The growing importance of the warehouseman has been mentioned. His services have developed with the need of mills for greater credit, and their unwillingness to tie up their working capital in cotton held in their own warehouses. Mills which formerly bought all their year's supply during the buying season, so-called, now take their cotton from warehouses as they want it, buying it from their buyers, and making payment according to the individual standing arrangements. The advent of the warehouseman who is either a banker, or closely affiliated with a bank, has undoubtedly done much to make the financing of cotton a more elastic and feasible proposition, distributing the risk over a wider circle and making credit more readily available at any point in the succession. [Illustration: _Weighing gin bales in a ginnery yard_] [Illustration: _Cotton warehouses in the South_] The mill, we have seen, frequently pays cash for its raw stock, or else buys upon short term notes. The average mill does not have a working capital large enough to enable it to tie up the thousands of dollars necessary for such a proceeding, as well as the funds which must constantly be paid out for wages, for operation expenses of all kinds, for upkeep, and all other overhead. Mills, as a matter of fact, are frequent borrowers, either from general banks, or from textile banks or factors, or from their selling agents, who, as we have seen, combine their primary and original function of selling with that of supplying financial assistance. Mills which purchase cotton from their buyers and pay cash, or approximately cash, for it, usually buy such cotton to fill orders which they have already received from their selling agents. They may, in certain instances, obtain an advance from their agents of a proportion of the whole selling price of the order, and out of that advance pay for the purchase of cotton, or they may hold the cotton in warehouses, using it only as needed, and putting up the warehouse receipts as collateral for loans. The raw cotton itself, however, represents only a portion of the mill's operating expenses and it cannot be the entire basis for financial operations of the magnitude often needed. These broader financial wants may be met out of the prospective selling price of the cloth by means of loans from the selling agent; or, they may be met by direct relations with a commercial bank, which may make loans on ordinary collateral, on acceptances, or, as frequently happens in the case of mills of undoubted integrity, on the mere note of the company operating the mill. Selling Agent May Shift Burden to Banks When the burden is assumed by the selling agent, or factor, he in turn may shift it to the bank, either by indorsing the note of the mill, or by indorsing the note of the purchaser of the cloth or by borrowing directly from the bank on his own paper.