Marketing of cotton;

              62 HASKINS & SELLS June
The Marketing of Cotton
By L. C. MATTHEWS
Manager, Atlanta Office
I A M a bale of cotton, the first of ten
bales produced on a farm among the
Red Hills of Jasper County, Georgia.
The crop, of which I am a part, was
cultivated by a negro tenant, the motive
power being a Georgia mule. The details
of the cost of my production were the
very least of the troubles of either the
landlord or the tenant, and were lost in
the chaotic condition of agricultural
accounting prevailing in the cotton belt.
I was harvested, or "picked," from the
stalk early in September, before the frost
had seared the leaves, before the autumn
showers had beaten the locks to the ground,
even while the foliage was yet green and
the plant was blooming at the top, conse­quently
I was free from all trash or dirt
and was destined to grade well.
When the picking had accumulated
approximately 1,500 pounds I was hauled
in the crate of a one-horse wagon to the
nearest ginnery, an adjunct of the
National Cotton Oil M i l l , at the town of
H , where I was ginned and packed,
partly covered with six yards of jute bag­ging
and bound with six steel bands or
"ties."
The ginnery made a small profit on the
sale of the bagging and the ties which
bound me, and the charge for my ginning
constituted a credit to Revenue from Gin­ning
and was paid for with a part of the
proceeds from the sale, to the ginnery, of
my seed, which now also became a mer­chantable
commodity—"but this is another
story."
From the ginnery I was hauled to a
nearby cotton warehouse where I was
weighed, tipping the scales at 510 pounds.
A large gash was cut across the entire
width of my side and about a half pound
of lint extracted therefrom, as a sample,
and exhibited on a table. After the usual
bidding I was sold for forty cents per
pound and incidentally my grade was
designated as "middling fair" or number 2.
The storage receipt covering my deposit
in the warehouse was O. K . ' d by my pur­chaser,
and the price marked thereon. The
receipt was taken by my vendor to the local
bank, where it was presented and paid,
thus becoming the basis of a debit to the
account of my purchaser and resulting in
a secured overdraft on his account. For
this overdraft the bank charged him the
usual rate of interest. The proprietor of
the warehouse was required to keep on
deposit with the bank insurance policies
fully covering loss by fire for all cotton
so handled, payable, in case of loss, to the
bank as its interest might appear.
I was kept in the warehouse several
weeks, accruing in the meantime storage
charges at the rate of 50 cents per month,
which formed a credit to the storage
revenue of the warehouse. These charges
were paid on the day of my delivery, with
a score of other bales of various grades
and marks, which were loaded in the same
car and shipped to my owner at the nearest
compress point at the City of M ,
about forty miles distant. The shipment
was made on local billing by the Railroad
Company, the Freight Revenue being
assessed at 10 cents per 100 pounds, to the
compress point, with the. privilege of
"Concentration and Reshipment" within
60 days.
I was allowed to remain in the compress
for 15 days, free of charge, after which
storage was charged against my owner at
the rate of 20 cents per bale, per month,
from the day of my receipt.
After remaining for a period of several
weeks I was ordered "turned down"