SCIENCE AND COTTON 297 



hopeful. Not because it will not be advantageous in the long 

 run, nor because it will not ultimately be necessary that such 

 knowledge shall be at the disposal of the trade, but because it 

 will not pay at present. 



A reservation might be made in the case of such genetic 

 investigations as bear upon natural selection, and interweave 

 with studies on the improvement of the environment. To effect 

 analyses of the phenomena which are grouped together under 

 such designations as " change of seed," " varietal deterioration," 

 and so forth, will be of economic value. 



Direct results may be expected from study and improvement 

 of the environment, to which a longer discussion may be given. 



Conditions of the Environment 



When a dense population of plants is occupying a piece of 

 land, they protect one another from extremes of climatic changes, 

 and to some extent make their own climate. 



It is partly owing to this that the cultivation of good cotton 

 is possible in Egypt. The fellah plants his cotton at a density 

 of population which appears absurd, but which is nevertheless 

 exactly correct ; a century of sub-conscious experiment has led 

 him to customs which take up a position of delicate equilibrium 

 between the ideal result and the practical limitations. Many 

 of his customs which have been stigmatised as untidy, bad 

 farming, and so forth, have been shown of late years to fulfil 

 his crucial test ; they pay him. 



This brings us to the first essential to any work on the 

 improvement of the environment ; it must pay. In other 

 words, generalisations on which such improvements are founded 

 must be sufficiently sweeping to be simple of application. 

 Little pieces of legislation are irritating and expensive to 

 administrate. 



Foremost among such improvements stands the provision 

 of irrigation water, and this may be regarded as an ultimate 

 essential. Some of the best cottons of to-day are grown on a 

 rain supply of water, but fine uniform cotton in the quantities 

 of which the world is beginning to find the need, can only be 

 grown with a controlled supply of soil-water. It should be 

 noted that a controlled supply of soil-water is not the same as 



