Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

J. S. Williams, chairman, and Clarence Ousley,
Subcommittee to Study the Production
and Marketing of Egyptian Cotton

ΤΟ

The American Commission to Investigate and
Study Agricultural Credit and Cooperation

PRESENTED BY MR. FLETCHER

JUNE 26, 1913.-Ordered to be printed

WASHINGTON

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

PRODUCTION AND MARKETING OF EGYPTIAN COTTON.

Dr. KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD,

Acting Chairman American Commission.

SIR: Your subcommittee appointed to study cotton marketing in Egypt beg to submit the following report:

The result of our investigation is threefold, and in each respect the situation is well worth careful consideration. In the first place, Egypt's cost of production in ratio to the value of her commodity is much lower than America's. In the second place, Egypt's output varies but little from year to year and is capable of but slight expansion and is therefore a more or less fixed factor of great economic potentiality. In the third place, an influential and predominating group of large planters are in cordial sympathy with our purpose to establish a more intelligent system of marketing.

Egyptian cotton cultivation offers no instruction whatever for America in skill, science, or other element of economy or efficiency, though irrigation there, as elsewhere, demonstrates the more stable and dependable output of the soil with a regular water supply as compared with production dependent upon uncertain and variable rainfall. The rich delta lands of the Nile, it is true, yield more than the average of American land, acre for acre, and the Egyptian cotton, of course, is superior in quality to the short staple which constitutes the greater part of our crop, though our long staple or sea-island cotton is superior to the Egyptian. At the same time our progressive farmers who fertilize and cultivate intelligently produce about as much short staple per acre as the Egyptians produce, though our long staple is not so prolific as the Egyptian.

Nor can it be said that the Egyptian producers market their crop to better advantage or even to equal advantage, inasmuch as they sell their cotton in the seed and have no accurate idea of the commercial value of the seed or other by-products. On the other hand, they suffer no loss from "country damage," because there is little or no rain during the picking and ginning season, and the cotton is well out of the hands of the producers before the period of light winter rains, which usually fall in January and February. Nor is there excessive waste or toll or graft in sampling.

But while Egypt offers no instruction in cultivation, she constitutes no menace of overproduction, since it may be fairly estimated that not more than 25 per cent of available acreage remains to be developed for cultivation by the reclamation of sea marshes, and this work can hardly be accomplished in less than 20 years. Allowing for such possible development and for possible_improvement in methods of cultivation, it is safe to assume that Egyptian production will not increase within any calculable time faster than the normal demand for this particular quality of cotton. The British advisory government

of Egypt is making extensive experiments in cotton growing in the Sudan, but even if that region should equal Egypt's output in another generation, the total result in our judgment would hardly outrun increasing consumption.

The methods of baling, sampling, and marketing the lint-all effected after it leaves the farmer's hands-may be studied with profit both by way of teaching us to save waste and by way of exhibiting the excessive charges of middlemen who are the plague of agricultural Egypt as of agricultural America.

COST OF PRODUCTION.

Egypt's comparatively low cost of production notwithstanding her antiquated methods of cultivation, her heavy expense of conversion from seed cotton to spinnable lint, is a matter of serious concern to America, for Egypt is able under present conditions to produce her superior quality of cotton, worth now 18 to 20 cents a pound, at about 12 cents a pound, compared with American cost of 10 to 12 cents a pound, worth now 11 to 12 cents. We attach a detailed calculation, made to the American consul at Alexandria on May 16, by one of the foremost producers of the country and confirmed by us in all substantial elements.

Estimated cost of producing 4 cantars or 400 pounds of cotton in Egypt.

[blocks in formation]

It must be understood that the labor herein reckoned is paid at the rate of 15 to 20 cents a day for adults and 5 to 10 cents for children, and the calculation applies to all who are engaged in the work of actually tilling the soil, whether as owners, tenants, or hired workers. Paying the same labor at the cheapest rates paid to unskilled American farm laborers would more than double the expenditure and the cost of producing Egyptian cotton would far exceed the current market price of the commodity. On the other hand, if modern methods of production were used, the present cost could be reduced 25 to 50 per cent. As the case stands, the average tenant or small owner with three or four children cultivates about 8 acres of land of which he plants one-third to one-half in cotton, under more or less intelligent rotation, and the remainder in feed and forage crops. The average yield for Egypt during the last few years may be reckoned at 450 pounds to the acre, so we may say in round figures that the cotton output of the average peasant family-all of whom work

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »