"Jennifer Fritz, chief executive of Bambeeno Cashmere Inc., a children's apparel producer in Atlanta, decided to scrap all the cotton-cashmere blend items from its spring production line due to the sudden rise in cotton prices. Since it is hard to raise prices in this economic environment, Ms. Fritz said she would have to swallow the rising costs of cotton and lose money on her collection. "It's just not worth doing so," she said. "

What a bunch of hogwash! How much cotton in a piece of children's apparel, maybe one pound, tops? So cotton goes from 50 cents a pound to a dollar a pound - that adds an additional 50 cents to the price of a garment. If you believe that raising the price of an item by 50 cents will lose this woman business, you're smoking the good stuff. She just figures that if cotton prices double, she should double her price, too. Don't blame the farmer, folks, it's all the middlemen jacking up the prices.

That being said, it sure would be nice to see more cotton in the fields. But with bean prices at $11.00 a bushel, it's going to be hard for cotton to steal too many more acres.

And Jim, I don't mean to be critical, but cotton pickers are not combines. They're cotton pickers. There's a difference. There's similarities, too - like either one of them probably costs more than most of our houses. And by the way, my tenants farm my land on shares. They make more than I do, at least this year they do. Being a sharecropper these days isn't what it used to be.