Cotton Corp.

Because future market prices of this year's cotton crop have dwindled to less than 14 1/2 -c- per lb., the Federal Farm Board moved last week to stabilize cotton in much the same way as it tried and failed to stabilize wheat last winter (TIME, April 28). In Delaware was chartered a Cotton Stabilization Corp., in theory a private agency of the planters in the American Cotton Co-operative Association, in practice an open-market buying & selling organization of the Farm Board's which in set-up and scope of operation will duplicate the Grain Stabilization Corp. through which the U. S. executes its Chicago wheat pit activities.

Cotton Corp. will link the co-operatives directly with the public market, will deal in futures when prices fall, will take over the holdings of the co-operatives to which the Farm Board has already advanced more than 50 million dollars from its revolving fund. Before the new crop comes in (after midsummer) the Board will assign to Cotton Corp. a market manager, a directorate, funds.

No More Price-Pegging. Chairman Alexander Legge of the Farm Board announced last week that U. S. cotton and wheat loans for 1930 would not be made at the pegged levels of 1929, but would be based on fluctuations of day-to-day market prices. He expected loans to range as high as 80% of current crop values, as contrasted with the 66% which most private concerns would advance on the same commodities.

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