76 BULLETIN 1444, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
sidered in determining consumption per spindle. Mill consumption 
is an especially important indicator, but the real measure of demand 
is not found in conditions in the manufacturing country, but rather 
in conditions in the country that ultimately consumes the cotton 
goods. Cloth sales of mills, commission merchants, and jobbers are 
other important indicators of demand. 
The world's supply of cotton for price-making purposes consists 
of an aggregate made up from three crops: This year's crop, the 
carryover from the previous year (these two constituting cotton 
already in existence), and the anticipated amount of the next crop. 
Crop statistics are available in several forms, the most significant 
figures being (1) the number of 500-pound bales grown, (2) the 
counted gin bales, and (3) the number of bales entering certain 
designated markets, or the commercial crop. 
The thousands of markets handling American cotton are classi- 
fied in different ways for different purposes. The various classifi- 
cations point out peculiar characteristics of the markets and are 
valuable in the connection in which used. For the purposes of this 
discussion cotton markets are classified from the standpoint of pre- 
dominant economic services performed into: (1) Spinners' markets, 
(2) futures markets, (3) centralizing spot markets, and (4) local 
or primary markets. 
Spinners' markets are located in or near mill centers and exist 
primarily to supply spinners' needs. Foreign spinners customarily 
have a market in the local mill town, but buy also through a broker 
in the import market. The personnel, methods of selling, and rules 
governing transactions in the various spinners' markets, domestic 
and foreign, vary greatly, owing to the wide divergence in local 
needs and in the services performed. Price making in a spinners' 
market is largely concerned with bargaining on the "basis," or 
parity between spots and futures, prices in American markets being 
made in terms of New York or New Orleans futures. 
A cotton futures market is a place where cotton is bought and 
sold for future delivery on a rigidly standardized contract. The 
futures markets at New York, New Orleans, and Chicago in this 
country and at Liverpool, Bremen, Havre, Bombay, and Alexandria 
abroad are dealers in cotton for future delivery, or " futures." . The 
futures market is essentially a price-making organization, and every 
discernable influence affecting supply or demand is reflected in this 
market. An adequate understanding of cotton marketing necessi- 
tates familiarity with the organization and methods of the futures 
exchanges. 
The centralizing, or spot, markets are the great reservoirs of spot 
cotton. Nearly every bale of cotton grown passes through one of 
these markets, and dealers and merchants draw upon them directly 
in supplying the needs of the mills. These markets are scattered 
throughout the Cotton Belt and function as assembling points and 
gateways through which large volumes of cotton move toward domes- 
tic and foreign mills. An important service rendered by the spot 
market is the classing and assembling of cotton in even-running lots 
as required by spinners. 
The primary market, or farmers' market, is the place where the 
grower meets the buyer. Quite often this market is a wagon market 
