14 BULLETIN 60, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 



of the future will be limited to very short staples, three-quarters of an 

 inch or less. 



There can be no doubt of the desirability of finding some means of 

 counteracting this tendency toward the planting of inferior varieties. 

 Indeed, some other course must be opened, or further deterioration 

 is inevitable. As long as the farmer accepts the lint percentage or 

 ginning outturn iis the sole standard of the value of a variety, the 

 preference for varieties with inferior lint is likely to continue. The 

 only effective way to change the farmer's opinion on this point is to 

 pay him less for the short, inferior fiber and more for the long, 

 strong, and uniform fiber, 



LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF BUYING. 



A system of buying that discourages the production of the com- 

 modity that it handles is like a transportation line that injures its 

 business by charging more than the traffic will bear. Farmers will 

 not take more pains to grow good cotton merely for the satisfaction 

 of knowing that the buyer can make more money out of it. The 

 farmer must get at least enough advantage to induce him to grow 

 the cotton or the buyer loses his business; and the manufacturer 

 also suffers when the farmer ceases to produce the necessary raw 

 materials. Even if the manufacturers are -able to protect them- 

 selves against the unskillful buyers, the agricultural damage con- 

 tinues. It is not what the manufacturer pays for the cotton but 

 what the farmer gets for the cotton that determines production. 



Long-staple manufacturers have been uncertain of their future 

 supplies and anxious that production should be increased, but they 

 should understand that the remedy is in their own hands. Nothing 

 in the way of permanent progress is to be gained by advising or 

 exhorting farmers to plant better varieties or to maintain their uni- 

 formity by selection unless they are able to market superior fiber at 

 higher prices than ordinary or inferior fiber. 



Some of the manufacturers have supposed that the production 

 of long-staple cotton could be increased and a more abundant supply 

 maintained by direct action of the Department of Agriculture in 

 urging the planters to grow long-staple cotton. It is desirable, of 

 course, to have the improved varieties brought to the attention of 

 planters, or even urged upon them, but if it appears afterwards that 

 the farmers who have planted the new varieties and taken the pains 

 to carry out the precautions advised by the Department of Agriculture 

 can get no more for their cotton than their careless neighbors, no per- 

 manent benefit is secured. Indeed, the reaction that comes with the 

 failure of such efforts often leaves a worse condition than before. 

 There is less inclination to make such efforts in the future or to 



