12 CIRCULAR NO. 132, 13UREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



iiuliistry at tho present time is the scarcity and high price of labor, 

 but the completion of the Panama Canal is expected to increase the 

 labor supply by direct immigration from Europe. Another possi- 

 bility of the future is the establishment of cotton mills in Los Angeles 

 or other cities of southern California, where enormous supplies of 

 electric power are soon to be available, as well as increased facilities 

 lor irrigation. This combination of power and water in the mild 

 climate of southern California may be expected to stimulate a rapid 

 development of manufactures, because the laboring population will 

 be able to reduce living expenses and supplement its earnings by 

 garden products that can be grown throughout the year. Thus, the 

 development of a local market for the southwestern cotton crop can 

 no longer be considered improbable. 



SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OF COTTON CULTURE IN THE 



SOUTHWEST. 



To meet the present high cost of labor and transportation it is 

 necessary to produce cotton that can be sold at higher prices than the 

 ordinary short-staple cotton raised in the older parts of the cotton 

 belt. Experiments have shown conclusively that cotton of high 

 quality, both Egyptian and long-staple Upland, can be raised on the 

 irrigated lands of the Southwest, but at the same time it has become 

 apparent that the methods of farming now followed in most of the 

 southwestern communities are too desultory and unskillful to warrant 

 a hope of realizing the full possibilities of cotton culture. The Salt 

 River Valley of central Arizona is the only district now ready to 

 undertake the production of Egyptian cotton on a commercial scale. 

 In the Imperial Valley of southern California several thousand acres 

 are planted with Durango cotton, a new long-staple Upland type, 

 recently acclimatized from Mexico. 



Higlily specialized systems of cotton culture are not likely to be 

 developed or maintained in communities where the people are too 

 careless or too little interested to learn how to live and work under 

 the new conditions in which they have placed themselves. It is true 

 that many of the present landholders of the Southwest do not think 

 of themselves as permanent settlers, but expect to make their profits 

 from the sale of their property rather than from raising crops. But 

 even from the standpoint of real-estate values it is highly desirable 

 that the agricultural possibilities of the region be developed. 



To take any full advantage of the favorable soutliwestern condi- 

 tions, long-staple cottons, eithei- Egyptian or Upland, must be grown, 

 wlijch means that more skillful farming is required than for the j)ro- 

 duction of short staples. This is not because the long-staple varie- 

 ties are more diflicult to raise but because of the higher requirements 



[Cir. L)2] 



