196 HUMAN FACTORS IN COTTON CULTURE 



ducer only a wholesale market manned by technical ex- 

 perts in the art of classing cotton. The lack of what may 

 be called retail competition, the fact that the farmer has 

 no alternative but to sell to the manufacturer's repre- 

 sentative, the cotton buyer, whose methods of classing he 

 may not understand, is responsible for the farmer's 

 suspicion of cotton exchanges and his demand for special 

 legislation in regard to marketing. 85 



That there exist foundations for suspicions of the cot- 

 ton marketing system is pretty generally known through- 

 out the Cotton Belt. A study of cotton market conditions 

 in small towns in Oklahoma 36 found that in the same 

 market on the same day, the same grade of cotton brought 

 widely varying prices, depending on personal factors. 

 This situation may be owing to the ignorance of the 

 county buyer in the classing of cotton. He pays the 

 grower of poor fibre too much, and he pays the grower of 

 long staple too little. It has been shown that the general 

 merchant pays a higher rate for credit than non-credit 

 cotton, thus offsetting to a slight degree high interest 

 charges. 37 It is Mr. Coker's opinion that: 



The county buyer pays the same price for all cotton that 

 is brought to him. This is the fault of the large cotton 

 houses, local buyers, and cotton mills themselves. With a 

 few notable exceptions these have taken little or no interest 

 in the production of superior cotton, though they could al- 

 most immediately increase the length and improve the char- 



35 See O. F. Cook, Relation of Cotton Buying to Cotton Growing 

 Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 60. 



36 See Studies of Primary Cotton Market Conditions in Oklahoma, 

 Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 36. 



37 C. J. McConnell, A study of Cotton Market Conditions in North 

 Carolina, Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 476, p. 17. 



