12 BULLETIN 36, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



change in the buyer's limits or in spot transactions in the great cot- 

 ton markets. If buyer and seller were equally informed as to the 

 grade of the bales offered and if the sale of the individual bale were 

 a matter of no more importance to the farmer than its purchase is to 

 the buyer, such conditions could not exist. The farmer is necessarily 

 under some pressure to sell after he has brought his bale to town. 

 If he does not do so he has lost a day's time and has no assurance 

 that his next attempt to sell will be productive of better results. 

 Furthermore he is not well enough versed in cotton grading to know 

 exactly what his bale ought to bring, or whether the price offered is 

 a fair one. The conclusion is irresistible that the burden of the 

 great discrepancies in the prices paid for each standard grade must 

 fall most heavily upon those producers who are most ignorant of 

 cotton grading and who are under the greatest pressure to sell. 



Except in the latter part of the season when the grades are run- 

 ning very low and when tinges, stains, and spots occur which afford 

 legitimate excuses for wide differences in judgment as to the true 

 value of the sample, there is no excuse for failing to come within one 

 grade of a correct classification. In a market where it is intended 

 to treat all customers alike and to buy cotton by grade, there is no 

 excuse for offering for two bales of identical grade prices further 

 apart than prevailing difference sheets will justify on a range of 

 four or five full grades. 



HOW THE DIFFERENCE SHEET IS APPLIED TO THE FARMER'S COTTON. 



Closely allied with cotton grading, whether this is impartially done 

 or whether it is graded " safe," is the question of the differences 

 to be applied to the various grades above and below middling. The 

 whole question of the application of the difference sheet in Okla- 

 homa appears to be in a chaotic condition. There are a number of 

 firms dealing in cotton on a large scale, each of which issues its own 

 difference sheets and changes the premiums and penalties on the 

 various 'grades at pleasure. The form of contract, or offer, usually 

 made to the country merchant, ginner, street buyer, farmer, or other 

 owner of a carload lot of cotton is so much, basis middling, for the 

 lot, " subject to our prevailing difference sheet, our grading and 

 compress weights." In general the premiums offered by Oklahoma 

 firms for grades above middling are about one-half as great as those 

 of the New York Cotton Exchange. For the grades below middling 

 the penalties are in a general way almost twice as great. This condi- 

 tion seems to have given rise to the opinion expressed by some inde- 

 pendent ginners that they receive fairly good treatment as long 

 as the grades are running around middling or better, but that when 

 the grades begin to run low they are penalized to an unreasonable 

 extent. 



