18 BULLETIN 36, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
depriving the producer of the legitimate fruits of his special care 
and labor. By this system the careful and progressive are regularly 
penalized for the benefit of the indifferent and thriftless. 
MARKETING THE HIGHEST GRADES. 
For some reason not satisfactorily explained, the cotton trade in 
Oklahoma recognizes no grade above good middling. All strict 
good middling and middling fair bales are expected to be graded 
and sold as good middling. The reason for this practice is alleged 
to be that the higher grades are not produced in sufficient volume 
to permit full carlots to be concentrated for shipment. Consequently 
small dealers or farmers can not get a cent above good middling 
price for strict good middling bales, even when their actual grade 
is admitted by the cotton merchant. The larger dealers in turn 
claim that strict good middling bales accumulate so slowly that it 
does not pay to take account of them and that they are included in 
their shipments of good middling without credit or recognition. 
Hoping to throw light upon this point, we have separated the 
figures for all strict good middling bales sampled in our market sur- 
vey and have made comparisons with prices paid at the same place 
and date for good middling bales. We find that in many cases no 
distinction is made. In other cases the lower grade brings the higher 
price; but when the total sales of each are averaged and compared 
for 34 strict good middlings found in 10 towns and 59 good mid- 
dlings sampled at the same places and dates, we find an average 
difference of 12 points in the price paid the farmer in favor of the 
better grade, which, in view of the almost unanimous declaration of 
the trade that the strict good middling grade is not recognized, must 
mean that a considerable number of good middling bales are bought 
below grade. 
Our sampling began late in October, and records of comparatively 
few bales, sold on earlier dates were obtained. The part of the crop 
carrying the largest percentage of high grades had already passed 
from first hands. Our method of selection probably gave us a larger 
percentage of high grades than existed in the body of the crop which 
was marketed while our work was in progress, but perhaps not 
higher than would have been found in the crop as a whole, and if 
this is the case the crop of Oklahoma for 1912 contained some 19,000 
bales of strict good middling cotton, on which the New York differ- 
ences would entitle some one to a total of over $20,000 in premiums 
above the price of good middling. Xo one in the State who was 
interviewed admitted having received a cent of this premium. It 
would seem that this item is worthy of the attention of some of the 
larger operators in Oklahoma, and the suggestion is made that these 
figures indicate a larger production of high-grading bales in the 
