242 
COTTON 
in cotton contracts is to his interest; indeed there 
are times when such trading does operate to his 
advantage. But the cotton farmer should remem- 
ber that the machinery of the Cotton Exchange 
was not put in operation as a means of helping 
him. The organization came about solely as a 
provision for facilitating trading in cotton con- 
tracts, and not with any purpose of decreasing the 
cost of production or of increasing the selling price 
of the commodity. It was organized for al- 
together different objects, and by those altogether 
unconcerned with the production of cotton. 
Don't be deceived, therefore, into thinking that 
when cotton futures advance in price, it is an effort 
to bring profits to the producer. On the other 
hand, the speculator is assuming these risks neither 
for the fun of it nor for charity ; it is of gain for him- 
self that he is thinking. Every unreasonable 
advance in price is as full of evil to the producer as 
an unreasonable depression in price. The "cor- 
ner" profits but few farmers, because the bulk of 
cotton is already in the hands of the merchants and 
speculators; hence the farmer has an apparent 
reward only in the fact that the price has materially 
advanced beyond normal limits. While this is 
seemingly favorable to the producer, it acts only 
as a stimulus to larger acreage the following sea- 
son—and by this time the corner has long exploded, 
leaving in its wake a depressed market to mark its 
track, and to receive the new supply (which is 
probably more than the demand calls for). Thus 
the price descends to still lower depths: the latest 
crop, in all its magnitude and with all its labor and 
cost is now worth much less than its more modest 
predecessor. 
But the Cotton Exchange has two sides favorable 
