The Bulletin. 55 



COMMENTS ON VARIETY TESTS OF COTTON. 



The varieties tested this year at the Edgecombe and Iredell farms are 

 arranged in Table IX in the order of their selling price of "total prod- 

 ucts," when lint is selling at 11 cents per pound and seed at 30 cents per 

 bushel. This order may not be the order of productivity of seed cotton, 

 as is shown in the tests this year at both the Edgecombe and Iredell 

 farms. 



The reason for some varieties with smaller yields of seed cotton pro- 

 ducing more lint and hence greater selling price per acre than some 

 others with a larger amount of seed cotton per acre, is due to the former 

 varieties producing a higher percentage of lint to seed. 



To eliminate inequalities in the land, if any, the different varieties 

 at the separate farms were planted each in separate rows, arranged 

 consecutively, and this plan repeated a sufficient number of times to give 

 the designated acreage. It is absolutely essential, in order to eliminate 

 soil and weather conditions as much as possible, to continue work of this 

 kind for some years on different types of soils before attempting to draw 

 definite conclusions. 



The yields for this year are presented in Table IX, while the average 

 rank in value of total products of the several varieties tested during 

 the past seven years is shown in Table X. Taking the whole variety 

 test at the Edgecombe farm, the stand was very irregular and poor. The 

 late, cold spring was largely the cause of this defect in stand. It should 

 not be overlooked, however, that all the varieties were planted in the 

 same way, on the same day, on uniform land, and given the same fertili- 

 zation and cultural treatment, hence the results are valuable as showing 

 the ability of certain varieties to withstand adverse seasonal conditions 

 and produce paying yields, which is a matter of considerable impor- 

 tance. At the Iredell farm the stand of the different varieties was con- 

 siderably better than at the Edgecombe. Two pickings were made of 

 the varieties this year at the Edgecombe farm and three at the Iredell 

 farm. Of the varieties that have been tested continuously at the differ- 

 ent farms since the inauguration of variety testing at them, as seen by 

 Table X, Russell's Big Boll and Culpepper's Improved, as an average 

 of nine years' tests, have ranked as the best varieties at the Edgecombe 

 farm ; King's Improved, King's Improved Native and Edgeworth were 

 highest at the Iredell farm as an average of six years' testing. 



In this connection it is interesting to note that in the several tests of 

 cotton on the different farms the differences between the one yielding 

 the highest amount of seed cotton per acre and the one the lowest in the 

 individual tests ranged from 530 to 915 pounds of seed cotton at Edge- 

 combe, with the number of varieties ranging from seven to thirty-one; 

 and at Iredell, from 455 to 565 pounds when using from nine to thirty 

 varieties in the different tests during the past six years. 



These results speak in no uncertain terms as to the importance and 

 value of good seed which are adapted to the different soils and localities 

 of the State. 



