22 HINDI COTTON IN EGYPT. 



being made with seed brought from Fayum. The percentage of 

 Hindi is much larger than appeared at Fayum, though the phmter 

 chiimed that he had taken out numerous Hindi plants when the 

 field was thinned. In addition to the plants counted as Hindi, much 

 diversity' Avas apparent, almost as much as in a field of Ashmuni 

 cotton grown in 1909 at Somerton, Ariz. Such cases suggest the pos- 

 sibility that transfer to new conditions may have the effect of in- 

 ducing additional variations in these diverse stocks, but the pro- 

 portion of Hindi in either parent stock could not be ascertained. 

 Whatever the cause of the phenomenon, it is a significant fact that 

 the proportion of Hindi plants and obvious hybrids may run as high 

 as 20 per cent. 



The census of Jannovitch cotton at Tanta was somewhat more 

 rigorous than that at Beni-Suef and included some plants with dis- 

 tinctly red leaf bases; plants with distinctly red leaves and other 

 obviously aberrant tendencies that might have been omitted in the 

 Ashmuni fields, where the red callus is so common a feature. But 

 many other definitely aberrant plants with light-green leaves were 

 not included when they lacked the red callus. These light-colored 

 plants have the more ample and luxuriant foliage of the Hindi 

 hybrids and may represent a second-generation splitting of the Hindi 

 characters. Such a splitting might be expected with a color charac- 

 ter like the basal spot that also shows seasonal reversibility. 



The smallest proportions of true Hindi plants were found in fields 

 in the vicinity of the barrage (a few miles below Cairo) and at 

 Calioub, in the same district. None of the fields that were inspected 

 in these places showed any large percentages. About two-thirds of 

 the plants counted as Hindi were plants of the type considered as 

 first-generation hybrids. In one field at the barrage and in another 

 at Calioub no true Hindi plants could be found, even after a rather 

 careful search, though several obvious hybrids were present in each 

 field. At Benha, on the contrary, the Hindi percentages not only 

 ran higher but a larger proportion of the plants represented the true 

 Hindi t^-pe. 



In the neighborhood where the counts were made near Mansurah 

 the native cultivators placed much importance on the eliuiination 

 of the Hindi plants, though they were known b}^ a different name, 

 " Haga," the word Hindi not being recognized. It was estimated 

 that about 5 to G Hindi plants had been removed from each row of 

 100 to 150 plants at the time of thinuing, in addition to those that 

 remained to be counted. This would indicate a total Hindi represen- 

 tation of between 5 to 10 per cent in this stock of seed at the time of 

 planting. 



In several instances it was noticed that the Hindi })lants seemed to 

 be more numerous on the higher, drier ridges or dikes that bounded 



210 



