RISKS OF THE COTTON MARKET 113 



minimum benefit from its great opportunity, and like a blind 

 and listless Dives [sic] has accepted the crumbs while the 

 body of the feast has been swept away and fed to others. Let 

 the cotton planter realize the possibilities of his advantages 

 and it will follow that every other business interest of the 

 South and every acre of land and every share of stock in 

 business will increase in value. 11 



Every bad year is the occasion, as we shall see, of 

 social unrest and innumerable panaceas for relief. All 

 these are forgotten upon the next good price year, and 

 so the cycle goes. Campaigns for restriction of cotton 

 acreage follow upon the wake of every disaster. Agree- 

 ments to cut acreage 10, 15, or 20 per cent are cheer- 

 fully made, and in many instances as cheerfully broken. 

 One almost comes to feel that the speculative element 

 in cotton possesses a fatal fascination for the farmer. 

 One good year offers balm for several bad ones. Many 

 intelligent farmers can be found who prefer to risk their 

 crops on outguessing their neighbors in planting and 

 producing cotton rather than join with them in coopera- 

 tive determination of cotton acreage. There are other 

 important factors in this connection. The Cotton Belt 

 is too big to be successfully organized. There exist, as 

 will be shown, differential costs of production in favor 

 of the farmers of the new western areas. But the idea 

 remains that one never knows what cotton will bring and 

 one cannot trust one's neighbor. And after all there is 

 a chance to beat the game, for "What do you 'spose 

 cotton'll bring next fall?" 



The interaction of demand and supply as a causative 

 factor in determining cotton prices is a problem de- 



11 Address at Annual Convention, February 24, 1905, pp. 1-2. 



