A NEW SYSTEM OF COTTON CULTURE. 



21 



Table I — Results of a thinning experiment with Durango cotton <it Norfolk 



Va., in 1912. 



The rate of flowering, which also serYes as a measure of earliness, 

 showed an advantage of 42 per cent in favor of the hedge-formed 

 rows. Though the proportion of 5-locked bolls was less in the 

 hedge-formed rows, a census on the basis of locks showed a difference 

 of 48 per cent in favor of the hedge-formed rows. 



Many of the plants in the hedge-formed rows had no vegetative 

 branches — 2d out of 52 in a series that was counted. An equal dis- 

 tance in the next wide-spaced row was occupied by 10 plants, all 

 but one of which produced vegetative branches, most of them three 

 or four. The average amount of vegetative branch development on 

 the widely spaced plants Avas 38.6 inches; on the hedgerow plants only 

 6.9 inches. 



BRANCHING HABITS OF UPLAND AND EGYPTIAN COTTON. 



The results obtained at Norfolk are in general agreement with 

 those obtained from other experiments with the Durango and other 

 varieties of Upland and Egyptian cotton in Texas and southern 

 California. The idea of controlling the formation of the branches 

 through cultural methods was first developed through a study of 

 the behavior of the Egyptian cotton in Arizona and southern Cali- 

 fornia. But it has now become evident that the principle has a 

 vastly greater practical importance in connection with Upland 

 cotton. Though the tendency to overdevelopment of vegetative 

 branches is not so strong in the Upland cotton as in the Egyptian, 

 the results are often worse, on account of the heavier foliage of the 

 Upland cotton and the greater tendency to shedding the buds and 

 young bolls. 



[Cir. 115] 



