Show COTTON IN THE SOUTH corON Now that many southern planters have given up the Idea of raising cotton cot-ton exclusively and have taken to diversified di-versified farming the south is becoming self supporting and prosperous For along a-long time the south sent north for its foodstuffs its manufactured products its machinery and its enterprise Conditions Con-ditions have been changing for ten years until diversified farming is no longer the exception and the hum of machinery is no longer a novelty in the south In consequence the price of cotton is better and the outlook for cotton planters more encouraging than when they raised nothing else and depended upon other localities for the necessities of life Cotton mills have been erected erect-ed all over the south which has exercised exer-cised a very large influence in fixing the price of cotton which has ruled higher in the vicinity of these several mills in proportion to the price in the leading markets than in any previous season I The trouble used to be that the growing grow-ing crops were mortgaged in advance I that the money lenders pocketed all the profits and left the agricultural classes with barely enough to live upon from year to year Cotton and cash used to be synonymous terms and whether it was growing in the field or piled in bales at a shipping point it found a ready exchange for coin of the realm Last year the credit of cotton was greatly impairedalmost destroyedby the low price and the meagre crop Bankers grew chary of the security and the present crop has been raised with compartively few incumbrances Planters are in a position to allow the cotton to come on the market grad ually as the demand shall justify and will not have to throw it on in a lump as heretofore For the last thirty days cotton has been selling all over the south at the same price i does in the NeV York market whereas it usually sells there onehalf cent a pound lower The present crop will approximate 10 000000 bales as against 12000000 last year This shortage has something to do with prices but diversified farming and the abandonment of the credits credit-s stem are chiefly responsible for improved im-proved conditions in the south |