VARIETY TEw^TS OF COTTON IN 1!)04. 



HY J. F. DUGGAR. 



Tho !!ieason of l!tiU preseuted some ti'yiii«i- rouditions for 

 the cotton plant. The rainfall for March was below nor- 

 mal. April was exceedingly dry and the drought was not 

 broken nntil late in May. The total rainfall for March was- 

 2.80 inches; for Ajtril 1.02 inches; and for the first four 

 weeks in May. less than J5 of an inch. These conditions 

 resulted in stands by no means as uniform as is desirable in 

 experimental work.* 



The wet weather of July and the heavy rains of th^ 

 .early part of Augnst resulted in a vigorous growth of the 

 cotton plant and a promise of a large crop. From the latter 

 part of August until the date of the tirst light frost there" 

 was practically no rain. At Auburn tin* rainfall for Sep- 

 tember was only .20 of an inch; lor October .02. ilnd for- 

 November 2.2S inches. 



The extreme of wet weather in Angust. followed by very 

 dry weather in September, resulted in ilic sliedding of an 

 unusually large proportion of forms. The shedding of forms 

 by dilferent varieties, and under difterent conditions, has 

 been the subject of a co-operative investigation both at Au- 

 burn and in Montgomery county begun jointly in 190-t 

 by this station and the Division of ^'egetable Pathol- 

 ogical and Physiological Investigations of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. Of co,urse a repetition of that 



*Tae writer desires to express here his grateful appreciation of 

 the valuable assistance in these experiments afforded .hj^ Dr. J. T. 

 Anderson, who furnished the rainfall record; Mr. C. M. Floyd, who 

 had charge of the field work at Auburn; Mr. C. H. Billingsley, Ot" 

 the United States Department of Agriculture, who furnished the 

 data for indicating the relative earliness of varieties, and to Mr. C_ 

 R. Hudson, who is responsible for most of the calculations.. 



