46 BULLETIN 1444, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
bargaining is rarely done on the classification of bales. The emphasis 
is placed on price and not on quality which increases immensely the 
problem of interesting the farmers in improved varieties and meth- 
ods of handling their cotton. If the local markets are to be made to 
function properly, the price-making forces and the price-quotation 
service must be improved to the point that bargaining will be done on 
the classification of the cotton and not on price. 
In the local markets the merchant often asks the farmer how 
much he is going to trade, and if a farmer has been a good customer 
of a supply merchant he expects this merchant to make the highest 
bid for the cotton. The grower's supply merchant or banker often 
tells him to get the best oifer he can and come back, which means 
he will raise the bid 5 or 10 points, even though he has to take a 
loss on the cotton at the end of the day. Such methods of bargain- 
ing furnish little incentive for improvement in quality. 
When the cotton merchant quotes the local buyer a definite price 
he observes closely the class of the cotton coming from the market 
to keep the price even with or below the average value of the cotton 
coming in. Even the cotton merchants in the central markets who 
have their local representatives buy on quality make up their limits 
with the idea of buying the cotton " safe " for premiums and dis- 
counts on grade and staple. Their take-up man follows the policy 
of classing the cotton full, especially if the market is declining. 
In the face of this, the local buyer, who is not an expert at judging 
the qualities of cotton, also follows the policy of buying the cotton 
" safe." By the time the price gets to the farmer the premiums 
for the better grades and longer staples are greatly reduced, are 
often entirely wiped out, and the discounts for low grades often 
become excessive. 
The larger the local markets, the more nearly they are governed 
by the commercial value of the cotton. There are a great many 
markets which are more efficient than the types of local markets 
described yet they do not perform the characteristic functions of 
the centralizing markets. There are usually numbers of small cot- 
ton merchants or salaried representatives of large cotton merchants 
in such markets. A few of these markets have inaugurated a method 
of selling similar to the factorage system, which was once so popu- 
lar in the centralizing markets. A take-up man of a merchant in 
a central market may live in one of the big local markets. Such a 
man is almost sure to lead the local buyers to pay premiums for the 
better grades and longer staples and to discount the low grades. 
FACILITIES IN LOCAL MARKETS 
The quantity and quality of the facilities in local markets vary 
widely. In many of them, especially in the western part of the 
Cotton Belt, the usual facilities consist of (1) a market square 
which is a vacant block near the center of the village, where the 
farmers drive their wagons with their cotton, (2) a cotton yard 
which is another vacant lot, where the farmer carries his cotton 
when it is sold, and (3) a public weigher equipped with a pair of 
scales on wheels, to weigh the bales when they are rolled off the 
wagons. Many of the local markets, especially in the eastern part 
