PACKING AND MARKETING OF COTTON. 



PRESENT METHODS. 



Measured in dollars and Qpnts, cotton is the most valuable of the 

 agricultural products of the United States, with the single exception 

 of corn. Cotton cultivation is confined to 18 States, including Ari- 

 zona, California, Kansas, Kentucky, and New Mexico, the output of 

 which five States is about 70,000 bales per annum. Corn is pro- 

 duced in all of the States. Both crops have reached vast propor- 

 tions in quantity and value and both are progressive. The corn crop 

 of 1911 aggregated 2,513,488,000 bushels, and the farm value is placed 

 at $1,565,258,000. The cotton crop of last year (1911) aggregated 

 16,250,276 500-pound bales, the total value of which is $1,000,000,000 

 and including the seed, $1,200,000,000. The annual production of 

 wheat is 650,000,000 bushels and its farm value, roundly, $600,000,000. 

 These three are our leading agricultural products and have supreme 

 importance in the domestic economics and in the industrial enter- 

 prises of the country. The two food products mentioned are in the 

 main consumed at home, only a little over 2 per cent of the com crop 

 entering into export and about 13 per cent of the wheat, while 65 

 per cent of the lint cotton produced is sold in foreign countries. 

 These figures are presented to show the great value of the crops 

 named and their relative importance in the country's commerce, to 

 contrast the methods of preparing each for market, and especially 

 to give illustration and emphasis to the antiquated and wasteful 

 system that obtains in the preparation and transportation of Ameri- 

 can cotton. 



COTTON COMPARED WITH OTHER PKODUCTB. 



Corn, wheat, hay, sugar, tobacco, and all other products of the farm 

 are carefully and systematically prepared, inspected, graded, and 

 ceitified in accordance with established rules based upon sound, up- 

 to-date business methods, and are so wrapped and covered as to 

 insure against damage from frequent and rough handling, the vicissi- 

 tudes of the weather, and loss from mutilation and pilferings. The 

 care devoted to the preparation for and the transportation of these 

 commodities to market is incidental to intelligent, progressive, and 

 economical methods; but behind these is the powerful incentive that 

 is aroused by very active competition, an incentive that is in part 

 lacking in the case of cotton. The percentages of export of the sev- 

 eral products under consideration suggest a strong reason for the 

 inertia exhibited on the part of those engaged in the cultivation and 

 handling of the American cotton crop. Civilized nations must have 

 cotton to supply the necessities of their people and to meet the needs 



