10 CIRCULAR NO^ 132, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



While the production of cotton may not decline in the more eastern 

 States to the same extent that it has in Louisiana, there is certainly 

 no reason to expect any such increase of production as will be nec- 

 essary to enable the United States to supply its usual quota of the 

 world's ever-increasing demand. It is therefore a matter of special 

 interest at the present time that a new cotton industry can be de- 

 veloped in the Southwest, in a region whose agricultural possil)ilitics 

 are still only slightly appreciated. 



The agricultural occupation of the Southwest is only l>eginning, 

 and many years are likely to elapse before its resources of cotton 

 production can be realized. Farming is attended by unusual difficul- 

 ties because the conditions are so unlike those of other parts of the 

 United States. The environment is a new one, not only for the cot- 

 ton plant but for the farmer, and a period of adaptation is necessary 

 for both. The plant has received more attention thus far than the 

 farmer, and it is this inequality that must now be removed if sub- 

 stantial progress is to be made. The possibilities of cotton culture 

 mean nothmg without a farming population to take advantage of 

 them. 



The most strikuig advantages of irrigation agriculture are to be 

 expected in the Southwest because of the climatic conditions that 

 enable crops to be grown through the whole 12 months of the year. 

 But it is these same climatic conditions that render the agricultural 

 problems of the Southwest so new and difficult. The wider range 

 of temperature prevents any dirett duplication of the results that 

 have been secured from fruit farming in some parts of California, 

 where the development of krigation facilities has been followed by 

 an immejise mcrease in land values. Different crops and different 

 methods of farming must be used if any similar success is to be 

 obtained in the dry, interior regions. Cotton is one of these crops 

 that can not be grown near the coast, but requires the warmer 

 climate of the dry interior to brmg it to normal maturity. 



COTTON AS A FACTOR OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 



Tlie progress of the southwestern region as a whole must dejicnd 

 obviously on the establishment of a series of agricultural industries, 

 of which cotton seems likely to be one of the most important and one 

 of the easiest to develop. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that 

 for many of the more isolated southwestern communities cotton now 

 appears to be the only stai)le commercial crop that can be raised 

 with a fan- prospect of a remunerative cash return. And even in 

 communities where transportation facilities exist, so that fruits or 

 other perishable products can be sent to market, cotton is likely to 

 become popular as one of the safest crops, if not the most prohtable. 



£Cir. 132] 



