DURANGO COTTON IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY, 15 
LOCAL BUYING IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY. 
There are several local buyers and several exporting firms, repre- 
sented by local buyers, in the Imperial Valley. Their business is 
conducted in this locality on the same basis as it is in the small towns 
of the Southern States. The local buyer establishes his headquarters 
in one of the larger towns convenient to the cotton section in which 
he is operating. Either he has a local buyer stationed in each of the 
smaller neighboring towns where cotton is ginned or he keeps in di- 
rect touch with the ginner or warehouseman, usually by telephone. | 
When he learns that there is cotton for sale at a certain town he im- 
mediately sends his buyer to examine and class this cotton and to 
offer the grower a price for it. 
In the Imperial Valley the town of El Centro is centrally located 
for the cotton business, and the majority of the buyers have their 
headquarters there. The town of Calexico, which is near the Mexi- 
ean border, has a compress and a number of modern gins, and draws 
cotton from both the American and the Mexican side of the border. 
The receipts at Calexico are larger than at any other point in the 
valley, and the buyers in El Centro will visit Calexico whenever 
cotton is offered for sale at that point. When a grower wishes to 
sell to local buyers, he informs the manager of the compress of the 
fact. Kmployees at the compress take samples and lay them out on 
tables. The buyers who are interested are invited to examine these 
samples and to submit sealed bids to the manager. After all the 
bids are in they are opened by the manager and the bids are com- 
pared, the highest bidder being awarded the cotton at the price 
he has offered. The compress then weighs the cotton, if it has not 
keen weighed previously, and the buyer gives his check to the grower 
in return for the compress receipts covering the cotton in question, 
and the transaction is closed. This method of selling is satisfactory 
to the grower, as he knows how much he will receive for his cotton, 
the sale is made within a day, and he usually receives his money 
promptly. 
In making sales of cotton in the smaller towns, such as Imperial 
(where there is a compress), El Centro, Seeley, Holtville, and 
Brawley, the buyer interviews the grower who has a bale or a 
number of bales to sell; he examines the cotton and makes the 
grower an offer for it. If there should be more than one buyer 
present, the farmer sells his cotton to the buyer offering him the 
best price, while if there is but one buyer the grower, if forced to 
sell the same day, has to accept whatever price the buyer offers. 
The price paid by the local buyer is based upon the quotations for 
similar cotton in the ports of New Orleans and Galveston, less the 
