20 DIMORPHIC BEANCHES IN TEOPICAL CROP PLANTS. 



cotton to shed a large jDroportion of its flowers in the very young stages 

 and then to develop the vegetative functions of these barren fertile 

 branches which not only grow to large size, but often produce 

 branches of their own from axillary buds. In view of these habits of 

 the Hindi cotton, it does not appear improbable that the frequent 

 tendency of the Egyptian plants toward abnormal, intermediate forms 

 of branches is caused, or at least intensified, by admixture with the 

 Hindi type. In any case the characters of the branches must be 

 taken into account as one of the standards of selection in the Egyptian 

 cotton, as well as in Upland varieties. 



In addition to the relatively small and late development of the 

 fruiting branches on vigorous, overgrown Egyptian plants a very 

 large proportion of the flower buds are aborted and fall off. Many 

 of them are dropped while still very small and even microscopic in 

 size. This abortion of the buds appears to have a definite relation to 

 the habits of branching of the plants. If the fruiting branches are 

 of a normal, slender, and horizontal form, the chances of the buds 

 being retained are very much greater. If, on the other hand, the 

 fruiting branches become more robust and take an oblique or upright 

 direction and thus resemble the vegetative branches or limbs, the buds 

 almost invariable fall off while still very young. Only the scars of 

 the fallen buds may remain as a distinction between the fertile and 

 sterile branches, as in the Hindi cotton. On different plants and even 

 on different branches of the same plant, the buds attain different 

 sizes before they abort and fall off, and these different sizes of the 

 buds may be considered as marking intermediate stages between the 

 normal fertile branches which retain their fruit and the normally 

 sterile vegetative branches which produce no trace of flowering buds. 



The practical point is that these intermediate conditions and forms 

 of the branches, even when they bear large numbers of buds, produce 

 very little fruit, often none at all. The failure of a plant to maintain 

 the normal specialization of the two forms of branches is an unde- 

 sirable character from the standpoint of acclimatization and breed- 

 ing. There is not only a tendency on the part of the newly imported 

 plants to increase the number of sterile vegetative branches at the 

 expense of the fertile, but a tendency for the remainder of the fertile 

 branches to become abnormal. 



While it is possible for a very large and vigorous plant to produce 

 a good crop of cotton with a sufficiently long season, there can be no 

 regular assurance of large yields unless the plants begin to bear early 

 in the season. The plants must begin to produce fertile branches 

 early in the season and numerous buds on each branch. It is not to 

 be expected that all of the buds of a fertile plant will set bolls, or 

 that all the bolls will reach maturity, but this only makes it the more 



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