16 CIRCULAR NO. Ill, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



Columbia variety is not well adapted to southwestern conditions 

 does not affect its value in South Carolina and adjacent States, 

 where it is now attaining a well-merited popularity. 



DTJRANG-O COTTON COMPARED WITH THE FOSTER. 



The Foster is a variety of long-staple Upland cotton bred by Dr. 

 D. A. Saunders, of this department. It was developed from a 

 hybrid between the Triumph variety of Texas big-boll cotton and 

 Sunflower, a well-known long-staple Upland variety of the Peeler 

 type. - Foster cotton is adapted to the Red River Valley of Louisiana 

 and northeastern Texas, where it originated. It is an early, prolific 

 variety, producing 1^-inch lint under favorable conditions, but shows 

 a persistent tendency to occasional reversions toward the characters 

 of the Triumph parent. It is on account of this tendency to variation 

 that the Foster cotton has not been distributed more widely in the 

 long-staple districts of Louisiana and Mississippi, though excellent 

 results have been secured with many plantings. 



The behavior of Foster cotton in the Imperial Valley does not 

 present the same difficulties as in the case of Columbia. The plants 

 do not become very luxuriant or densely leafy, but show rather an 

 opposite tendency to early maturity and dwarfing, which limit the 

 yield. Thus, in an experimental-row planting at El Centro in 1912 

 even the largest of the Foster plants were scarcely half the size of the 

 Columbia and Allen that stood on either side of the Foster row. 

 (Fig. 3.) Some of the Foster plants were very prolific for their size, 

 but the best of them produced less than a third as many bolls as the 

 Durango. The yield was only a little more than half that of the 

 Columbia or a quarter that of the Durango. (Fig. 4.) 



A few fields of Foster cotton were grown in the Imperial Valley in 

 1912 from seed secured from Mississippi under the name " Unknown." 

 The seed seems to have been brought to the valley under the impres- 

 sion that it represented the regular long-staple or Peeler cotton, in 

 order to test the possibilities of this type of cotton in the Imperial 

 Valley. But irr reality the behavior of the Foster cotton is radically 

 different from that of a true Peeler cotton, such as the Allen, which 

 stood next to the Foster in the experimental plantings made by the 

 Department of Agriculture. In the fields of Foster, or so-called 

 "Unknown," diversity was very apparent in the habits of growth of 

 the plants and the sizes and shapes of the leaves and bolls. Lint 

 samples showed the usual tendency to Triumphlike reversions, ren- 

 dering the staple distinctly less uniform than in the Durango, though 

 still of good, marketable quality. The yield also did not approach 

 that of many of the Durango fields. 



[Cir. Ill] 



