184 Cooperation in Agriculture 



from the local merchant to the mill. Since the work of 

 the Department of Agriculture was started it is said that 

 the number of farmers who pledge their crops as security 

 for loans, is rapidly decreasing. The growers are beginning 

 to sell their own crops to local buyers, to traveling buyers, 

 or in other ways. 



The Cotton-Distributing System 



The distribution of the cotton crop from the producer 

 to the spinner is one of the most complicated of the Ameri- 

 can farm crop distributing systems. The cotton crop is 

 sold at the gin or in lots of a few bales of about 500 pounds 

 each at a station to the local merchant, to jobbers, or to 

 representatives of the cotton merchants, or to representa- 

 tives of the mills. After the bales have been compressed 

 the bulk of the cotton crop is then assembled in a number 

 of interior cities or towns, among which are Houston, St. 

 Louis, Memphis, Augusta, and Cincinnati, and about 

 twenty other more or less important centers, where it is 

 graded and classified and where the manufacturers, the 

 merchants, or the buying agents, the speculators, the ex- 

 porters, the factors or commission merchants, and others 

 compete on the cotton exchanges for their supplies. The 

 distribution is made still more complex by the cotton 

 exchanges and boards-of-trade, the members of which, 

 through the sale of future contracts, spot contracts, short 

 selling, and other forms of dealing pass the rights to the 

 cotton from party to party until it finally enters the mill. 

 The average producer is the least important factor in the 

 distribution and marketing of the crop. He grows the 

 cotton, is obliged to sell it as soon as it is harvested and 



