30 ORIGIN OF THE HINDI COTTON. 



POSSIBILITIES OF UPLAND ADMIXTURE IN EGYPT. 



That some of the so-called " Hindi contamination " in Egjq^t may 

 be due to hybridization with true United States Upland cottons is 

 not to be denied, for it is probable that many experimental plantings 

 of Upland cotton have been made in Egypt, affording opportunities 

 for crossing to take place. Recent reports indicate that some of the 

 Egyptian planters are adopting the Upland cotton as a regular crop, 

 owing to a serious decline in the yield of the Egyptian cotton in the 

 last few years. Indications of a previous contamination with Upland 

 cotton appear in the Ashmuni variety of Egyptian cotton as grown 

 at Yuma in 1909 from newly imported seed. The Ashmuni field 

 showed numerous Hindi plants different from those that appeared in 

 other varieties in being distinctly hairy. In addition to the hairy 

 Hindi plants there were several small hairy individuals that lacked 

 other distinctive Hindi characters, such as the light-colored, short- 

 lobed leaves, and approached in these respects some of the forms of 

 Upland cotton. The hairy Hindi plants might also be taken to indi- 

 cate Upland hybridization, in view of the strong tendency of the 

 Hindi characters to come to expression in Egyptian-Upland hybrids. 

 These hybrid reversions sometimes take on the complete Hindi form 

 and show very few or none of the Egyptian or Upland characters. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



Experiments with Egyptian cotton in Arizona show that the so- 

 called " Hindi " variations which appear among plants grown from 

 seed imported from Egypt are one of the principal factors of the 

 diversity that would diminish the commercial value of the fiber. 



Comparisons with other types indicate that the Hindi cotton is 

 of American origin instead of a result of hybridization with a 

 native Egyptian or other Old World species of cotton as various 

 writers have assumed. 



On the other hand, the Hindi cotton does not prove to be identical 

 with any of our United States Upland varieties, as supposed by 

 Watt. It finds a much closer alliance with other types of Upland 

 cotton indigenous in Mexico and Central America. 



As the Egyptian and other Sea Island types also appear to have 

 originated in tropical America, it becomes possible to view the Hindi 

 variants as examples of reversion to remote ancestral characters 

 rather than as results of recent hybridization. The similarity of the 

 Hindi foliage to that of young plants of Egyptian cotton accords 

 with this interpretation. 



[Cir. 42] 



