Re2:)ort of Missouri Farmers' Week. 143 



to itself than to other sections of this country and the world. The 

 south could give up cotton and get rich on diversified agricultural 

 and industrial development. But if the south abandoned cotton, 

 the business of the world would be shaken from center to circum- 

 ference. Cotton is a national asset. It does not belong to the 

 south alone. That section raises it and ought to reap boundless 

 wealth out of it; but cotton is an asset of such priceless value to 

 the nation that it well behooves the nation to safeguard its inter- 

 ests. 



"In the last 33 years the value of the south's cotton crop, 

 including seed, aggregated $16,452,000,000. In the same period 

 the world has produced $7,634,105,600 of gold and $3,459,909,642 

 of silver. The total for these 33 crops exceeded by $8,817,894,400 

 the output of the gold mines of the world, and by $5,357,984,758 

 the combined values of the output of all gold and silver mines for 

 the same period. During this 33-year period the value of the ex- 

 port of raw cotton was $9,685,282,138, or more than two billion 

 dollars in, excess of the world's output of gold. If it had not been 

 for this enormous shipment of cotton abroad and the billions of 

 dollars which have come back to this country to pay for cotton, 

 our foreign trade would have made an entirely different showing. 



"The mechanic in the shops, and the day laborer in the streets 

 of the north and west, the manufacturer, it matters not what he 

 may be making, whether it be locomotives or pins, or where he 

 may be located, the grain grower in the northwest, the banker 

 and the investor are equally interested, and very vitally so, in 

 watching the weather which foretells whether or not the south is 

 going to give to the world a cotton crop adequate to its needs. 

 No other crop is so closely watched, nor in all the world is there 

 another crop upon which so much of prosperity or of poverty in 

 nearly all lands depends. Here is an asset that can be cashed at 

 any moment in any financial center of the world at any time, re- 

 gardless of wars or rumors of wars, panics or any other disturb- 

 ance. By better and more intensive cultivation you can easily 

 double your cotton crop with but little increase in acreage." 



