6 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cultural exports, cotton constitutes approximately 53 per cent of 

 the whole; cottonseed products, 3 per cent; meats and other pack- 

 ing-house products, 15 per cent; wheat (and wheat flour), 10 per 

 cent; tobacco, 4 per cent; corn, oats, and barley combined, about 3 

 per cent; all others, 12 per cent. 



Soon after the outbreak of the war the cotton market became 

 demoralized from fear that exportation would be stopped or mate- 

 rially curtailed and from realization of the fact that the crop would 

 be large. The price to farmers on August 1, 1914, was 12.4 cents per 

 pound. By November 1 ij: had fallen to 6.3 cents per pound, a 

 reduction of nearly one-half. The cotton crop of 1913 averaged to 

 producers 12.5 cents per pound ; that of 1914, 7.3 cents, a decline of 

 over 40 per cent. The total value of the former to producers was 

 $846,000,000; of the latter, $563,000,000; that is, $283,000,000 (or 

 one-third) less, although the production was 14 per cent larger. The 

 meaning of this shrinkage to cotton-growing sections may be real- 

 ized when it is noted that cotton (and cotton seed) represents nearly 

 two-thirds of the value of all crop production in Georgia and 

 Mississippi, 63 per cent in Texas, 60 per cent in Alabama, and 53 

 per cent in Arkansas. Interference with the exportation of cotton 

 did not prove to be as great as in the early part of the season it was 

 apprehended it would be; for by June 30, 1915, the total year's ship- 

 ments were within 8 per cent of those of the preceding year ; but the 

 value had shrunk 38 per cent, or from $610,000,000 to $376,000,000. 



YIELDS FOR 1915. 



The higher prices for grain and the lower prices for cotton stimu- 

 lated the planting of grain crops in 1915, but caused a consider- 

 able reduction in cotton acreage. Coincident with the increased 

 grain acreage and the diminished cotton acreage there was a large 

 yield per acre of grain and only a moderate yield per acre of 

 cotton. The preliminary (not final) estimates of crop production 

 for 1915 indicate that the aggregate will be about 7 per cent 

 greater than that for 1914 and about 17 per cent larger than the 

 average of the preceding five years. If the estimates are approxi- 

 mately correct, there will be record crops of wheat, oats, barley, 

 and hay, the second largest crop of corn, and the third largest 

 of tobacco. The production of potatoes is expected to be about 

 average, at least 10 per cent less than the large crop of 1914. 



