CHANGING OF THE GUARD

THE SHIFT FROM HAND PICKING, TO MACHINE HARVEST began in the late 1940s. In 1945, it cost about $40 to hand pick a bale of cotton. The mechanical picker did it for $750. The net savings to the farmer, however, was far less than was indicated. The picker collected bits of leaves and trash along with the cotton, thereby lowering its grade and selling price.

Will Garrard's influence and leadership cushioned the effects of generally lowering grades of cotton from the entire area which Staplcotn served. The mills had to be convinced added trash content and additional ginning requirements could be successfully dealt with.

During 1948, J. D. Rust's self-propelled pilot model mechanical cotton harvester, powered by a Ford-Ferguson tractor, picked 200 bales in Mississippi. As a result, some of the leading planters of Jefferson County, AR, moved it there for demonstrations that led to production contracts with Ben Pearson, Inc. the following year.

A successful cotton harvester, developed on Hobson Brothers Plantation near Clarksdale, was also being marketed by International Harvester. By 1953 Allis-Chalmers was selling a small single unit tractor mounted machine for under $2,500 f.ob. factory. At long last, the cotton South had the instrument it feared and wished for so desperately.

In 1948, a conservative estimate of probable labor displacement from mechanization ran as high as 55 to 65 percent. A few plantations were already operating on a ratio of about one family for every 100 acres of cropland by utilizing seasonal labor for chopping and picking. In 1940 there had been one family for every 27 acres of Delta cropland.

Where a hundred families had provided the labor needed to weed and harvest a typical pre-war Delta cotton crop, a half dozen tractor drivers and mechanics now performed the same task. Cotton production had, at last, moved from a labor intensive, traditional way of doing business to big business ... big enough to support a mechanical picker, and more and more subject to federal agriculture programs.

"In those days, Mr. Garrard just ran it all," veteran Board member Leroy P. Percy of Greenville recalled, "It was just a one man operation. He would have a Board meeting, and the Board would just listen to him tell about what was going on. There were very few action items because he did the action. He was the action," Percy said.

MOVING CLASSING IN-HOUSE

In the early part of the 1948 season, the government classing office in Greenwood was hopelessly overloaded and was weeks behind in its classing. During this time, Staplcotn approached the area government classing office in Memphis with a solution to the problem. 'Allow Staplcotn to issue an official class, and the co-op would request all of its growers to stop sending their cotton to the local government office for classification," the co-op suggested.

This would relieve the government local offices of approximately 40 percent of their classing and put them in a position from which they could render better service to the other growers in a more reasonable length of time. Staplcotn began issuing an official class in October 1948. The agreement was later enlarged to cover members in Arkansas and Louisiana, using as many as 28 cotton classers.

TVA,GENERATED FERTILIZER

Shortly after the war, Hodges traveled monthly to Sheffield, AL, as president of Associated Cooperatives, a fertilizer manufacturer there. With plant food materials generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the north Alabama concern was Staplcotn's main supplier of fertilizer until Mississippi Chemical Corporation began operation in 1951 in Yazoo City, MS. Staplcotn was a major shareholder in Mississippi Chemical.

Staplcotn was so cramped for space and facilities for selling its cotton, it became necessary to enlarge. The Association erected a new building on Howard Street in 1955 to house the Sales Room, with two stories for storage. Will Garrard suggested that it be named for Oscar Bledsoe, who had been active at Staplcotn Board meetings until months before his death February 5, 1954. However, the Board, recognizing the joint effort of its two pioneers, named the Administration Building for Bledsoe and the new Howard Street Sales Building for Garrard.

Longtime directors Alf Stone, Oscar Johnston, E C. Wagner and Bernard Graft were named directors emeritus for life at the November 10, 1954 Board meeting. Elected to replace these men were E. W Hooker, S. C. Chapin, J. R. (Bob) Flautt and Dr. C. R. Sayre. At that time, Dr. Sayre was president of Delta and Pine Land Company, Staplcotn's largest member.

W.M. (Bill) Roberson was named executive vice president July 13, 1955, after serving as a director since 1950. At the same time, he was chairman of the Farm Credit Board and president of the Minter City Oil Mill.

Alfred Holt Stone died May 11, 1955, and Oscar G. Johnston, died the following October 3. Stone, longtime vice president and editor of the Staple Cotton Review, had been an enthusiastic and loquacious spokesman for the organization during its early days.

Johnston had been one of the organizing directors attending the early meetings and was one of the five member executive committee named to perfect the organization and solicit members. He became president of Delta and Pine Land Company in 1927, months before the levee gave way, flooding D&PL and much of the Delta in Mississippi's greatest flood of this century.

On January 8, 1934, he was appointed Director of Finance in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and went to Washington to direct the program. At his suggestion, Staplcotn became a member of the New York Cotton Exchange in June 1936. He organized the National Cotton Council in 1938.

During the Association's first 36 years, it handled a total of 10,257,69S bales of cotton valued at $1.5 billion. The largest receipts for any one year were 588,228 bales during the 1953-54 season. The smallest receipts in a year were the 1923-24 season, when Staplcotn received only 107,000 bales.

In August of 1957, Staplcotn paid members whose cotton was handled during the 1941-42 season the sum of $2.66 per bale. This was $1.41 more than was deducted at the time the cotton was handled. Staplcotn had paid growers who participated during the 1941-42 season $1.41 per bale for the privilege of handling their cotton.

"We have had the Merchandising Account for 27 years and can sincerely say we have never bought a single bale without paying full market value for it," said Garrard. "It has enabled us to make a profit each year, and to make a nice refund to our growers. This year, we expect to refund 89 cents per bale from our Reserve Fund for the 1942-43 season, which means our growers will actually pay only 36 cents per bale for services rendered them,' he said.

But in 1957, buyers representing Cannon Mills and J.P. Stevens, two of the largest Mills in the country, came to Greenwood in mid-March, expecting to buy a large amount of cotton. One was there two days and was called back in without ever having bought a single bale.

"In all of those fifty years, I have never seen business anything like it has been this past year," Will Garrard said in April 1958. "There have been days and days that we have never even turned the lights on in our sales rooms. We have written some fifty to one hundred letters trying to get business. Most of them have never even been answered," he said. "On a recent visit to some of the mills up East, one man told me that, just as rapidly as possible, they are adulterating cotton with rayon and other synthetics."

MORE CHANGES

Bill Roberson died in 1958, and Bob Flautt was unanimously elected vice president of the Association. At the same meeting, Will Garrard reported, "Herbert Chassaniol has done a wonderful job in the Factor Room. He is entitled to all the credit in the world. He and his boys have worked night and day to sell cotton. We have however, lost two good men from the Factor Room - Robert Farrish and Buddy Sullivan, both offered positions with more salary in other cotton firms, which have large mill connections.

"Last year Mr. Chassaniol had charge of the Pool and Factor cotton. The Pool cotton was turned over to Robert Farrish, who did a fine job of selling it. This year we are turning the Pool cotton over to Mr. Wells. We don't know of any man in the trade more qualified. Mr. Chassaniol will have charge of Factor cotton. We have had the Pool for two years now, and each year about 35 percent of our receipts were in the Pool. This year we hope to have one-half Pool and one-half Factor. Let's all go back to the Pool as Oscar started it. We plan to make two distributions of Pool cotton during the year," Garrard said.

Branch offices were established in smaller communities, including Tunica, Rosedale, Ruleville, Cleveland, Indianola, Hollandale, Canton, and Rolling Fork, in Mississippi; Tallulah, Louisiana, West Memphis, Arkansas; and several other locations through affiliations with the Mississippi Farm Bureau and Mississippi Federated Cooperatives.