The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-02-19
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington. D. @.
A COTTON DRAMA.

A COTTON DRAMA.
Washington, d. c.. Feb. 14.-Your
spring suit of year or two hence,
instead of being a light wooden. may
be made of the finest long staple cot
ton in the world. with a dull silky fin
ish and wearing qualities little short
of wonderful.
At least, that is what certain grow
ers of the said long staple cotton out
in the vicinity OF Phoenix. Ariz., ear
nestly hope that you will wear, and
they intend to do everything in their
power to realize that hope.
This movement to dress us in cotton
suits is the latest act in one OF the
most spectacular farming dramas
which ever happened in America.
Generally speaking. farming has net
been dramatic and spectacular in
America recently. The sudden and
striking have happened in business
rather than on the farm. But the
rise, and the temporary fall, of Pima
long staple cotton is a drama if there
ever was one.
That drama began a few years ago
when it was discovered that on rich
irrigated lands of the Salt River val
ley long staple Egyptian cotton would
grow just as well as it would in Egypt
The importance of that fact was not
at first grasped by all of the Salt
River farmers, but gradually a good
deal of the land was put into cotton.
Then came the demand from the
makers of auto tires for all of that
long staple cotton they could get.
The price of cotton began to rise, and
alfalfa crops of long standing were
ploWed under to make room for more
cotton.
War stepped in to thicken the plot.
Long staple cotton rose to the unheard
or price of $1.S5 a pound and-Iand in
the Salt River valley sold for as much
as $500 an acre. Poor farmers sud
denly became rich men. Fortunes
were made by men who sold at the
right time.
Then came the let-down. Armistice,
ever-production, dull market Today
there are $4,000 bales of that fine long
staple cotton in and around Phoenix,
and it would be hard to sell any con-
siderable quantity of it for 40 cents a
pound. The markets that made the
fortunes are fed-up. And worse yet,
Egyptian cotton is pouring in a heavy
and a well-nigh rIlinous competition.
Bumped But Not Beaten.
But the Salt~River folk are not dis
couraged. They know that they have
valuable commodity with a certainty
which is possible only On irrigated
lands. They know that the market
viii come back and that markets can
be made. Just to show that long staple
cotton can be used for something be-
sides auto tires, leading citizens of
Phoenix are sporting suits and shirts
of long staple cotton. The present
weaving machinery is not adapted to
handling the long staple stuff, but that
is detail which will be attended to.
The important fact is that this cot
ton when woven, will be asdistinct and
valued addition to dress and suit
fabrics and woven goods of all kinds.
1t will be almost impossible to wear it
out. a thought that suggests good
clothes for the young people. 1t has
strength when woven, equal to 500
pounds to the inch of width.
OF course the farmer and those who
are behind his credit are feeling little
discoura ged. They have paid four
cents per pound to pick the cotton
and s1.30 per hundred for ginning. AS
three-fourths of the pick is seed and
only one-fourth is cotton, this brings
up the picking and ginning expense to
over 81 cents per pound for the mar
ket cotton. The thousands of Mexi-
cans who do this picking and work
the land. have got theirs in cash and
are in Mexico and enroute there. The
cotton waits.
Yet all this is but a passing phase
and maybe a very healthy one. The
farming of the irrigated lands of the
Salt River Valley, as elsewhere. is an
assured and a highly successful indus
try if they do not figure the cotton in
at all. The farmer has absolute con-
troll of all the water that he needs for
his crops. He is not dependent on the
weather in his growing or his harvest
iT1cr lon ~ L
This water supply costs him less than
four dollars per acre and it will be
practically free to him as soon as the
irrigation system is paid for.
There are 100000 acres under the
Roosevelt Dam system in the Salt
River Valley. The land needs only
water and a reasonable crop rotation
to produce regularly and abundantly
without fertilizer. Aside from cotton,
which BECAME an obsession, the sue
cessful crops are alfalfa, dairy prod
ucts, wheat, barley and citrous fruits.
There is no boil weevil, no pink cotton
worm, no cotton pests of any kind
and except for this cotton stagnation
at the moment. there is a market at
once for all that can be raised For
Arizona is q mining state and with few
other consuming industries and neigh
bors.
Mr.. Dwight B. Heard, who farms
ABOUT Z,OUU acres near fnoeAlA, Is Ilot
at all discouraged.
A Permanent Industry.
'The growing of Pima cotton is a
successful and permanent industry in
the valley" he says. ''It cannot be
grown so we'll anywhere else and it is
a staple that will be highly appreciat-
ed by the public at large as soon as it
becomes better known. Our people
have rushed in and grown q crop
ahead of the real market for 1t. We
will create that market, or rather the
public will do so for US.
"Our farmers put 60 per cent of
our irrigated land into Pima cotton
last year. If the automobile tire peo-
pie had kept on buying at high speed
and there had been no extra impor-
tation of Egyptians we would perhaps
have disposed of the $4,000 bales we
produced and the lesson would not
have been SO severe on US.