Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1921-11-23
1t May Be a Blessing.

1t May Be a Blessing.
Senator Smiths prediction that the
world will face a cotton shortage
next summer fits deduction logic from
every standpoint. With an average
crop of little more than one-third of
the bumper crops of some years past
it would seem plausible that the tex
tile industry alone will consume all
the supply that is now in sight, if it
keeps the spindles and the looms go
lins, at a normal ratio from June to
June.
! On top of this there are indica-
tions that normal or near normal ex-
port trade will be resumed by that
period, and if this is correct, the sup
ply will have dwindled tb zero, prob
ably before the sun stands in midsky
in 1922. The small crop of this year,
added to the surplus which has accu-
mulated, gives the world a limited
supply with which to meet its needs
during the next twelve months. The
one moat in the ointment at this
time, is that in the face of this low
supply, prices of the product still
flare around the prices of fat cotton
years.
The South too often, particularly
the cotton grower has been forced to
sacrifice cotton by the acceptance of
impoverishing prices. This to large
extent was caused by the farmer
dumping his crop on the market, as
soon as it was gathered. Those able
to hold the staple which they had
bought at a low price, generally wax
ed rich by selling it when the into
sight supply was low, or limited, at
big profit If anything were needed
to prove to the farmer of the South
the value of holding associations, per
fected by the farmers themselves,
surely it would be this history.
1t may be pointed out that the
same condition as prevails in the
South's cotton belt today prevails in
the Kentucky hurley tobacco belt. But
the tobacco growers have grown tired
of playing the goat forever and they
have been organized into holding
marketing association almost to a
man. The campaign is just about fin
ished there. Hereafter, it is the inten-
tion to set a reasonable and always
equitable and profitable price on the
tobacco, and then the farmers own
association will finance all the men,
bers who need ready cash from their
receipts.
We have not been able to see why
such thing could not be done with
cotton. 1t is so with Florida and CAL
ifornia fruit, it will soon be so with
Tobacco. Is the cotton grower going
on forever, on a basis of going in
debt for supplies to make crop and
then selling it at losing figure in or
der to pay his creditors? The people
of the South, particularly, deserve
better treatment. But they will not
get it until they act themselves. Re-
member, that the mother partridge
made light of the loud talk of the
wheat grower, who was going to in
vite, or hire his neighbors to cut his
wheat.
She told her brood to make them
selves at home as these reports were
made to her. Finally, when the
young partrides returned and told her
that the farmer told his sons: "Get
up by daylight. Come here ready with
me, to cut and bind this wheat. When
everybody fails US, we must act our
selves or starve." Then the mother
partridge said: children we shall
leave this field before sunrise tomor-
rwo." The mora lis plain.-Columbia
Record.
{---~~o~~r~o-~
| sa