DURANGO COTTON IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY, 8 
cotton mills that make fancy and high-class goods are willing to pay 
a premium for clean and well-handled cotton of the extra-staple 
varieties, as less waste is produced in the carding and combing proc- 
esses. 
The mills that buy staple cotton prefer the highest grades and will 
not accept cotton ef lower grades than Strict Middling until quite 
late in the season, when the higher grades become scarce and they are 
forced to use a small quantity of Middling, in spite of the fact that 
all the grades by that time have been lowered by the effects of frost, 
which kills the foliage of the cotton plants. The dried leaves break 
up and adhere to the cotton as it is picked. It is a well-known fact 
that after frost has killed the plants the picker finds it difficult to 
gather the cotton in a clean condition. 
The lower grades of staple cotton are difficult to sell on a staple 
basis. They are usually bought by spinning mills, which make cer- 
tain kinds of goods that ordinarily require staple cotton to give the 
cloth strength, but which need not be of the finest quality. When the 
goods are intended for a use for which a showy appearance is not 
necessary, they can be made from low-grade staple cotton, but it must 
be remembered that this class of goods necessarily sells at low prices, 
and, therefore, the price paid for the cotton from which this cloth 
is manufactured must be in proportion to the price at which the latter 
is sold. To show how rapidly staple cotton depreciates in value as the 
erades are lowered by the increasing quantity of leaf contained in 
the seed cotton, the following statement of prices is given. 
In making the following sales in the Imperial Valley, Strict Good 
| Middling cotton of 1,%;-inch staple was taken as the basis of value, 
| since it represented the early and clean-picked cotton. 
Grade. Net price received by grower. 
Strict Good Middling__ 17. 30 cents. 
COoOde MiIddlimer: 10 5 — 17. 05 cents, or 25 points less than Strict Good Middling. 
Sreict Middling 22.2505 16. 50 cents, or 80 points less than Strict Good Middling. 
‘Middling OI a cep ia 15. 75 cents, or 155 points less than Strict Good Middling. 
Strict Low Middling___ 14. 00 cents, or 330 points less than Strict Good Middling. 
This means a difference of 330 points between the highest and the 
lowest grade shown, or a loss to the grower of $16.50 for a 500-pound 
bale of cotton of the grade of Strict Low Middling, because the cot- 
ton contained “ picks” and leaf and had been poorly ginned. There 
was also increased difficulty in selling low-grade staple cotton. At 
times, in order to interest the mills in the purchase of the lower 
grades of staple cotton, it was necessary to offer it at much wider 
differences between grades. 
At present there is available a plentiful supply of pickers, includ- 
| ing white settlers, Indians, Mexicans, Hindus, and Japanese, Chinese, 
