37 



How loiig it will take to secure a completely resistant cotton by 

 selection can only be conjectured, since it is not known as yet how 

 constant a character proliferation is in the plants which possess it. 

 To lose no unnecessary time is, of course, of the greatest practical 

 importance, not only for the industry at large but especially for the 

 sake of the growers of the long staple cotton in South Carolina and 

 Georgia. The longer season required by the Sea Island cotton will 

 render entirely ineffective the cultural expedients by which a part 

 of the crop of the upland varieties can be saved from the weevil ; 

 if the insect be permitted to reach the Atlantic coast Sea Island 

 cotton will soon become an agricultural tradition. 



This change of view regarding the nature of ' gelatinization 

 greatly alters the prospect of finding in tropical America a variety 

 of cotton resistant to the weevil, a hope which seemed to be lessen- 

 ed by the discovery of the kelep or Guatemalan cotton-protecting 

 ant. It is by no means impossible that varieties already exist in 

 which proliferation has become a fixed character, and if not it will 

 still be highly desirable to secure those in which the tendency is 

 most strongly pronounced. In the ant-protected variety of eastern 

 Guatemala, proliferation takes place very frequently, at least in the 

 bolls, and the plant has other desirable features of quick, deter- 

 minate growth and early bearing which may make it of value in 

 Texas. It has the good qualities of King and other related varie- 

 ties in accentuated form, though with a longer staple. 



The dwarf Guatemalan cotton represents, as it were, the highest 

 known development of the upland type. Even the annual charac- 

 ter which has been looked upon as a result of cultivation in tem- 

 perate climates is a further instance of protective adaptation long 

 ago secured in the tropics by the unconscious selection of the In- 

 dians. It was from the Central American region, evidently, that 

 the other upland types came, but they represent an earlier stage of 

 development, or have deteriorated because selection for resistant 

 qualities has been relaxed in regions where the weevil was absent, 

 as in our southern states. Other things being equal, the Indians 

 would undoubtedly prefer the perennial * tree' cottons, which con- 

 tinue to be cultivated in Mexico and Peru in localities so arid as to 

 exclude the weevils, though it is not certain that they exist in Peru. 

 Possibly there has never been a connected series of agricultural 

 communities along which the weevil could follow into South 

 America ; the pest might never have reached the United States if 

 cotton culture had not been extended into southern Texas. 



But even if the varieties already known in Texas were to be util- 

 ized as the basis of selection, it is by no means beyond the limits 

 of probability that a resistant, regularly proliferating variety could 

 be secured within a decade, or even within five years, since cotton 

 has been found to respond rather promptly to selective influence. 

 The urgency of the matter would certainly justify an extensive 

 campaign of selection, the problem being to find among the mil- 

 lions of pUnts which will be grown next season, some which po§- 



