14 CIRCULAR NO. 118, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



The method of very wide spacing is also objectionable for the 

 reason that it induces the development of large numbers of vegeta- 

 tive branches and thus tends to defeat its own object of keeping the 

 plants from crowding each other. With plants G feet or more apart, 

 the competition between the two kinds of branches is somewhat les- 

 sened by the fact that the vegetative branches grow out at wider 

 angles from the main stalk and do not interfere with the development 

 of the lower fruiting branches. Enormous yields may be secured 

 from individual plants in this way, but the heavily laden vegetative 

 branches lie flat on the ground and the plan is quite impracticable for 

 general crop purposes. 



Notwithstanding the loss of all of its early fruiting branches a 

 large, luxuriant cotton plant may still produce an abundant crop if 

 given sufficient time. Though normal fruiting branches can not 

 develop on the inside of such a plant because of the surrounding 

 hedge of vegetative branches, there may be a heavy outside crop borne 

 on fruiting branches that develop from the vegetative branches. 

 Indeed, the main stalk of the plant is often outgrown by the vegeta- 

 tive branches when these are more accessible to the light. 



In addition to the longer seasons required to produce crops on large, 

 luxuriant plants, the labor of picking becomes more difficult and ex- 

 pensive, and a part of the crop may be lost by the lodging or breaking 

 down of the vegetative branches. When the plants are so large that 

 the crop must be borne on the outside, the weight falls on the exposed 

 sides of the vegetative branches and bends them farther out until 

 they finally give way. With large vegetative branches falling across 

 the rows and becoming entangled with each other the fields become 

 veritable thickets. The movements of the pickers are impeded and 

 their efficiency reduced. This has been the difficulty in connection 

 with Egyptian cotton in southern California and Arizona, because the 

 Egyptian cotton grows larger and has a stronger tendency to produce 

 vegetative branches, but Upland cotton often suffers in the same way, 

 not only in the Imperial Valley of California but in Texas and else- 

 where. Indeed, the luxuriance of the plants often has a more adverse 

 effect upon the crop with Upland cotton than with the Egyptian, 

 because the Upland cotton has denser foliage and is more susceptible 

 to the shedding of the buds and young bolls. 



ABORTION OF FRUITING BRANCHES IN ADVANCE OF SHADING. 



Though the considerations already noted have seemed sufficient to 

 explain the inverse relation of growth to fertility, another fact indi- 

 cates a still more fundamental conflict between the vegetative and 

 reproductive functions. The failure of the fruiting branches to 

 develop normally on the lower part of the stalk of a luxuriant plant 



[Cir. 118.] 



