DTJRANGO COTTON" IN" THE IMPERIAL VALLEY. 15 



LOCAL BUYING IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY. 



There are several local buyers and several exporting firms, repre- 

 sented by local buyers, in the Imperial Valley. Their business is 

 conducted in this locality on the same basis as it is in the small towns 

 of the Southern States. The local buyer establishes his headquarters 

 in one of the larger towns convenient to the cotton section in which 

 he is operating. Either he has a local buyer stationed in each of the 

 smaller neighboring towns where cotton is ginned or he keeps in di- 

 rect touch with the ginner or warehouseman, usually by telephone. 

 When he learns that there is cotton for sale at a certain town he im-. 

 mediately sends his buyer to examine and class this cotton and to 

 offer the grower a price for it. 



In the Imperial Valley the town of El Centro is centrally located 

 for the cotton business, and the majority of the buyers have their 

 headquarters there. The town of Calexico, which is near the Mexi- 

 can border, has a compress and a number of modern gins, and draws 

 cotton from both the American and the Mexican side of the border. 

 The receipts at Calexico are larger than at any other point in the 

 valley, and the buyers in El Centro will visit Calexico whenever 

 cotton is offered for sale at that point. When a grower wishes to 

 sell to local buyers, he informs the manager of the compress of the 

 fact. Employees at the compress take samples and lay them out on 

 tables. The buyers who are interested are invited to examine these 

 samples and to submit sealed bids to the manager. After all the 

 bids are in they are opened by the manager and the bids are com- 

 pared, the highest bidder being awarded the cotton at the price 

 he has offered. The compress then weighs the cotton, if it has not 

 been weighed previously, and the buyer gives his check to the grower 

 in return for the compress receipts covering the cotton in question, 

 and the transaction is closed. This method of selling is satisfactory 

 to the grower, as he knows how much he will receive for his cotton, 

 the sale is made within a day, and he usually receives his money 

 promptly. 



In making sales of cotton in the smaller towns, such as Imperial 

 (where there is a compress), El Centro, Seeley, Holtville, and 

 Brawley, the buyer interviews the grower who has a bale or a 

 number of bales to sell; he examines the cotton and makes the 

 grower an offer for it. If there should be more than one buyer 

 present, the farmer sells his cotton to the buyer offering him the 

 best price, while if there is but one buyer the grower, if forced to 

 sell the same day, has to accept whatever price the buyer offers. 

 The price paid by the local buyer is based upon the quotations for 

 similar cotton in the ports of New Orleans and Galveston, less the 



