26 BULLETIN 36, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



More irregularities appear in the figures for Mountain Park than 

 in those for the other towns, largely because of the great variation 

 between the highest and lowest price paid for middling cotton on 

 the street from da}' to day and in transactions on the same day. In 

 other words, it is hard to tell just what the average price of mid- 

 dling cotton in Mountain Park really is. Even here there is no 

 question that the average prices paid were closer to Galveston prices 

 when cotton was below 12 cents than they were after the quotation 

 reached this point and began to go higher. 



There were no collections made in Marietta until rather late in 

 the season, so that the comparison here is for sales from November 

 16 to December 20, during which period the quotations in Galveston 

 rose from 12 to 13 cents, with the resMilt that whereas Marietta on 

 November 16 was paying within one-third of a cent of the Galveston 

 quotation on December 20 she was paying a full cent less. 



All of these figures seem to indicate rather pointedly that the 

 grower does not receive by any means the full benefit of a rise in 

 prices at the port, the price which is offered him being advanced 

 rather slowly and grudgingly. While this work was in progress 

 there was no period of as much as one month within which there 

 was anything like a steady decline in prices at the ports, so that we 

 are not able to give equally significant figures on the downward 

 course of the prices in primary markets in response to declining 

 quotations. The table furnishes only one suggestive instance and 

 that is the comparison between the conditions on November 14 and 

 November 18 at Mountain Park. On the earlier date the average 

 price of 7 bales of middling cotton was 89 points below Galveston 

 quotation. Four daj^s later when Galveston had dropped 13 points, 

 the average price of 5 bales of middling in Mountain Park was 

 101 points below Galveston. This looks as though a decline in port 

 prices is reflected by a decidedly sharper decline in the interior. 



THE INFLUENCE OF STAPLE ON PRICE IN OKLAHOMA. 



A section of southeastern Oklahoma extending from Durant to 

 Fort Towson produces staple cottons similar in quality to those 

 marketed at Paris and Clarksville, Tex. In these towns any cotton 

 above 1 inch in length brings a premium. Outside of this territory 

 practically no attention is paid to the length of staple in determin- 

 ing the price which will be paid to the producer. 



In a general way the cotton marketed at certain points brings 

 more than the cotton marketed at other points because one locality 

 is reputed to produce a little better staple than the other. These 

 differences in reputation apply also to compress points. Certain 

 large cotton-handling interests regularly pay slightly higher prices 

 for cotton shipped from certain compresses than for cotton of equal 



