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



of all improvement based on better varieties. It makes far more 

 difficult the saving of seed from any one variety, as the ginner must 

 not onty break away from his habit in order to gin a bale for seed, 

 but must also drop his rolls and subject himself to a degree of incon- 

 venience which he considers even more burdensome than does the 

 custom ginner. The tendency to plant ordinary mixed seed from 

 oil-mill and public gins, which is difficult enough to combat under 

 the most favorable circumstances, is much more marked in com- 

 munities where the crop is sold in the seed. 



The moral effect of the practice is bad, in that it tempts the farmer 

 not only to indifference concerning the amount of dirt, trash, or 

 dampness in the seed cotton which he sells, but distinctly rewards 

 any success he may have in dece^ing the ginner on these points. 

 The ginners, on the other hand, knowing that they will be imposed 

 upon in this particular, definitely count on a large percentage of 

 dirt, and of course govern their offers accordingly. Thus, again, 

 the honest and the efficient are penalized because of the delin- 

 quencies of the dishonest and inefficient. 



The purchase of seed cotton is closely tied up with the oil-milling 

 business and in many sections of the country a very considerable 

 charge for buying expenses is made against all seed used. In the 

 newer cotton regions, when seed was produced in comparatively 

 small quantity and had to be shipped considerable distances to oil 

 mills, it was perhaps not unreasonable for the ginner in the early 

 clays to expect to receive all the seed as his pay for ginning the 

 bale. With the present development of transportation facilities in 

 Oklahoma and the large number of oil mills operating in the State 

 it can not be considered otherwise than as an exorbitant price when 

 an oil-mill ginner gives a customer the full market value for his 

 lint cotton, reserving the seed as the price of ginning service, bag- 

 ging, and ties. The usual cash charge for ginning and wrapping 

 a bale is $3.50. Estimating 1,000 pounds of seed, seldom worth 

 less than $14 per ton, for each bale of lint, it will be seen that this 

 amounts to an overcharge of 100 per cent. There is a measurable 

 quantity of cotton still sold in the seed on this basis. 



Competition for the seed seems to be fully as well developed as 

 competition for the lint, but does not always manifest itself in a way 

 which is advantageous to the producer. On the contrary, where the 

 country is fairly well occupied by oil-mill gins, it is rather difficult 

 for an independent ginner to secure a footing, and where there is 

 not sufficient competition among these gins pressure is sometimes put 

 upon the growers to sell their cotton in the seed. The growers be- 

 lieve that in some cases the ginners are in the habit of running out 

 the rolls very clean in advance of a custom-ginned bale and leaving 

 ihe rolls very full when such a bale is finished. In a 4-stand ginnery 



