292 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



place. The bolls are much smaller, the average number of locks is 

 greatly I'educod. and the lint becomes short and sparse. Advance of 

 acclimatization brings a return to the normal characters of the type. 

 Along with the increase of fertility the bolls become large, the locks 

 more numerous, and the lint longer and more abundant. Some in- 

 vestigators have denied the reality of such changes, but in the case of 

 cotton they are capable of very definite demonstration. 



Mexican big-boll cottons. — Experiments in the acclimatization of 

 new types of cotton from southern Mexico continue to promise 

 favorable results. Even under extreme conditions of drought these 

 new types have produced longer lint and larger bolls than any of the 

 Texas big-boll varieties grown under the same conditions. 



Adaptation of Texas cottons to the Southeastern States. — 

 Many experiments in Texas have shown that the more extreme 

 climatic conditions interfere w^ith the normal behavior of eastern 

 varieties, none of these proving equal to the Texas big-boll varieties. 

 Recent experiments in South Carolina indicate that the Texas cottons 

 are superior to many of the eastern varieties, and seem likely to attain 

 general popularity. The very large bolls render them attractive to 

 the farmer and their storm-proof qualities are especially valuable 

 under eastern conditions, where extensive damage is often wrought 

 by the wetting of the fiber in the field. The denser fiber of the 

 Texas cottons has been found to resist whetting, and these cottons may 

 receive little injury from storms that are very destructive to eastern 

 varieties of cotton. 



Improved varieties of Texas big-boll cottons. — Recognition of the 

 superiority of the Texas big-boll cottons over all other short-staple 

 varieties has led to a greater concentration of breeding work in this 

 direction. A series of new big-boll selections have been bred and 

 tested in central and northern Texas for several years by Dr. D. A. 

 Saunders, Special Agent. Some of the best strains have now reached 

 the stage of commercial production, and one of them has been in- 

 cluded in the Congressional seed distribution for the present year 

 under the name " Lone Star." In several tests in the vicinity of 

 Waco, Tex., it has excelled the big-boll varieties now in cultivation, 

 not only in the size of the bolls but in earliness, yield, and length of 

 fiber. 



Extreme earliness of Hopi cotton. — History does not show that 

 cotton was cultivated by any of the n-ative tribes that occupied the 

 region of the present cotton belt, but the Hopi and other southwestern 

 Indians had a native cotton culture. Experiments have been made 

 with the Hopi cotton in Texas for several years by Mr. F. L. Lewton, 

 Assistant Botanist, and it has been found to excel all other Upland 

 types in earliness and drought resistance, characters that are often of 

 great importance in avoiding the ravages of the boll weevil. Varia- 

 tions in the direction of large bolls and abundant lint have been 

 found in the Hopi cotton, and selections are being made to test the 

 possibility of originating ver}'^ early drought-resistant varieties from 

 this native southwestern type of Upland cotton. 



Local adjustment of cotton varieties. — The importance of 

 adaptation of varieties to local conditions is being more carefully 

 determined by test plantings of the same stocks of seed of tne sam,e 



