COMMUNITY PRODUCTION OF EGYPTIAN COTTON. 17 
occupy a reservation adjoining the Salt River project, have taken 
up cotton growing to some extent on their own lands and have also 
been employed as cotton pickers by the white settlers. The Papagos 
occupy a large tract of land lying south of the Pima Reservation. 
There are several thousands of these Indians, and as they lead a 
rather nomadic existence because of the uncertainty of the desert 
water supply, they find a season of cotton picking a congenial method 
of employment and have taken to it readily. Last year several hun- 
dred of them were engaged in the work throughout the picking sea- 
son, with very satisfactory results to themselves and to the cotton 
growers. 1 
The present indications are that if the cotton acreage in the Salt 
River Valley does not increase too rapidly and if the growers con- 
tinue to give the problem the attention it deserves, there will be no 
serious shortage of pickers. While the cost of picking is high, the 
other costs of production are not excessive, and if the yields are good 
the value of the crop is sufficiently great to carry the picking cost 
and leace a satisfactory margin of profit to the grower. 2 
COMMUNITY CREDIT FOR FINANCING THE CROP. 
The production of cotton in a new region involves some arrange- 
ment for financing the crop until it can be sold. The expenses of 
production up to the time of picking are not much greater than with 
other farm crops, but ordinarily the pickers must be paid promptly, 
and the cost of picking, together with the cost of ginning, requires 
an outlay of funds greater than farmers can ordinarily meet without 
special credit arrangements. This is particularly true when cotton 
growing is being undertaken in a new region, because the marketing 
of the crop takes more time than when the industry is well estab- 
lished. Under such conditions the crop can rarely be sold as soon as 
it is ginned. It must be classed and assembled into uniform lots, and 
must move to market gradually if the best prices are to be obtained. 
Even in the case of the well-established cotton industry in Egypt the 
crop moves to the market very gradually, much of it not reaching the 
manufacturer until the following spring or summer. Meanwhile, it 
must be financed. 
lit is estimated that in 1913 about $20,000 and in 1914 about $37,500 was paid fo 
Indians of the Papago and Pima tribes as wages for picking co.tton in the Salt River 
Valley. These sums, in addition to what was derived from the sale of the crops grown 
on the reservation lands, indicate that the combined income from Egyptian cotton which 
accrued to the Indians of southern Arizona approximated $40,000 in 1913 and $50,000 
in 1914. 
2 The extent to which the money brought into the locality by this new crop is dis- 
tributed among the population is indicated by the estimate that during the picking season 
of 1914-15 a total of $150,000 was paid out in wages to cotton pickers in the Salt River 
Valley. 
