64 COTTON 



of storing cotton in dry places is recognized by the 

 payment of higher prices both on account of the 

 better fiber and on account of the fact that with the 

 dry cotton the buyer knows he is purchasing cotton, 

 while in the latter case, it is a mixture of cotton with 

 an extra quantity of moisture. A Charlotte paper, 

 we believe, recently estimated the season's loss to 

 its farmers by reason of damaged cotton at $25,000 

 and this on a comparatively small market. 



NOT A LOW PRICE, BUT A STABLE PRICE, NEEDED BY 

 THE MANUFACTURER 



The organization of cotton farmers, there- 

 fore, means chiefly a better regulated acreage and a 

 better regulated system of marketing; and greater 

 stability in prices is the chief good to be derived 

 from each of these. To have cotton prices ranging 

 from five to fifteen cents in a decade, is manifestly 

 demoralizing to every interest dependent upon the 

 staple; a uniform price of ten cents would be 

 vastly more helpful to all of them. To the cotton 

 manufacturer it matters little whether the prices 

 are high or low ; his profits are perhaps greater when 

 cotton 'is fairly high. But what he does need is a 

 fairly stable price so that he may take an order for 

 manufactured goods months ahead with some idea 

 as to what price he must ask in order to have a 

 fair margin of profit. With the price of raw 

 material ranging from seven to seventeen cents in 

 eight months, as we have seen that it actually did 

 a short time ago, it is of course impossible to make 

 such an advance calculation with any degree of 

 accuracy. 



