18 BULLETIN 458, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
~The local rates from New York to the interior mills are the same 
for all cotton moving from any section by that route to ultimate 
points of consumption. Similarly the ocean rates from the ports 
of Galveston and New Orleans both to New York and to European 
ports are the same for all cotton, whether produced in the Imperial 
Valley or elsewhere. In considering the higher rate to market which 
is paid on Imperial Valley cotton, it is necessary to take into account 
merely that portion of it which apphes from Imperial Valley points 
to the ports of Galveston and New Orleans. 
Prior to the beginning of the production of cotton in the Salt 
River Valley of Arizona and in the Imperial Valley of California, 
the railroads west of El] Paso, Tex., and Albuquerque, N. Mex., had 
had no experience in the transportation of cotton except in carload 
lots from the cotton belt destined to Pacific coast mills and to Pacific 
coast ports for exportation to the Orient. On the cotton shipped 
for consumption at Pacific coast mills, a transcontinental domestic 
rate of 95 cents per 100 pounds had been established, which rate in- 
cluded 10 cents for compression in transit. The through export rate 
from the cotton belt to the Orient via Pacific coast ports was very 
little, if any, higher than the domestic rate to Pacific coast cities, 
and, in dividing it, the amount received by the rail carriers for the 
haul to the Pacific coast was much less, of course, than the domestic 
rate to the Pacific coasé. 
When it became necessary to establish an eastbound transconti- 
nental commodity rate for the cotton of the Imperial Valley, the 
through export rates to the Orient had been canceled, and the rail 
carriers were receiving for the haul from the cotton belt to the Pacific 
coast the same amount on both domestic and export shipments. With 
a rate thus established for the westbound movement, it was taken 
as a standard, and the eastbound rate was made the same. 
The eastbound rate of 95 cents, including 10 cents for compression, 
leaving a net transportation rate of 85 cents, remained in effect till 
the summer of 1915, when it was raised to $1.05, including 15 cents 
for compression and leaving a net transportation rate of, 90 cents. 
The advance of 5 cents in the net transportation charge was per- 
mitted by the Interstate Commerce Commission on the showing by 
the carrier of a higher cost of performing the eastbound service. 
The present proportional any-quantity rate on compressed cotton 
from both Galveston and New Orleans to New York is 25 cents per — 
100 pounds, which makes a through carload net rate from Imperial 
Valley points of $1.15. 
The cotton acreage in the Imperial Valley has increased rapidly 
under the stimulus of the unusual conditions which recently have 
affected the world’s markets, and apparently the existing high prices 
of cotton are sufficient at the present time to counterbalance a freight 
