COMMUNITY PRODUCTION OF DURANGO COTTON. 7 
As progress in the industry can be expected to result chiefly 
through the efforts of organized growers, an account is given of the 
different organizations that have taken part in the evolution of the 
industry under discussion. There have been three cooperative or- 
ganizations of cotton growers in the Imperial Valley, which have 
had much to do with the progress of the industry. 
In 1910 the growers formulated and put into operation a plan for 
a cooperative ginning and oil-mill company. This company erected 
and operated the first permanent ginning plant and partly financed 
the erection of an oil mill. That the company was finally taken over 
by private interests and that the oil mill was completed by them is 
no reflection on the plan as conceived by its originators. An outline 
of the plan is given because of the general interest it may assume in 
connection with cotton growers’ cooperative marketing, ginning, and 
oil-mill companies. 
The organization was established to secure community credit. <A 
stock company was formed, the stock being valued at $15 a share. 
Bona-fide cotton growers subscribed for this stock, taking a share for 
each 2 acres planted or to be planted to cotton. A note was given the 
company for the value of the stock subscribed for, payable in cotton 
seed on the basis of $15 per ton. As each acre yielding a bale of cot- 
ton yields also half a ton of seed, it was expected that seed from each 
2 acres of cotton would pay for a share of stock at the end of the 
first crop year. The note was guaranteed by a crop mortgage, writ- 
ten to include the crop of the succeeding year if the note was not 
fully paid the first year. 
The financing was done through southern California banks, and 
corporation notes were given, indorsed by each director, stock notes 
and crop mortgages being attached as collateral security. Obliga- 
tions of more than $100,000 were assumed by the cooperative com- 
pany. Had economy been used in carrying out the plan there seems 
to be no reason why it should not have been successfully consum- 
mated. 
COOPERATIVE COTTON HANDLING. 
The Imperial Valley Cotton-Growers’ Exchange, organized early 
in 1912 and operated during the marketing seasons of 1912 and 1913, 
was the first successful attempt of the growers to work cooperatively 
in marketing the crop. This organization functioned purely as a 
warehousing and marketing association, though it was incorporated 
to engage in all lines of activity touching the cotton industry, includ- 
ing ginning and the manufacture of oil. It was successful in mar- 
keting the 1912 crop of its members, mainly short-staple cotton. It 
bought and sold cotton successfully and secured for its members bet- 
ter returns for their cotton than could have been realized with only 
private buyers in the field. The exchange did not buy extensively, 
