MARKET METHODS AND PROBLEMS 513 



for immediate use when the United States Cotton Futures act was 

 passed. A study of this material emphasized the fact that there was 

 no standard for American cotton which was accepted by, or was 

 acceptable to, the cotton trade as a whole. 



Soon after the passage of the act the department secured the 

 assistance of several expert cotton classers from the classification 

 committees of the New York and New Orleans cotton exchanges, who 

 collaborated with the department's specialists in working out the 

 actual details of a comprehensive standard. The material in hand 

 showed the possibility of a standard which would include all the 

 essential qualities of the cotton of the various sections. In order that 

 these qualities might always appear in the same proportions and with 

 the same arrangement in the practical forms of the standards subse- 

 quently made, a definite system of numbering the 12 types in each 

 box was devised. A system of recording was instituted by which 

 each of the 12 types in any box is sure to be made of cotton from the 

 same part of the belt and having the same grade characteristics as 

 the corresponding type in any other box of the same grade. In this 

 way a set of nine grade boxes was prepared, 1 which was believed to 

 embody the essential qualities which should appear in a comprehensive 

 standard and which would be representative of all white American 

 cotton. These nine grades were promulgated on December 15, 1914, 

 by the Secretary of Agriculture as the Official Cotton Standards of the 

 United States under the provisions of the United States Cotton 

 Futures act. 



B. Auctions and Public Sales 



163. AUCTION SALES OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES 2 

 BY VICTOR K. McELHENY, JR. 



In the early days almost all oranges, lemons, grapes, and pine- 

 apples were imported from foreign lands. Large quantities would 

 arrive at our eastern ports consigned to various importers; buyers 



1 Middling fair, strict good middling, good middling, strict middling, middling, 

 strict low middling, low middling, strict good ordinary, good ordinary. Subse- 

 quently, work was undertaken toward establishing official grades for tinged and 

 stained cotton. On January 28, 1916, five grades of Yellow Tinged Cotton, three 

 of Yellow Stained Cotton, and three of Blue Stained Cotton were promulgated 

 by the Secretary of Agriculture. EDITOR. 



2 Adapted from a paper read before the Pan-American Scientific Congress, 

 Washington, D.C., December 27, 1915, to January 8, 1916. (Copyright by 

 American Fruit and Produce Auction Association.) 



