t, insuring a low
insurance rate.

The cotton warehouse comprises five units, with a total storage
capacity at one time of 320,000 bales, and an annual handling capacity
of 2,000,000. High density presses compress this cotton to 34 pounds
per cubic foot, saving the exporter 20 per cent on steamship freight
rates. The insurance rate on storage cotton is 24 cents per $100 a
year. Cotton is handled by Dock Board employees licensed by the New
Orleans Cotton Exchange under rules and regulations laid down by the
department of agriculture. Warehouse receipts may be discounted at the
banks. Cotton can be handled cheaper here than at any other warehouse
in the country.

Storage capacity of the Public Grain Elevator is 2,622,000 bushels.
This is about 25 per cent of the grain elevator storage capacity of the
port, but the Public Elevator handles 60 per cent of the
business--proving its efficiency. Its unloading capacity is 60,000
bushels a day from barges or ships, and 200,000 bushels from cars.
Loading capacity into ships is 100,000 bushels an hour--to one or four
vessels, simultaneously. Fireproof and equipped with a modern
dust-collecting system, this facility is considered one of the best in
the country.

Other grain elevators at New Orleans are operated by:

Southern Railway: capacity, 375,000 bushels;

Illinois Central Railroad two elevators, capacity, 2,500,000 bushels;

Trans-Mississippi Terminal Railroad Company: two elevators, capacity,
1,350,000 bushels.

Wharves owned and controlled by the Dock Board measure 28,872 linear
feet in length, with an area of 4,230,894 square feet. Twenty of these
thirty-four wharves are covered with steel sheds.

Wharves operated by the railroads on both sides of the river increase
the port facilities as follows:

Southern Railway: Two concrete and steel covered docks, one a two-story
structure; one is 150 by 1,300 feet, with a floor space of 195,000
square feet; one is 150 by 1,680 feet on the lower floor, and 120 by
1,680 on the upper, with a combined area of 453,000 square feet floor
space.

Illinois Central Railroad: covered wharf, 130-150 by 4,739 feet.

Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad and Steamship Company: wharf
space, 112,000 square feet; covered space, 117,200 square feet.

Trans-Mississippi Terminal Railroad Company: Wharf No. 1, three berths,
281,904 square feet; No. 2, one berth, 94,350 square feet; No. 3, one
berth, 100,725 square feet--most of it covered