THE RELATION OF COTTON BUYING TO COTTON GROWING. 11 
give themselves the further trouble of discriminating among the 
numerous small lots. Nevertheless, it was bad policy to take the 
mixed, weak, or uneven fiber at the same price that was paid for 
the best. 
The care that must be used in maintaining the quality of future 
crops is just as necessary as any other part of the work of produc- 
tion, planting, irrigating, cultivating, or picking, but it is a part 
that has been neglected in the past and is likely to be neglected in 
the future if the value that it adds to the fiber is ignored by the 
buyer. In other words, increased production of long-staple cotton 
is very largely a commercial problem. Further improvements of 
varieties and methods are to be expected, but the varieties and 
methods that are -now available make it possible to produce almost 
unlimited quantities of long-staple cotton in the United States. All 
that seems now to be needed is that the commercial world appre- 
ciate its agricultural responsibilities. The supply will correspond to 
the demand, but the demand must be made effective by proper dis- 
crimination in price. 
COMMERCIAL CAUSES OF DETERIORATION OF COTTON. 
The manufacturing world, in Europe as well as in the United States, 
seems to be unanimous in the opinion that the cotton crop has 
deteriorated in recent decades. The same complaint is made regard- 
ing all of the principal types of cotton — Upland short staples, long- 
staples, Egyptian, and Sea Island. While direct evidence on the 
fact of deterioration is not easy to obtain, there is circumstantial 
support for the idea that deterioration has taken place, for the sys- 
tem of buying has allowed changes that would naturally tend toward 
a decline in the quality of the crop. The necessary precautions of 
selection and for avoiding admixture of seed have been relaxed, and 
even the planting of inferior varieties has been encouraged. 
The general disregard of the essential qualities of length, strength, 
and higher grade on the part of buyers has had the natural effect of 
leading the farmers to believe that the most desirable character a 
cotton variety can have is that of giving a high percentage of lint, 
a a large outturn at the gin." This erroneous idea is now firmly 
fixed in the popular mind, and is not likely to be eradicated while 
the present system of buying continues. No matter how inferior in 
other respects a variety may be, thousands of bushels of seed can be 
sold by advertising a high percentage of lint. 
The fact that some of the varieties with highest lint percentages 
produce extremely short, inferior fiber does not interfere with the 
planting of such varieties as long as the farmer can sell three-quarter- 
inch cotton for as much as inch cotton or even inch- and an eighth 
cotton. The popularity of such varieties is a result of the present 
