38 



THE AGlilCULTURAL NEWS. 



Febrqakv 1, 1913. 



WEST INDIAN COTTON. 



Messrs. Wolstenholme and Holland, of Liverpool, 

 write as follows, under date January 13, with reference 

 to the sales of West Indian Sea Island cotton : — 



A good business has been done in We.st Indian Sea 

 Island cotton since our last report, and, although the enquiry 

 is limited, prices remain firm. The sales amount to about 

 200 bales and include ^fontserrat and Xevis 16d. to I8d., 

 St. Kitts I8d. to 2Qd. and a few Barbados lid. to \8d. 



The report of Messrs. Henry W. Frost & Co., on 

 Sea Island cotton in the Southern States, for the week 

 ending January 11, is as follows: — 



There was some demand this week for the odd bags 

 classing Extra Fine, Fully Fine and Extra Fine otf in prep- 

 aration at our quotations, the buying being on account of 

 France and the Northern Mills. There was also some demand 

 for tinged Islands, at 20c on account of the Northern Mills. 



This demand having been supplied, the market closed 

 quiet, with Factors inclined to sell, wishing to dispose of 

 some of their stock. 



There has been no inquiry for the Planters' Crop Lots, 

 which are nominally held at full prices. 



We quote, viz.:- 



Extra Fine 



Folly Fine 



Fine 



Extra Fine off 



in preparation 



Fully Fine off j 



in preparation J 



Fine off 



in preparation 



29c. = I6hd. c.i.f., & 5 per cent. 



!Vc. 



26c. 

 26c. 



lold. 



= 14|d 



)^ 



24c. 

 2c. 



Ufd. 



Uid. 



= U^d. 



This report shows that the total exports of Sea 

 Island cotton from the United States to Liverpool, 

 Manchester and Havre, to January 11, 1913, were nil, 

 196 bales, and 2,089 bales, respectively. Last year 

 they were 2,831, 8,420 and .5,177 bales. 



THE FUTURE OP AMERICAN COTTON. 



Cotton spinners of all countries have for so long beeo 

 dependent upon the United States for their supplies of raw 

 cotton that American cotton growers, merchants and exporters 

 have been led to believe that this state of affairs would 

 continue indefinitely, and that the United States would fix 

 the cotton prices of the world. Of the world's total con- 



sumption of raw cotton in 1911, which amounted to 

 19,013,000 bales, the United States supplied 1 1,408,000 bales, 

 or almost 60 per cent., and all other countries only 

 7,600,000 bales. Such conditions, as is well known, have 

 led to excessive gambling by speculators, which has so inflated 

 prices as to be a serious menace to spinners, whose only hope 

 is to be found in a free market, uncontrolled by speculative 

 competition, with a supply furnished by many producers. 

 Whether that hope is likely to be realized is considered in 

 an interesting article by Jlr. John V. Hogan in the Journal 

 i/f Politiral Economy, of Chicago. He discusses the success 

 that has so far been obtained in the various countries where 

 cotton is produced and shows that, besides the great producers 

 fifty year.s ago, seventy-two other countries are producing and 

 exporting cotton on a rapidly increasing scale. Apart from 

 India, Egypt, China, and Brazil, the remaining countries, 

 where the industry is largely of recent development, have 

 increased their production and exports from 797,550 bales 

 in 1900 to 2,886,177 in 1910, an increase of over 260 

 per cent., and they are developing now at an even more 

 rapid rate. In the same period the increase in the United 

 States crop was only 17 per cent. There are probably no 

 less than 1,800,000 square miles of good lands into which 

 cotton culture is being prohtalily introduced in Russian and 

 Chinese Turkestan and .Mongolia, Mesopotamia, Uganda, 

 and British E^st Africa, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the Anglo- 

 Egyptian Sudan, Abyssinia, the Congo, Nigeria and Mada- 

 gascar. This means an area over thirty times as large as the 

 entire cotton acreage of the United States in 1911, and yet 

 it does not include sixty other cotton-producing lands which 

 may be able to supply an equally large cultivable area. In 

 the near future, therefore, it is probable that cotton will be 

 growing in a great number of countries in sufficient quantities 

 to meet the world's requirement-^, when the price will no longer 

 be controlled by speculative interests. Mr. Hogan thinks that, 

 under these circumstances, the future of the American cotton 

 trade is now in the balance. The world's spinning industries, 

 which have suti'ered so severely from the manipulation of the 

 American cotton exchanges, have determined to obtain relief 

 at any cost froai further American control of the fibre. 

 Much has already been done in that direction, and what the 

 future will bring may be plainly foreseen. In 1889 the United 

 States produced 631 per cent, of the world's output of cotton, 

 in 1909 it was 59J per cent., and in 1912 it will probably be 

 about 58i per cent. Apparently it will not be many years 

 before the American crop will be less than one-half of the 

 world's production, and unless the United States can greatly 

 increase its crops by improved methods of cultivation and will 

 sell the output at reasonable competitive prices in the open 

 markets of the world, it will have to take a lower position in 

 thp list of the world's suppliers of cotton. (From the Chara- 

 ber of Comvierce' Journal, December 1912.) 



