PRIMARY COTTON MARKET CONDITIONS IN OKLAHOMA. 19 



State than is generally realized. If the testimony of the trade is to 

 be accepted, there is absolutely nothing gained at present by pro- 

 ducing cotton in Oklahoma which grades above good middling. It 

 is impossible to sanction or justify a system of marketing which sets 

 a definite limit to the desirable qualities which will be paid for, 

 especially when other sections of the country are producing these 

 qualities in commercial quantity and regularly collecting a premium 

 for the superior excellence of the very highest grades. 



HOW COMPETITION AMONG BUYERS AFFECTS THE PRIMARY MARKET. 



It is persistently asserted by cotton buyers that no business is more 

 openly and actively competitive than theirs. They dismiss the sug- 

 gestion that any large number of growers are deprived of proper 

 premiums on high grades with the assertion that competition is so 

 close that such a condition could not long exist in any locality. 



An exporter in one of the important Oklahoma markets assured the 

 writers that if they could find a point in the State where strict mid- 

 dling cotton was selling at middling price, he would have a buyer in 

 that town in 10 days who would buy the cotton on its actual grade. 



Almost everywhere throughout the State the buyers have freely 

 opened their records for our inspection, have given us free access to 

 whatever cotton they had on hand, and have invited us to sample 

 at pleasure their bales in public, private, or compress yards. Very 

 little disposition has been manifest in any quarter to withhold any 

 information on prices paid. In no market investigated have we dis- 

 covered any evidence of combination among buyers to hold down 

 prices, although we realize that we were in very few places for suf- 

 ficiently long periods to be sure that this is not done. Certain it is 

 that nothing came under our observation which looked like system- 

 atic robbing of the growers in any street market. There seems to 

 be a rather general recognition of the condition pointed out by the 

 head of an important gin and oil-mill firm, who said, in effect : " The 

 people in our territory do not have to raise cotton. They can raise 

 corn, live stock, and fruit, and if we can not make cotton a profitable 

 crop for them, they will quit raising it and leave us with a lot of 

 dead capital on our hands." 



Cotton growers very generally measure the desirability of a mar- 

 ket by the number of cotton buyers therein. A town with four buyers 

 is generally believed to be a better market than a town with only 

 three buyers. Our work gives us no ground for accepting this view. 

 The figures given in the preceding tables have a tendency to raise 

 a very serious question as to whether apparent competition in buying 

 really has the effect on prices with which it is credited. To further 

 illumine this point, Table IX is presented. This table is not based 

 on a comparison of individual bales, but it shows in every case the 



