, worth
in normal times twenty cents, is worth now
about one cent so it would take now o0,0OO
marks to buy bale at 20 cents a pound,
where before the war only 400 marks would
have bought it at the same price.
The American Cotton Association is trying
to do for the cotton farmer what the truit
associations of the west have done for them.
There is story in this weeks Saturday
Evening Post every farmer ought to read 1t
is the story of the raisin growers OF Califor-
MIA. Until 1914 they were paid from two and
half down as low as one and quarter cents
pound for their raisins and most of the time
had a big part of their crop lett on their
hands which they had to feed to their hogs.
Their land was worth around forty to fifty
dollars an acre in vineyards and they went
broke In 1914 they formed their association
and stuck to it and today land in the raisin
belt is worth from thousand to twenty-five
hundred dollars an acre and raisins are bring
ing the growers ten cents pound cash in the
! fields.
The organge growers, the lemon and lime
growers, and every one of them have done
the same They have something that is far
less important to the world than cotton and
yet they have put it over by banding to-
gether The cotton farmer can do the same.
OF course, there is going to be a time of
stress and storm. There has been talk that
the alliance busted and never amounted to
anything. That is true, and there is but one
! big difference in that and the present asso-
citation In this one the bankers the mer-
chants and the farmers are banded together
/ to sink or swim together. That is he one big
point-they are and will be mutually help
| ful 1t is up to the farmer to stick and keep
sticking He doesn't HAVE to sell.