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PAGE SIX Ot INTEREST TO WEALTH CREATORS THE COTTON SITUATION. As we are facing some peculiar conditions in regard to the present cotton situation, and having given this matter considerable thought in ihe last two and a half years, I would like to reason some with the produc ers of cotton and all interested. Cotton is our money crop, it has been called our circulating medium, and experience has taught us the more money we have the better it is for the entire county. As proof of this we have only to retrospect the last two nr three years of good crops and fair prices. We believe the pro ducer of cotton should receive the highest price consistent with supply and demand. This is a short crop of cotton throughout the South, as re ported by all reliable sources of in formation, the best of which we think is The Cotton Journal, owned and op erated by the growers themselves, and should be in every southern home. The demand for cotton is greater than ever before. All cot ten goods are 25 to 50 per cent .higher than a year ago. Why is this raise? It is based on 15-cent col ton. Are these goods made of 15-cent cotton? No. But they are made of 9 and 10 cent cot ton. Why not the farmers raise the price of cotton on a parallel with rise on the manufactured cotton? Besides this, the great Souhern Cotton Asso ciation, in its recent session, aftei hearing reports from all parts of the cotton producing slates, decided on and announced a 15-cent minimum price for this year’s crop. The Farmers’ Union in national convention, announced the same price of 15 cents for cottcn and $20.00 per ton for seed. The S. C. A. made a price of $20.00 per ton on cottcn seed also, and the seed is new readily sold at $20.00 per ton. These people who have consulted to gether and made the prices have done so after months of careful investiga tion. This is recommended as a fair price under present conditions. Last year we named 10 cents as a mini mum. the vear before we named 11 cents as a fair price, and the price® we have named in the last hree years have been easily received. Now, why not all join in and stand by the two great organizations that have stood by the farmers and saved and brought prosperity to the country? It has b* en estimated by some of tho best business men and bankers of the South that the S. C. A. and Farmers’ Union have saved to the southern peo ple $600,000,000 within the last three years. Is this not enough to inspire confidence in the farmers to stand by these organizations? I know that there are people who deny these claims, but a comparison cf those who make claims with those who deny them is all we ask. How are we to secure the 15 cents price for cotton? 4 ‘Stop soiling absolute ly.*’ But we have debts to meet. This is true, and you should remember your merchant who has stood by you while making your crop, and arrange to pay him, or pay most of the account. Mon ey can be borrowed on cotton within a few dollars of what it would sell for today. Then why not borrow mon ey and not sell the cotton until it reaches JLS cents? Is 15 cents an un- fair price for cotton? We say not al all. The present crop has cost the producer about 25 cents per pound, and it would sell for that price if all the farmers were compactly organized and would not sell for less. Go into any store, and they will tell you all cotton goods have advanced 33 1-3 to 50 per cent. Then why’ not cotton be raised about a third higher than last year’s price? The goods now so advanced are made of 9 and 10-cent cotton; nest year goods will likely be much higher. So the only protection the producer has is to raise the price of cotton in keeping with cotton goods. And, did you ever think there is nothing else that can take the place of cotton, even at 25 cents per pound? We have not known the real value of cotton until now. Who op pose the 15 cent price of cotton? The bear speculators and those who believe their stories of a large crop. Suppose some one would say we asked only 10 cents last year and 15 cents this year. This is true; but we have had to work just about as hard to produce a fourth of this crop this year as we did to produce a full crop last .year. Now, let’s see what the difference of 11 and 11 1-2 c and 15c means to our cwn liitle t -wn. Say we make here this year 2,000 or 3.000 bales. Three and a half or even three cents difference in present price or mini mum set by the S. C. A. and the Un ion would be $15.00 per bale on 3,00 G bales of cotton, this would amount to $45,000. Now, who can be found in all this broad land that believes this section of the country and this town and our merchants, bankers and other lines of business would be as . well off without this amount as with it? Should any big company come and offer, under certain conditions, to distribute such an amount among the pecple of this town and country, any one who would fail or refuse to work for such a benefit would be considered an enemj of the country in which he lives. Now, by co-operating, we can save from sls to S2O per bale on all cot ton sold in our town. Will we do this? Do not the people who raise these short crops need all it will leg itimatelv and fairly bring. Should not the merchants and bankers aid in the greal effort? Are not all our in terests identical? Would they not be benefited by such a saving, and finally we ask, will they now join in an ef fort to make this saving by assisting in every possible way the farmers to secure the real value of their present crop of cotton. By our efforts in the past you have prospered in your business, expanded, enlarged, etc. Now. bv vour assist ance and co-operation, we can at least stay in business. —Welton Winn. COTTON GAMBLERS IN NEW YORK. Sheltcn Sims, of Mobile, describes in the Atlanta Constitution the scenes he witnessed in the New York cotton exchange. From his pen flows a deal of truth touched up with a constant play cf satire. He says that even an honest cotton exchange in New York would be about as rational a propo sition as would he a pineapple ex change in the Klondyke. New York has never had an honest exchange, WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. and Mr. Sims thinks the one it has has done the south more financial hurt in ihe past twenty years than have the boll weevil, tffb cotton worm, the boll worm, and all the other nat ural enemies of the cotton plant. Mr. S«ms naturally asks how long must the cottm growers toil and sweat to support in luxury the use less and hurtful aggregation of gamb lers in New York? It goes without saying that the prices of cotton should be made amid the cotton fields instead c.f a thousand miles away. But the cotton growers have had no more to do with the regulation of cotton prices than have the inhabi tants of the moon, and they never will have until organization and co operation became the custom, habit, the watchword of all producers them selves. When they are well organized the first steps have been taken —and when they are willing to co-operate for the common good in the time of larketing cotton and in the naming of its pnee, then and not until then, will the gamblers in New York cease to put cotton up or down to suit their own schemes and those of eastern spinners. New York has ceased to handle spot cotfa n in anv consider able Quantities. Deliveries under its rules are few and far between, and they are not a bit angelic. They are. in fact, nnspinnable. But it still handles contracts and by pushing them up and down it makes the price of c'.tton at the farm. This should not be. New York should be driven out of the cotton business altogether, and the way to do it consists in organ ization and co-operation in every one of the 800 odd cotton counties in the country. The Farmers’ Union and the Southern Cotton Growers’ Asso ciation are blazing the correct way to a consummation devoutly to be wished.— A ge-Herald. SHOWING THE FARMER. Out at Shafter Lake, a new town in Andrews county, the secretary of the Commercial Club must be a Mis sourian. Various devices have been used by commercial clubs all over Western Texas to interest farmers in the eastern part of the state and in the north the opportunities which the newer sections of Texas offer. Here tofore it has been generally supposed that a commercial club should confine its effort® to interesting new indus tries in its own city and leave the farmer to the tender mercies of the real estate agent. Out at Abilene a year or two agd, the 25,000 people of that city woke up to the fact that new industries to any town are of no value when there is mt a well-setthd farming com munity to support the industries and supply produce for the workmen the industries attract. The Abilene Club immediately began a branch of its work to interest farmers in Taylor county and the surrounding country, and has succeeded thus far admirably. The Shafter Lata plan is a little bit further advanced than that follow ed by Abilene. The Commercial Club of Shafrer Lake has been getting out yellow post cards, on the backs of which are printed some facts and fig ures calculated to make any soil-tiller sit up and take notice. 41 Do you care to invest your money where it will bring you adequate returns, say, 25 per cent as a minim urn?” is the way the card to farmers’starts out. The card goes on- to illustrate ns follows: 4 ‘Say it costs you sls per acre, or $2,400 for the 160 acres; after allow ing twenty acres for pasture, which is always needed fur a farm of 160 acres, the following figures show what profit can be made by farming 140 acres. Now, we are going to place this at the minimum. The following is what you should make each year for a period of at least ten years: “Sixty acres of cotton, yielding two-thirds of a bale to the acre, or a total of forty bales, at SSO per bale, $2,000. “Ten acres of milo maize, at forty bushels co the acre, or a total of 400 bushels at 30 cents per bushel, $l2O. “Thirty acres cf Indian corn, with a yield of forty bushels to the acre, at 40 cents per bushel, S4BO. “Grand total, $3,400.’’ Showing the farmer that he can make sl.uoo clear the first year is the sort of argument that ought to bring settlers to Andrews county, and the Shafter Lake Club is doing a good work in presenting such a plain state ment before a large number of farm ers of every state. Naturally, the club does not guarantee the figures, and no reasonable settler would ex port such a guarantee. Returns from a fawn which would yield one-fourth the cost the first year ought to be con sidered large As a matter of fact, farms in the Shafter Lake country have done more in recent years than the specimen case the commercial club ci* os for proof The point of the whole proposition is that commercial chibs ought not to neglect the farmer in the hunt for new industries. A man who will set tle and develop 160 acres of land is worth as much to any community as a factory employing half a dozen peo ple, and the farmer asks no bonus when he moves.—Fort Worth Tele gram. AGE OF FARMER CO-OPERATION The Friday Harbor Journal pub lishes a news story which illustrates the beneficial results of farmer co operation. It states that the Lopez Island Telephone Company has sixty eight subscribers, located in different parts of the island. The company is simply a home organization of farm ers. The system cost each man sls, and gave the individual ownership of the instruments. An annual mainte nance fee of $6 pays all operating expenses, and leaves a good balance in the treasury. Even the most dis tant and out-of-the-way points on the island are connected by the telephone, and a central station is supplied with a salaried operator, and there are no complaints of bad service. We are living in an ago of farmer co-operation. Tillers of the soil have long since learned the lesson of how to look after their own interests. They have linked the city and country with telephone and rural mails. They are building more and better roads and establishing an era of financial inde pendence. They are adopting business methods and making of the farm a cash dividend payer in all its branch es. The farm of today is merely a big department store, in which are of-