Uncorrected Cotton

From its county agents who have talked with smalltown bankers, who have bounced along rural roads to look at farms and talk with farmers, the U. S. Crop Reporting Board of the Department of Agriculture gets the figures which enable it to make its monthly forecasts. Last week the Board met in Washington and pondered pages of cotton statis tics. The windows were carefully shaded as they have been ever since someone in the room crooked an instructive finger at a watching crony. When the estimate was finished it was that this year's cotton crop will be 11,310,000 bales. The figure was only negligibly different from August's forecast--up 4,000 bales. Although the crop had deteriorated during the month, farmers, encouraged by rising prices, had not abandoned the usual amount of acreage. Cotton traders, apparently thinking the Government would again give the market a pat by lowering its figures, were disconcerted by this evidence of the August forecast's accuracy. Frightened, they began selling, sent cotton lurching downward $5 a bale. Some of the loss was soon regained; cotton steadied at around 8-c- a Ib. Mills continued active. Cotton's gain from the June lows is still over 3-c- a Ib., enough to save many a farmer from ruin. Cottonmen last week were of the opinion that small as the 1932 crop may be the big 13,000,000 bale carryover from last year will be a heavy hand upon any further ballooning, that cotton's position is still precarious pending a greater call for new shirts and new sheets, new airplane wings and new tires.

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