6 EESULTS OF COTTON EXPERIMENTS IN 1911. 



purposes and is apparoiitly superior to the Texas big-boll varieties 

 now in general cultivation, while the Durango seems likely to take 

 a prominent place among long-staple Upland varieties. 



The Durango cotton has been derived from a Mexican stock, 

 supposed to have come from the State of that name. The seeds used 

 for the first planting were from a few bolls obtained by Mr. F. L. 

 Lewton from an exhibit made by the Mexican Government at the 

 St. Louis Exposition. After several years of acchmatization and 

 selection in southern Texas a superior stram was separated, from 

 which the present Durango variety has been developed. The Acala 

 and Tuxtl a varieties were obtained in the State of Chiapas, in southern 

 Mexico, during an agricultural exploration of that region by Messrs. 

 G. N. Collins and C. B. Dojde in the winter of 1906 and 1907. The 

 existence of a big-boiled long-staple type of Upland cotton in southern 

 Mexico had been ascertained during an expedition made b}^ the 

 writer in the previous summer, but seed could not be obtamed at that 

 time. The origm and peculiar characteristics of the Kekchi cotton 

 have been described m some detail in previous publications, espe- 

 cially in Bulletm 88, Weevil-Resisting Adaptations of the Cotton 

 Plant, Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of 

 Agriculture, 1906. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DURANGO COTTON. 



In cultural characters the Durango cotton is distincth'' superior to 

 the old long-staple varieties usually referred to as ''Peeler" cotton, 

 especially for irrigated districts m Texas and other Southwestern 

 States. It is very early and prolific, flowers rapidl}^, and produces 

 larger bolls than Allen, Sunflower, or other Peeler varieties. The Imt 

 is not as long as in some of the Peeler varieties, but it is much more 

 abundant and more uniform in length — about Ij inches under favor- 

 able conditions. The boUs ripen early and open promptly, so that a. 

 large part of the crop can be gathered at a smgle picldng. The plants 

 have an open, upright habit, which gi^es them an advantage under 

 boll-weevil conditions, facilitates picking, and lessens the danger of 

 discoloration by moisture. 



Another desirable characteristic of the Durango cotton is that the 

 involucral bracts are unusually small, and hence less likely to be 

 broken off and mixed with the fiber at the time of picking. Broken 

 bracts furnish most of the "trash" that now figures so largely in the 

 commercial grading of cotton. The small size of the bracts and the 

 upright, open growth of the plants may be expected to render tliis 

 variety unusually well suited to the application of cotton-picking 

 machines, if any of these can be developed to the point of practical 

 utility. 



[Cir. 96] 



