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PAGE SIX
OT INTEREST TO WEALTH CREATORS
THE AMERICAN COTTON CROP.
Elsewhere in this morning’s Pica
yune will be found copious extracts
from the annual report of Colonel
H. G. Hester, secretary of the New
Orleans Cotton Exchange, on the
movement and distribution of the
American cotton crop of last season
end August 31 ult. The leading
totals of this report were made pub
lic promptly on the close of the sea
son, two weeks ago, but the complet
ed report has been delayed until now,
owing to a temporary indisposition
of the author.
Secretary Hester puts the cotton
crop of 1906-07 at 13.510,982 bales,
an increase of 2,164,994 over that
of 1905-06, a decrease of 3,449,608
over that of 1903-04. He says, com
pared with last year the excess has
been entirely in Texas, including In
dian Territory and what are termed
the 11 other Gulf States,” which, to
gether, marketed in round figures 2,-
274,000 bales more, while the group
of Atlantic States, embracing Ala
bama, Georgia, Florida, North Caro
lina, South Carolina, Kentucky and
Virginia, lost 609,000 bales.
Although the past crop has fallen
a trifle short of the crop of two sea
sons previous, it has actually netted
a very much larger return to the cot
ton producers than the record crop
of 1904-05. Secretary Haster puts
the average commercial value of this
crop at $53.02, against $56.56 last
year, $46.31 the year before, and
$61.68 in 1903-04, and points out that
for the first time in history the
cotton crop of the United States
brought over seven hundred millions
of dollars, this computation being
based on prices which cotton brought
at Southern centers, that is within
the compass of the Cotton Belt; that
it brought seventy-five million dol
lars more than last season, and over
eighty-eight millions in excess of the
great crop of 1904-05, although it
was less in bales by about 55,000.
The total value of the crop Mr. Hes
ter makes $716,352,265, against $641,-
720,434 last year, and $628,195,359
the year before.
It is not surprising that with such
results from the marketing of a sin
gle cotton crop, general busi
ness in the South has been prosper
ous, and that the entire section has
enjoyed a degree of prosperity pre
viously unknown in this part of the
country in modem times. Il is also
probable that had it not been for the
big storm of September last, which
undoubtedly materially lowered the
average grade of the crop, the money
results would have been even greater,
just as the yield would also in all
probability have run ahead of the
record crop of two seasons previous.
The commercial crop approximated
more closely the actual growth of
the season than usual, showing that
the demand for cotton has been so
great that practically the entire pro
duction was absorbed.
The most interesting portion of
Colonel Hester’s report is the cen
sus of the cotton mills of the South.
He puts the spindles in the South
at 10,598,095, including old, idle and
not complete, against 9,760,192 last
year. The number of Southern mills
over last year has been 20, making
the tota} now 814. Os these 768
r—" ■ V- ■ ■■■ -
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
have been in operation during the
year, 17 were idle, and 23 are in
course of erection, .10 old and out
of-date concerns, which ceased busi
inefcs, having been crossed off the
list.
The year’s consumption of cotton
by the mills of the South has reached
2,439,108 bales, a net increase of 64, -
883 bales over the previous year, and
275,603 bales over two years ago. As
in previous years, the Atlantic Coast
States have been the principal seat
of the cotton manufacturing indus
try in the South, North Carolina be
ing at the top of the list, with a con
sumption of 733,608 bales, and South
Carolina and Georgia following in
the order named. All these States
have increased their consumption,
whereas Louisiana and Mississippi, in
which heretofore but little manufac
turing has been done, have actually
decreased their consumption, the
former by 520 bales, and the latter
by 3,334 bales.
In reference to the general manu
facturing industry of the United
States, Mr. Hester says that the past
season as a whole has been one of
unparalleled activity, the only draw
back having been the scarcity of la
bor. The latter was especially evi
dent in the South, complaints coming
from every State south of Mason and
Dixon’s line; that while the con
sumption as a whole was larger than
ever before, it was obstructed through
want of sorely needed help; that, in
fact, it was not a question of fewer
mill hands, but of more mills and
spindles which could not be properly
manned. As it was, in round num
bers, 4,889,000 bales of American
cotton were worked into yarns and
fabrics by American mills, against
4,835,000 last year, a gain of 54,000;
Ithat this increase, while in itself
meager compared with the manner in
which domestic consumption has been
“piling up” during the years of the
near past, comes, it must be remem
bered, immediately upon the heels of
the increase of 535,000 for 1905-06,
swelling the excess of the two sea
sons to 589,000 bales.
While the consumption of American
cotton has increased at home it has
increased even more rapidly abroad.
The world’s consumption of Ameri
can cotton increased 532,000 bales
over the previous year, and of this
increase 54,000 bales must be credited
to American mills, and 478,000 to
mills abroad. There were exported
to foreign countries of the last crop
8,361,610 bales, as compared with 6,~
592,623 bales the year before. These
facts abundantly attest that the pop
ularity of American cotton is steadi
ly increasing the world over.-—New
Orleans Picayune.
THE FARMER IN THE SADDLE.
On another page in this issue is a
report of how the Farmers’ Union
fixed the price of cotton.
It is unusual for the farmers to fix
the price of the great commodity of
the South.
The movement which has been re
cently organized, and which promises
great things for the farmers of the
South, bids fair to become a realiza
tion of the progressive thought on
this line for a number of years. The
farmers have never before been able
to fix the price of cotton, because
they had no organization.
Wall street has heretofore con
trolled the price of cotton. As pre
posterous as this seems, it has been
a fact, and the farmers have in years
past been compelled to take less than
the cost of production for cotton
when the demand for the product
was such as to place the price natu
rally far beyond it.
Somebody reaped the reward of the
farmer’s labor, but the farmer didn’t.
He, the foundation of all prosperity,
has done with half rations and double
labor, while the speculators and ma
nipulators laughed in their sleeves at
his stupidity and sported at expen
sive villas and winter resorts.
A change for the betterment of the
farmers seems near. The patriotic
few who have labored all these years
for this consummation are beginning
to see a tangible result of their
thought and labor. The farmers are
organizing. The meeting of the In
terstate Farmers’ Union at Little
Rock recently was an inspiration to
these leaders. Nearly two million
farmers were represented at that
meeting.
Farmers don’t go to conventions
for fun and frolic. When, they get
on their Sunday best and start out
to a meeting, it means business.
They went to Little Rock for busi
ness. They fixed the price of cotton
for the month of September at fifteen
cents, and for each succeeding month
at an advance of one-quarter of a
cent per menth during the season.
If the members of the association
stick to that agreement, the farmers
will get what they demand. It is
obliged to be so. The demand is live
ly. Warehouse receipts can always
be cashed.
The farmer is a dictator. He is
not lately come into this power. He
has always had it, but he has never
asserted his dictatorship. This has
been due to lack of organization and
co-operation.
That the New York Stock Exchange
should fix the price of cotton is as
irreconcilable to the natural laws of
trade as the idea of a pineapple ex
change in the Klondike. This idea is
borrowed, but it is apt.
The producer is the person to place
the price on the product. He knows
what it costs to produce. He knows
better than any one else what ele
ments of expense enter into the pro
duction. He can be trusted to place
a just price on it, for the farmer is
the honest class of this country. He
is a man of simple mien and habits.
He is not versed in the ways of high
finance. He is not a person of vic
ious inclination or extravagant de
sires. He seeks only a just return
upon his investment, and he is en
titled to all he asks, because he is
honest, and because his demands are
just.
I am happy to observe that the
farmers are beginning to perceive
their power, and to assert their
rights.. I trust they will persevere
in the organization of the Farmers’
Union until every county in Florida
is organized and in full co-operation
with the Farmers’ Unions of other
States.
The success of the entire move-
ment depends upon thorough co-oper
ation. The Wall street manipulator
has had his day. It is time to change
the operation of affairs to the end
of the line where it rightfully be
longs. Let the farmer have what is
rightfully his, and the speculators
can have it out between them. —Tal-
lahassee Sun.
THE SOUTH’S UNPEOPLED
REGIONS.
Hardly any one will consider the
South and West as having any com
mon characteristic. One, we imagine,
is long settled, populous-and refined;
the other raw with the newness of
the borderland, and punctuated with
noisy towns separated by long miles
of silence and solitude. It is some
what surprising, then, to read that
the South, in many regions, is so
thinly settled that the land supports
less than one-tenth of the population
which might find an abundant living
there. There are districts almost as
deserted by man as are the vaster re
gions of the far West; long miles of
rolling farm land, of timbered tracts
and fertile valleys cleared a hundred
years ago, perhaps, and now slipping
into the clutch of forest and under
brush.
One may travel for miles over de
serted Southern roads where in the
days of our grandfathers planters
galloped blooded horses and ladies in
silks and laces, attended by obsequi
ous blacks, rolled along in stately, if
lumbering, equipages. To-day these
roads are traveled only by an occas
ional negro or shiftless “poor white”
going to mill with a bag of corn
thrown over his mule’s flank; and
one sees only rank growth where
once were tilled fields, and hovels
or ruins where formerly stood stately
manor houses. •»
The South needs settlers even as
the West, for during many years the
tide of emigration has swept past,
bringing to it neither men to toil in
the fields nor in the towns. But the
“new South,” which is but the re
awakened South, is bestirring itself
to repopulate its country districts.
The two Virginias, the Carolinas,
Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennes
see, all are alive to the necessity of
having more husbandmen if they
would have more prosperity, and
their agents are searching through
the countries of Europe to find set
tlers for the now deserted tracts of
prairie, hill and valley land. Before
this invading host the silence and the
solitude must in time retreat and the
rich regions of the old South will
quicken into new life. —Chicago Post.
UP TO THE MISSISSIPPI.
The boll weevil has reached cotton
fields, in Catahoula parish, twenty-six
miles from the Mississippi river, and
its migration for the season is but
just begun. The insect pest is offi
cially reported at Leland, in Cata
houla parish, which is about central
north and south in Louisiana, and
about abreast of Natchez in Mis
sissippi. Beyond all doubt, the wee
vils will reach the west bank of *
the river before the season is ended,
and some observers think they will
cross the river this year.
But if they do not, then the great
battle against their advance in the