26 BULLETIN 1445, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
LOCATION 
Location of warehouses is important in efficient handling of cotton 
and in financing. If growers are unorganized or have only a com- 
munity organization and plan to sell their cotton to local buyers, 
then the local warehouses will best serve their needs. If the organ- 
ization is State-wide or regional and plans to sell even-running 
cotton, the cotton must be concentrated in comparatively few cen- 
trally located warehouses in order to make proper claims on freight 
bills and to class and ship the cotton efficiently. The number re- 
quired for efficient operation depends upon the ultimate destination 
of the cotton, railroad directions, and tariff rates. 
WAREHOUSE LEGISLATION 
Cotton warehouse legislation is of comparatively recent origin. 
The United States warehouse act was passed in 1916, and has been 
amended twice. The law provides, among other things, for the in- 
vestigation and classification of warehouses, the licensing and bond- 
ing of warehousemen, the making of regulations governing the oper- 
ation of the licensed warehousese and the issuance of receipts, the 
making or adopting of standards for classification of commodities, 
the licensing of cotton samplers, classifiers, and weighers, the in- 
spection of the licensed warehouses and of the licensed classifiers' 
work, and finally for reports and for revocation of licenses. 
The States have taken considerable interest in such legislation. 
All the important cotton-growing States have some warehouse 
regulation and supervision. In a general way the legislation is 
similar. Some States have certain distinctive features. In North 
Carolina the State leases all warehouses, carries all insurance, fixes 
the bonds, and originally it levied a tax on all cotton ginned, which 
made up a guaranty fund serving a purpose in warehousing, similar 
to that of a bank guaranty fund for State banks. 16 South Carolina 
has a system of State warehouses leased from the owners, over which 
it exercises supervision. The State warehouse commissioner ap- 
points the managers. The law provides especially for licensing 
warehouses located on farms. 17 In 1922 there were in South Caro- 
lina over 1,200 State warehouses that stored some cotton. It should 
be borne in mind that a large percentage of these so-called warehouses 
are not warehouses in the sense that they were originally constructed 
for use as such, but are really barns, sheds, or garages in which 
small quantities of cotton are temjDorarily stored. The total quan- 
tity of cotton stored in these 1,200 State warehouses in 1922 was 
about 356,000 bales, the least number in any one warehouse being 1 
bale and the greatest number 2,576 bales. 
INSPECTION AND REGULATORY WORK 
The importance of inspection service in marketing varies with the 
commodity, the prevailing market machinery, and the extent of the 
market. Inspection service may be provided by private business 
16 The North Carolina Warehouse System, issued by State board of agriculture, Raleigh. 
17 An act of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina, No. 436, approved 
1921. 
