Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-10-28


harvest is we'll over is no, guaranty that the
farmer will get high price. If this were a
certainty, the road to wealth would be open
to all.
If it were known to be inevitable that
cotton would sell, say, two cents a pound
higher three months after the peak of the
ginning season, there is no farmer in the
land, it matters not how deeply in debt he
might be, but would be able to obtain nine
ty days grace from his creditors, or ninety
days loan from any bank, in order that he
might garner the benefit of an additional
$40 bale for his crop.
Merely holding cotton will not raise the
price. From time to time during the past
fifty years "holding movements" have been
attempted by Southern farmers. They have
invariably ended in failure; sometimes in
disaster. They can never have any assur-
ance of success, for they are lacking in the
basis of economic truth and reason.
The price of cotton is always in state
of fux. This is because the amount Of
forthcoming supply is never known and the
amount to be demanded is never known.
These two factors themselves are always
changing. ~
If it were possible to achieve the impos-
sible and determine accurately one factor,
even then there would be left nothing but
guesswork as to the other factor. Hence
how much lower the price of cotton is going.
AS has been said, cotton sold as high as
81 cents last November. Some cotton was
sold at this price, the high point of the year.
But there were tens of thousands Of farmers
who did not sell at this price, and later sold
at q. When the price reached 81 cents, it
seemed to many that 40 cents would be
reached shortly; had it gone to 40, they
would have waited for As.
When cotton sold at 81 cents the last day
of November, there was little or no doubt as
to the amount of supply in the world The
American growing season was over. Ninety
per cent of the crop was ginned. Half or
more of it was out of the hands of the farm
ers and in the hands of the merchants and
the spinners. The factor, Supply, was a fixed
quantity.
Yet no one knew what the price would be
on the morrow, and fortunes were made and
lost on this uncertainty, for no one had ex-
act knowledge Of what the world demand
would be during the next six months. No
one can ever know.
study of the course of prices over any
period of years will show that cotton usually
sells for less in the Fall than later in the
season. Yet in two years out of the past
four, precisely the contrary has been true.
Therefore it is not safe policy.
Certainly the dumping of the years sup
ply in the three Fall months lowers the
price of cotton during that time, just
as the Triton Gazette says. The price
is lower then than it would be were there
marketed only the amount needed to
h6ep IuS Hills VI Iub NOIIu AuuulhS' Du
to assume that the price will be higher in
the Winter or Spring than in the Fall is
fallacous reasoning and is contradicted by
the facts
There is but one way for the farmer tc
sell his cotton with the assurance of getting
a fair price; that is through the cooperative
marketing association which, when well
managed, will by gradual and orderly sale
throughout the season obtain an average of
the prices Of the year.
They cannot hope to sell all at the highest
price; they cannot sell all at the lowest
price. By selling gradually, they will OBJ
tain price approximately halfway between
high and low. This average price, added to
the advantages and economies obtained in
grading for the producer instead of for
the buyer, in lower interest rates and cheap
er insurance and warehousng, will net the
producer more than he has any reasonable
hope OF getting by trying himself to guess
the market"
QUIZ
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