If the planter wanted money, he drew upon the factor, and that individual honored the draft.  At the end of the season, it often occurred that the planter was largely in debt to the factor.  But the cotton crop, when gathered, being consigned to the factor, canceled this indebtedness, and generally left a balance in the planter’s favor.

The factor charged a good commission for selling the cotton, and sometimes required interest upon the money he advanced.  In the happy days before the war, the factor’s business was highly lucrative.  The advances to the planters, before the maturity of the cotton crop, often required a heavy capital, but the risk was not great.  Nearly every planter was considerably indebted to his factor before his cotton went forward.  In many cases the proceeds of the entire crop would but little more than cover the advances which had been made.

In New Orleans nearly all cotton is sold “by sample.”  Certain men are licensed to “sample” cotton, for which they charge a specified sum per bale.  A hole is cut in the covering of each bale, and from this hole a handful of cotton is pulled.  Every bale is thus “sampled,” without regard to the size of the lot.  The samples are taken to the sales-room of the commission house, where they are open to the inspection of buyers.  The quality of the cotton is carefully noted, the length of the fiber or staple, the whiteness of the sample, and its freedom from dust or fragments of cotton-stalks.  Not one bale in twenty is ever seen by the buyers until after its purchase.  Frequently the buyers transfer their cotton to other parties without once looking upon it Sometimes cotton is sold at auction instead of being offered at private sale, but the process of “sampling” is carried out in either case.

In ’63 and ’64, New Orleans could boast of more cotton factors than cotton.  The principal business was in the hands of merchants from the North, who had established themselves in the city soon after its occupation by the National forces.  Nearly all cotton sent to market was from plantations leased by Northern men, or from purchases made of planters by Northern speculators.  The patronage naturally fell into the hands of the new possessors of the soil, and left the old merchants to pine in solitude.  The old cotton factors, most of them Southern men, who could boast of ten or twenty years’ experience, saw their business pass into the hands of men whose arrival in New Orleans was subsequent to that of General Butler.  Nearly all the old factors were Secessionists, who religiously believed no government could exist unless founded on raw cotton and slavery.  They continually asserted that none but themselves could sell cotton to advantage, and wondered why those who had that article to dispose of should employ men unaccustomed to its sale.  They were doomed to find themselves false prophets.  The new and enterprising merchants monopolized the cotton traffic, and left the slavery-worshiping factors of the olden time to mourn the loss of their occupation.