cal banks, must
be financed in order that they may execute their orders, or, as is
frequently the case, accept cotton sent to them on consignment. Cotton
sent on consignment must be stored until a market is found for it, and in
order that proper storage facilities may be supplied, the provision of
suitable warehouse facilities is an important matter.

Warehousing as
Industry's Great Need

Until recently, warehousing in its relations to the textile trade, had
not been developed to the extent which might have been expected in those
methods which would make it of the greatest use and advantage to textile
interests. By means of the facilities which could properly be afforded by
warehouses, manufacturers, or merchants should be able, at times of
favorable markets, to lay in large stocks of materials, and to finance
them safely and easily.

Today, this need is being met in constantly increasing measure by the
Independent Warehouses, Inc., affiliated with the Textile Banking Co.,
and having, like the latter, the support of the Guaranty Trust Company of
New York, and the Liberty National Bank of New York.

Modern warehouses of approved type, with all requisite facilities, will
be established by this company at various ports of entry throughout the
country, as well as at the important concentration points in the cotton
belt, and also in the great textile manufacturing centers.

[Illustration: _Weighing cotton on the compress platform_]

Thus it is seen that the cotton merchant has an important economic
function to perform. His is the duty of gathering up the great aggregate
of cotton, from all parts of the cotton belt, and distributing it in
exactly the quantity and grade needed to the cotton manufacturers of the
world. In the performance of this function, and in order that the supply
of cotton may be fed out exactly as it is needed by the manufacturers,
the cotton merchants have found it convenient, and even necessary to
establish great common markets where they may meet and enter into the
transactions with each other and the whole world which are necessary to
bring the cotton into the channels of commerce and keep it moving to its
multitudinous destinations. These markets are in addition to the numerous
local markets where the preliminary concentration takes place, and to
some extent they are subsidiary to the latter, where the cotton of the
actual quantity and quality they are seeking is to be had in the first
instan