COTTON 
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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 top — the 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 
