THE RELATION OF COTTON BUYING TO COTTON GROWING. 21 
of a variety of cotton, nor even to regard very highly the advice of 
the Department of Agriculture regarding the necessity of such 
precautions. More general planting of long-staple cottons can not be 
advised unless marketing conditions are improved. 
Greater discrimination in buying would be the most effective way 
to encourage the production of long-staple cottons, by giving the 
farmer a more direct interest in maintaining the purity and uniformity 
of his crop as a means of securing the full market price. The present 
tendency to buy long-staple cotton at flat prices like short-staple 
cotton does not encourage greater care and discrimination on the 
part of the farmer, but encourages the opposite tendencies to care- 
lessness, loss of uniformity of fiber, and degeneration of varieties. 
Accordingly, there may be urged upon manufacturers and others 
who are interested in the development of the long-staple cotton 
industry the importance of improving the methods of buying, so 
that greater discrimination may be used, instead of paying the same 
prices for mixed fiber as for fiber raised from pure stocks of seed. 
Inspection of the cotton in the field affords a much better basis 
of judgment regarding the essential quality of uniformity than the 
present method of pulling samples from the bales. Field inspection 
should precede warehouse grading, especially with long-staple cottons. 
Familiarity with a variety of cotton makes it possible to recognize 
much smaller percentages of admixture or degeneration than can be 
detected in the bale, thus affording a greater degree of protection to 
the buyer and manufacturer and at the same time offering a greater 
inducement to the farmer to maintain the purity and uniformity of 
his cotton. 
ADDITIONAL COPIES of this publication 
-£i- may be procured from the Superintend- 
ent of Documents, Government Printing 
Office, Washington, D. C , at 5 cents per copy 
WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 19U 
