rney from mill to
consumer. The first is usually called the Raw Cotton Market, and the
second the Cloth Market.

The planter begins his work early in the spring. His crop is dependent
upon his ability to secure and pay for the labor to work it, for the
tools and machinery which are used, and his own expenses. Small planters
are rarely sufficiently in funds to enable them to go through the growing
season without financial assistance. They must borrow money, and they
usually borrow it with the growing crop as a basis.

The Local Grower
And the Charge Account

They may borrow from the country merchant in the town near which their
plantations are located. Credit here is usually furnished through the
"charge account" system, whereby the merchant supplies the planter's
wants for the growing season, even to the extent of giving credit to his
farm hands. Tenant farmers live almost entirely on credit furnished by
the store-keepers of the vicinity. When the picking season begins, in
July, August, or September, according to the region concerned, the
merchant, in lieu of money, may take the cotton as it comes from the
gins, crediting the grower thereof at the market price. The cotton thus
accumulated is sold to local buyers, or, occasionally, to shippers or
exporters. In the case of the larger plantations, or groups of
plantations operated by syndicates or corporations, the cotton is
frequently shipped direct to the mill or, more often, to a warehouse. The
larger producers, instead of getting their credit from the local stores,
as their tenant farmers do, are financed either by their banks, or by
their buyers, who in turn are financed by their bankers.

The Street Buyers
Of Texas Towns

In some districts, particularly in Texas, there is the small or local
buyer, usually called a "street buyer," who operates in the smaller
towns, buying his cotton at the gins in lots of from one to ten bales,
either from the small planters, or from the country merchants. This
buying gives a certain concentration to the crop, and enables the larger
buyers to deal in lots of comparatively uniform quality from certain
regions, the general type of whose product is known.

[Illustration: _Street buyer in a Southern town_]

Cotton bought from the planters or from the country merchants is almost
invariably paid for in cash.

Cotton is frequently sold at the compress point, rather than at the gin,
this course being pursued in the case of larg