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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