22 BULLETIN nil, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGKICULTURE. 



gin. Formal organization may be unnecessary if agreement can 

 be made effective in other ways. 



The problems of marketing have become acute in recent years 

 and have the public attention as never before, but this interest 

 should not detract from the importance of improving production, 

 which gives a better basis for improvement than any other feature 

 of the industry. For marketing reasons alone it might be urged 

 that communities should grow only one variety, because better prices 

 can be secured for large quantities of one kind of fiber than for 

 small quantities of different kinds, but other reasons for community 

 cooperation lie strictly in the field of production. Some economists 

 treat marketing as a community problem, in contrast with produc- 

 tion as an individual problem, but this distinction is hardly to be 

 maintained in the cotton industry. Certainly there are market ad- 

 vantages to gain through community organization, quite apart 

 from any effort to improve the crop, but the community factors of 

 production are equally distinct and should not be confused in prac- 

 tical thinking. Organization for the improvement of production 

 may serve important purposes and yet be kept entirely distinct from: 

 marketing organizations. 



Community production does not mean that the individual farmers 

 are any less responsible for the careful handling of their crops, but 

 the underlying conditions of production are improved. With better 

 varieties grown and better methods used, better results can be secured 

 from all the farm operations, as well as in the marketing of the cot- 

 ton at the end of the season. 



Planting only one kind of cotton in a community is a very simple 

 and practicable improvement that benefits all the farmers and all 

 the business men of an organized community and injures nobody. 

 As soon as pure seed is available for the entire communit}'^, produc- 

 tion advances to a higher plane. The only serious obstacle that 

 interferes with a rapid extension of this elementary improvement 

 is that the facts are not known widely and intimately enough. The 

 farmers themselves, and even the leaders of agricultural progress, 

 are not sufficiently aware of the practical importance of good varie- 

 ties of cotton, nor of the precautions of isolation, separate ginning, 

 and continued selection that are needed to maintain the purity and 

 uniformity of the stocks. Many progressive farmers would be ready 

 to take these precautions if they could be assured that practical ad- 

 vantages would be gained, and such assurances become possible when 

 one-variety conditions are established. 



Advantages of community cooperation in the marketing and 

 through bringing together larger quantities of cotton are being 

 demonstrated by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Coopera- 

 tive marketing communities have been organized in several States, 



