24 BULLETIN 36, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
many of these small towns there is keen rivalry as to which shall 
win the reputation for being the best cotton markets, and that the 
local merchants deliberately pay more than the cotton is worth be- 
cause of the incidental bill collecting and cash trading involved in 
such transactions. Although the larger firms have resident buyers 
in many of these towns, they make it a rule to purchase no cotton on 
the streets, but " take up " the cotton from the merchants at night, 
often, they claim, at an average of SI or $2 per bale less than the mer- 
chants have paid for it. They say that they can buy the cotton from 
the merchants cheaper than they can buy it in competition with them. 
It is easy to see that where cotton is made practically an article 
of barter and exchange in this way we can hope to have no close 
discrimination between grades nor a scale of prices based upon the 
real value of the cotton. The merchant who is buying cotton as a 
means of collecting open accounts and securing general trade and 
good will for his store will very naturally gauge his offer by the 
value of the farmer's good will, rather than by the exact grade of 
his cotton. 
FLUCTUATIONS OF PRICES IN PRIMARY MARKETS. 
In most of the towns in Oklahoma, where the quantity of cotton 
sold runs into the thousands of bales, the greater portion is bought 
either by the ginners or by men who deal in cotton exclusively. The 
buyers who represent large exporting interests receive daily purchas- 
ing limits, and the quotations of the Galveston exchange are usually 
made public every morning. 
In a general way it would be natural to suppose that the prices 
paid in primary markets for cotton possessing no quality which will 
demand a premium would be the Galveston quotation, less freight, 
and possibly one or two commissions. A large portion of the Okla- 
homa crop does, however, command a premium, and the differences 
between the prices received for middling cotton in many Oklahoma 
towns and the Galveston quotation on middling will not cover freight. 
Nevertheless, all Oklahoma markets might be expected to rise and 
fall in sympathy with Galveston. Our sampling was not such as to 
give us a satisfactory statistical showing on this point for the whole 
State, but we have presented in Table XI the results of our collec- 
tions in five towns during the period in which the price of cotton was 
almost steadilv advancing. 
