32 ANNUAL EEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



under the old practices, have become much less frequent ; and prices 

 have been increasingly stabilized. The conclusion is unavoidable 

 that these results are due mainly to the operation of the act. 



Primarily these changes help the producer to secure more equitable 

 prices. They also benefit the cotton manufacturer by giving him a 

 truer index of the advance value of raw material. Likewise, they 

 afford to all concerned in financing the crop and moving it to market 

 a safer and more practicable hedge. In addition, the exchanges them- 

 selves have been somewhat relieved from the suspicion, which for- 

 merly justly attached in considerable measure, that exchange trans- 

 actions were not always fairly conducted. 



Cotton standards. — One of the important sections of the act is that 

 dealing with standards. It authorizes the department to promulgate 

 standards of cotton by which its quality or value may be determined, 

 to be known as the " Official cotton standards of the United States." 

 Acting under this authority, the department prepared a set of stand- 

 ards for white cotton, consisting of nine grades, as follows: Middling 

 Fair, Strict Good Middling, Good Middling, Strict Middling, Mid- 

 dling, Strict Low Middling, Low Middling, Strict Good Ordinary, 

 and Good Ordinary. Pains were taken to make them comprehen- 

 sive, and they are more truly representative of American cotton than 

 any standards hitherto in use. They were promulgated December 

 15, 1914, and replaced the permissive standards adopted by the de- 

 partment in 1909. To the close of November 10, 1915, 529 full and 19 

 fractional sets had been distributed to exchanges, spot-cotton deal- 

 ers, merchants, cotton mills, agricultural colleges, and textile schools 

 in the United States; in addition, 16 full sets and 1 fractional set 

 had been shipped to foreign countries. 



While the compulsory use of the official standards extends only to 

 contracts made subject to section 5, their acceptance and use have not 

 been limited to the future exchanges. They have been voluntarily 

 accepted in all the more important spot markets and form the 

 basis of their dealings. The standards have given general satisfac- 

 tion and the tendency toward acceptance of them has not been con- 

 fined to this country. Committees and the board of managers of 

 the Liverpool Cotton Association have approved them, though they 

 have not been adopted by the association itself. The question of 

 using both the official standards and the form of contract prescribed 

 by the act is under consideration by the exchange at Bremen, and 



