He met the cotton growers, choosing the cottons he thought were best for our products.

With the telegraph and transatlantic cable connecting cotton growers directly to international buyers and manufacturers, the old merchants' world of the mid-nineteenth century was a quaint relic.

Cotton growers who delivered on time were courted by exporters and received large orders the following season.

By the 1890s, as cotton prices plummeted below production costs, 8090% of cotton growers, whether owner or tenant, were in debt to lien merchants.

The bank had limited funds and confined itself almost completely to short-term financing, the bulk of which went to cotton growers.