The Coolidge examiner., 1942-03-27

in selling SxP convinced me sew
eral years ago that, while SxP was
not the perfect cotton, its poten-
tial market was many times that
of Pima.
"As we are always in close
touch with the Egyptian and SUI
dan cotton situations, it became
apparent to me early in January
that our country would be faced
in the first half of 1943 with an
extremely serious shortage of ex-
ira strength. long staple cottons
unless sufficient SxP were planted
in March in Arizona. | Immediate
ly transmitted my analysis of the
situation to the Department of
Agriculture, the O.P.M. and subse-
quently the W.P.B. / did not take
the matter up with mills at first
as / was afraid it would only
alarm them, intensity their efforts
to hoard Egyptian Sudan cot
tons, and possibly cause them to
seek heavy Government importa-
tions OF Egyptian cotton. All this
| was afraid might work to the
eventual detriment of Southwest
growers of SKIP without offering
any guaranteed relief to our Ma
tional Defense picture. / am sure
that you realize that even IL sew
eral ship-loads of Egyptian cotton
had been bought for February
shipment, it would take probably
two months for the cotton to ar
rive in this country and there
was no assurance that we might
not learn such shipments were
sunk after it was too late to in
crease compensatingly the SxP
acreage.
"The amount of National De-
fense goods into which SxP is
now being put is large. This Is
clearly shown by the drastically
increased monthly rate of con-
sumption. What is not shown by
those figures is the potential enor-
nous use of SxP that would occur
if mills now using Egyptian cotton
are compelled to switch to SxP.
Such mills will do everything pos
sible to avoid switching because
of their machinery setup. A word
of explanation will probably make
that situation clearer to you. Most
of the current users of Egyptian
cotton have no excess opening and
carding machinery. They have just
enought to keep their spindles and
looms filled. Because SxP has
longer staple than the usual Egyp-
tian Giza variety that mills use,
most mills have found it necessary
to clean and card SKIP at a slower
rate than Giza 7. That means that
when using SxP, their pound pro-
duction per hour per card be-
comes less than the potential con-
sumption of their subsequent mill
OPCA AACdllo tNIG
chinery or the purchase of addi-
tional opening and carding ma
chinery. Such additional machin-
cry now being difficult to obtain,
you can readily understand why
/ such evenly balanced mills will
stick to Egyptian as long as pos
sible. However, it looks very much
as if in another six to twelve
months many of these mills would
have to switch to SxP, even IL it
is uneconomical from a mechani-
cal setup point of view.
"a complete switch from Egyp-
tian/ Sudan cottons to SxP would
probably triple the current SxP
consumption rate. Another condi-
tion that might still further in
crease consumption of SxP is the
probable Government curtailment
| of the manufacture of civilian fab
| RIGS which now may be made of
such long staple, but weaker cot
l tons, as Peruvian Pima. Such cot
| tons require the same machinery
as that used in making similar
| qualities of Government SxP
| goods. | can only guess as to how
much this has amounted to in
bales during the past twelve
months. Probably it is between
5000 and 10000 bales.
Canadian mills have in the past
six months been using Peruvian
Pima Egyptian Giza at the annual
rate of about $4,000 $500 lbs }
bales If such mills cannot secure
further importations of foreign
cotton, they will have to switch
to Mississippi staples or SxP
Canadian consumption figures arr
not included in the Bureau o
Continued on page eight