COTTON 225 
ficult of access. And isn’t the road of the cotton 
farmer steep and rough and difficult? And so 
long, too. Six months and more are necessary to 
cover the distance; a thousand difficulties are met 
on the way ;late frosts in the spring, and early ones in 
the fall before the crop matures; often unduly wet 
weather or unduly dry weather materially lessen the 
crop; insufficient and inefficient labor bother and 
interfere ; expenses for labor, seed, fertilizers, imple- 
ments, and tools, often come at the sacrifice of the 
legitimate comforts and needs of the family: surely 
the road is beset with difficulty and danger all the 
way we must follow in reaching the top. 
For Jack and Jill the top possessed water; for 
the cotton farmer the opectlie end of his journey— 
is the market. He is entitled, at least, to water 
while on the top, enough to take him down the hill 
again, a sufficient quantity for those dependent 
upon him at home, and in quantities sufficient to 
supply not only real needs, but all purposes of com- 
fort and even those of luxury; besides this, he is 
entitled to enough to last him on his trip up the 
hill again, and to supply his family until he returns 
with a fresh supply. 
Are you going to reject this philosophy ? 
Is it not the kind practiced and preached by every 
other industry—the railroad, the cotton factory, 
the coal, iron, and steel industries, by every manu- 
facturing and industrial concern ? 
Are not its precepts illustrated in the tenets of 
every professional creed—the merchant’s, the doc- 
tor’s, the banker’s, or the publisher’s ? 
All accept this doctrine save the farmer—and 
what is more, they practice it. 
Take the railroad. Its preachments are all to 
the effect that its capital is entitled to a reasonable 
