PRIMARY COTTON MARKET CONDITIONS IN OKLAHOMA. 33 



is a tendency to increase the amount of gathered cotton. It is prob- 

 able that all bolly cotton now contains more naturally opened bolls 

 than was the case when the ginning of bollies was first undertaken. 

 In other words, the quality of bolly cotton has decidedly improved 

 since it first appeared on the market. 



Ginning bollies is a comparatively slow process, and when custom 

 ginned the charge is necessarily greater than for picked cotton. In 

 consequence there is a very general disposition to sell bollies and 

 gathered cotton in the seed, and the larger ginning companies do a 

 considerable business in such cotton, the bales being sold on sample, 

 thus avoiding the discrimination which would be made against them 

 if they were offered as bollies. There are large ginneries in western 

 Oklahoma which for months at a time use only an occasional shovel- 

 ful of coal, firing their engines almost exclusively with the bolls from 

 the cotton ginned. 



There is perhaps less to be said against the sale of gathered cotton 

 or bollies by the ton gross than there is against the practice of 

 selling picked cotton in the seed. The fact that such cotton can be 

 readily sold is a boon to the planter in a region of high wages, be- 

 cause it enables him to harvest his crop with less cash outlay, as the 

 labor of the farm force can be spread over a longer picking season. 

 If, when he takes such a load of mixed cotton and bolls to the gin, 

 he can make a prompt sale at a price which leaves him a fair margin 

 of profit, there are many reasons why he should do so rather than 

 pay a high price for his ginning when he knows that his bale will 

 be discriminated against by any buyer who has reason to believe 

 that it is a bolly. In other words, the grower is not in a position to 

 sell such cotton so nearly on its merits as is the larger operator. 



On the other hand, it is no secret in the trade that bollies are 

 purchased by the ginners at a price which leaves them an excellent 

 margin of profit. They are not so easy to handle as cotton picked 

 in the ordinary way ; they are bulky, and the available storage space 

 at the gin is soon filled. As a consequence it is by no means rare 

 to see large piles of bollies which have been purchased by the ginners 

 lying out of doors, entirely unprotected from the weather. Of course 

 every snow and rain stops the ginning from such a pile and results 

 in more or less deterioration. In short, the handling of bolly cotton 

 is liable to be attended in the aggregate with considerable losses, 

 all of which must be allowed for in the price offered. 



The establishment of a regular market for gathered cotton has 

 resulted in attempts by the growers to expedite harvesting by vari- 

 ous crude mechanical methods. In the western part of the State a 

 sled was used equipped with teeth to comb the bolls from the stalks. 

 This device, of course, gathered not only the unpicked cotton and 



