122 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



there may be no laws of chance applicable, but an ex- 

 ceptionally fine season is rarely followed by another so 

 favorable. If the weather holds the weevil in check one 

 year, it is not likely to be so kind next year. Decreased 

 acreage thus meets less favorable weather conditions or 

 increased weevil damage, and the total effect is passed 

 on to raise the price all out of proportion to the original 

 reduction in acreage. Such a tabulation serves to show 

 only too clearly the speculative nature of cotton growing. 



It can be said in no facetious spirit that all unwit- 

 tingly the program of reduction of the cotton acreage 

 has been too successful. It may be asked what has been 

 the effect of the rises in price after reducing acreage. 

 It has simply made impossible any long-time scheme of 

 stabilizing cotton production in the South. No general 

 plan of diversification, it seems, is able to stand un- 

 moved before rising cotton prices. A less sharp cutting 

 down of production, followed by slowly rising prices, 

 would be more conducive to a correct apportioning of 

 the southern farm to cotton. 



The contrast between society's interest in adequate 

 supplies and the producer's interest in an adequate re- 

 turn on production is nowhere better shown in our com- 

 petitive money economy than in the cotton market. The 

 speculative element plus the "transvaluation of all values 

 into money values" has produced that paradox in eco- 

 nomics the larger total price of a smaller crop. 



Seven times since 1890 a decrease in production has 

 occurred and five times resulted in an increase in the 

 total money value of the cotton crop. The following 

 table 24 is arranged to show the paradox of value : 



24 Geller, op. cit., pp. 123, 125. 



