COMPETING COTTON AREAS Not only is production fluctuating, but cotton acreage tends to increase in spite of falling prices. This addi tional hazard to the cotton producers results from the competition between different cotton areas. It can be shown that the Western Belt can produce cotton at a profit while eastern farmers are growing the crop at a loss. From 1919 to 1924 in a period of falling markets in commodity crops, the wheat area decreased 22.2 mil lions of acres ; at the same time cotton increased 10.2 millions of acres. It is likely that there exists a surplus of 10 million acres of cotton with no way of reducing it except by abandoning farm land. At a time when the cotton grower in the Gulf and Eastern Belts is likely selling cotton under cost of production, acreage is being increased in newly developed regions of western Texas, western Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico.
"Abandonment of cotton farms," writes W. J. Spill man, "is going on rather rapidly along tl--! eastern Gulf Coast and the South Atlantic Coast. . . . At the same time, the acreage of cotton is being extended northward and particularly westward on the plains of Texas and New Mexico." 32 The opening up of a new area in which the possibilities of cotton culture had not been antici pated has been accompanied by cheaper costs of produc tion for Texas, a rapidly increasing acreage, and a fluctuating yield that tend to play havoc with the market. The competition between the Eastern and Western Belts has thus added more hazards to the industry. "With the cotton area contracting on one side and expanding on two other sides, the stabilization of cotton acreage presents great difficulties." The Director of the South Carolina Experiment Sta tion in 1925 called attention to the losing competition with the western farmer. "When the yield [of cotton] goes as low as 150 pounds per acre, which is the average for the entire state for the last five years, and cotton sells for 18 to 20 cents per pound or less, the crop is produced at a loss. The eastern part of the Cotton Belt is now meeting keen competition from the states farther west where on account of weather conditions, more fertile soil, and low boll weevil damage the cost of production is much less than in this section." " A large part of the impact of this competition has resulted from the opening up to cotton farming of a hitherto undeveloped region in the Great Plains.
From 1919 to 1926 Texas increased her cotton acreage from over ten million to over eighteen million and her production from three million to almost six million bales. A great part of this increase occurred in a region which had been considered beyond the possibility of cotton cul ture, the Staked Plains. In 1918 the Department experts
had written in the Cotton Atlas: "The expansion of the Cotton Belt has approximately reached its climatic lim its, and future increases in acreage must be mostly by a more complete utilization of the land within these limits." " This prophecy was to receive a striking con tradiction. Located near the south end of the Great American Desert, the Texas Staked Plains first furnished winter range for the buffalo and after 1865 became the scene of western cattle ranches." Under the impression that such land would never be available for crops, stock raisers acquired ranches comprising thousands of acres by what practically amounted to violation of Texas land laws. By 1885 it was shown that crops could be grown in this area, and the small farmer began to push his way into the midst of the ranching economy. Be tween 1919 and 1924 a million acres were added to cul The decline in the value of live stock and the rising price of farm land had practically completed the removal of cattle raising from the region by 1925." The soil has been described as "a heterogeneous mix ture of outwash material segregated to some extent into coarser and finer portions by river and ocean action and at one time was the bottom of a shallow ocean. The ma terial was largely consolidated into sandstone, shale, and limestone, was afterwards elevated above sea level and has since been covered to a certain extent by outwash from material and by wind-blown deposits of sand and silt." " "The land above cap rock is generally level and gently rolling and the tillable soils are mostly light and easily worked when moist ; hence, cultivation of large fields with large equipment is easy. These new soils are now fertile; hence, the application of fertilizers is not necessary at present and it is possible that on some of them it never will be." 40 The introduction of agriculture into this region waited upon a substitute for corn, which was unable to stand the dry hot weather. This was found in the cultivation of kafir corn, milo, and sudan. The introduction of cot ton in this area is said to have been a surprise to every one except those concerned in its cultivation. By 1924 an acreage of 1,269,600 in Texas and 22,700 in New Mexico were planted. "When once new land [in the Staked Plains] is plowed and put in cultivated crops, it rarely is used again for grazing as it does not become reset in the native grasses satisfactorily for many years." 41 Thus the land is kept in cotton or a competing crop.