14 BULLETIN 60, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
of the future will be limited to very short staples, three-quarters of an 
inch or less. 
There can be no doubt of the desirability of rinding some means of 
counteracting this tendency toward the planting of inferior varieties. 
Indeed, some other course must be opened, or further deterioration 
is inevitable. As long as the farmer accepts the lint percentage or 
ginning outturn as the sole standard of the value of a variety, the 
preference for varieties with inferior lint is likely to continue. The 
only effective way to change the farmer's opinion on this point is to 
pay him less for the short, inferior fiber and more for the long, 
strong, and uniform fiber. 
LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF BUYING. 
A system of buying that discourages the production of the com- 
modity that it handles is like a transportation line that injures its 
business by charging more than the traffic will bear. Farmers will 
not take more pains to grow good cotton merely for the satisfaction 
of knowing that the buyer can make more money out of it. The 
farmer must get at least enough advantage to induce him to grow 
the cotton or the buyer loses his business; and the manufacturer 
also suffers when the farmer ceases to produce the necessary raw 
materials. Even if the manufacturers are able to protect them- 
selves against the unskillful buyers, the agricultural damage con- 
tinues. It is not what the manufacturer pays for the cotton but 
what the farmer gets for the cotton that determines production. 
Long-staple manufacturers have been uncertain of their future 
supplies and anxious that production should be increased, but they 
should understand that the remedy is in their own hands. Xo thing 
in the way of permanent progress is to be gained by advising or 
exhorting farmers to plant better varieties or to maintain their uni- 
fornrity by selection unless they are able to market superior fiber at 
higher prices than ordinary or inferior fiber. 
Some of the manufacturers have supposed that the production 
of long-staple cotton could be increased and a more abundant supply 
maintained by direct action of the Department of Agriculture in 
urging the planters to grow long-staple cotton. It is desirable, of 
course, to have the improved varieties brought to the attention of 
planters, or even urged upon them, but if it appears afterwards that 
the farmers who have planted the new varieties and taken the pains 
to carry out the precautions advised by the Department of Agriculture 
can get no more for their cotton than their careless neighbors, no per- 
manent benefit is secured. Indeed, the reaction that comes with the 
failure of such efforts often leaves a worse condition than before. 
There is less inclination to make such efforts in the future or to 
