Cotton Outlook

The fallacy that the U. S. as a grain producer could disregard conditions in the rest of the world, has been very sharply disproved by the boom in wheat-growing in Canada and the Argentine, and the stagnation in our own wheat belt. Production costs are so much lower in the two above-named countries that our wheat surplus can be exported only after their surpluses have been sold. Since their production is steadily growing, our own must as steadily decline.

Now the cotton trade is wondering if a somewhat similar fate may not be in store for our cotton planters. Owing to three successive short crops, the world price for cotton is extraordinarily high, and there is every encouragement for foreigners to undertake cotton growing. The scarcity of American cotton has been due to the boll weevil and the shortage of labor in the cotton belt.

At any rate, foreign countries are experimenting with cotton growing. The British mill interests are encouraging it in Egypt and India. Argentina recently brought in an experimental crop of 120,000 bales--a trivial amount now compared with the huge American crop. Nevertheless the Argentines, flushed with their successful competition with our wheat growers, are becoming enthusiastic over the possibilities in Argentine cotton. Thus far the boll weevil has not appeared there, but the customary labor shortage is considered to preclude any very great cotton production in the Argentine, at least in the near future.