26 BULLETIN" 36, U. S. DEPAKTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 
More irregularities appear in the figures for Mountain Park than 
in those for the other towns, largely because of the great variation 
between the highest and lowest price paid for middling cotton on 
the street from day to day and in transactions on the same day. In 
other words, it is hard to tell just what the average price of mid- 
dling cotton in Mountain Park really is. Even here there is no 
question that the average prices paid were closer to Galveston prices 
when cotton was below 12 cents than they were after the quotation 
reached this point and began to go higher. 
There were no collections made in Marietta until rather late in 
the season, so that the comparison here is for sales from November 
16 to December 20, during which period the quotations in Galveston 
rose from 12 to 13 cents, with the result that whereas Marietta on 
November 16 was paying within one-third of a cent of the Galveston 
quotation on December 20 she was paying a full cent less. 
All of these figures seem to indicate rather pointedly that the 
grower does not receive by any means the full benefit of a rise in 
prices at the port, the price which is offered him being advanced 
rather slowly and grudgingly. "While this work was in progress 
there was no period of as much as one month within which there 
was anything like a steady decline in prices at the ports, so that we 
are not able to give equally significant figures on the downward 
course of the prices in primary markets in response to declining 
quotations. The table furnishes only one suggestive instance and 
that is the comparison between the conditions on November 14 and 
November 18 at Mountain Park. On the earlier date the average 
price of 7 bales of middling cotton was 89 points below Galveston 
quotation. Four days later when Galveston had dropped 13 points, 
the average price of 5 bales of middling in Mountain Park was 
101 points below Galveston. This looks as though a decline in port 
prices is reflected by a decidedly sharper decline in the interior. 
THE INFLUENCE OF STAPLE ON PRICE IN OKLAHOMA. 
A section of southeastern Oklahoma extending from Durant to 
Fort Towson produces staple cottons similar in quality to those 
marketed at Paris and Clarksville, Tex. In these towns any cotton 
above 1 inch in length brings a premium. Outside of this territory 
practically no attention is paid to the length of staple in determin- 
ing the price which will be paid to the producer. 
In a general way the cotton marketed at certain points brings 
more than the cotton marketed at other points because one locality 
is reputed to produce a little better staple than the other. These 
differences in reputation apply also to compress points. Certain 
large cotton-handling interests regularly pay slightly higher prices 
for cotton shipped from certain compresses than for cotton of equal 
