8 BULLETIN 60, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The system of buying at a flat rate makes it of interest to the buyer 
to keep the farmer from knowing how good his cotton is, and this 
keeps him from trying to make it any better. The buyer, rather than 
the farmer, draws a temporary advantage from any exceptionally 
favorable conditions or from the introduction of improved varieties 
that enable better staple to be produced. In its final result, the 
present system is opposed to agricultural progress, even to the extent 
of defeating its own object of securing increased business in handling 
long-staple cotton. 
DEVELOPMENT OF NEW LONG-STAPLE DISTRICTS. 
The buyer's function in the general economy of the cotton industry 
is to take the cotton in small lots frcan the individual planters and 
assort it into larger lots of the same kind of fiber for sale to the 
manufacturer. Unless this work of assembling and classifying the 
cotton is properly done, so that uniform lots can be sent to the manu- 
facturer, permanent harm may result to the community where the 
cotton is grown. When the buyer fails to recognize and discriminate 
in favor of the productive possibilities of a new district the manufac- 
turer also fails, for his judgment is based on the cotton the buyer 
sends him. If buyers in a certain district send in only mixed or 
uneven fiber, the manufacturer concludes that the district is not 
suited to the production of long staples. The manufacturer does not 
consider that cotton deteriorates because the buyers follow the 
unfortunate plan of paying the same price for good and bad fiber 
alike and do not discriminate in favor of farmers who take proper 
care of their crop. Instead of recognizing that the failure is due to 
commercial causes, recourse is had to the theory that something is 
lacking in the climate or the soil, something that prevents the 
cultivation of long-staple cotton outside of some specially favored 
region. 
This is the history of many attempts that have been made to 
grow long-staple cotton in new districts. The first plantings with 
pure seed are successful. The samples are approved by expert buyers 
and manufacturers, and one or two crops of good staple are raised. 
But with each season the seed becomes mixed more and more, and 
about the time that the stage of commercial production is reached 
the manufacturer finds the staple too uneven for his purposes, decides 
that the district is not suited to long-staple production, and refuses 
to make further purchases from that quarter. The buyers or the 
farmers may be left with unsalable cotton on hand which they can 
dispose of only with difficulty and at ordinary short-staple prices. 
An excellent example of the importance of intelligent buying in 
the development of a long-staple community is now to be found in 
South Carolina. A flourishing, long-staple industry is developing in 
