36 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



The first and most obvious result was a great iucrease in the size and vigor 

 of the plants. In a cross between Jowarl and Jari the first hybrid generation 

 consisted of small plants, but in succeeding generations some plants ran up to 

 6 or 7 ft. in height. In general the plants boiled freely and bore well, although 

 some of the third generation of a certain lot were very poor. The smaller and 

 7ieglectum-leiived plants bore first and I)<)re quite heavily, while the majority 

 were still only in flower. Their seeds were naked and had a long silky staple 

 but none of the lot survived. 



The plants were in some cases very variable especially hi the shape of the 

 leaf. In some of the plants of the neglcetum type the lobes of the leaf were 

 vei'y narrow, almost linear and a few had wavy margins. As wavy margins do 

 not occur in the leaves of either Jari or Jowari and also since they appeared 

 less frequently in later generations the authors are inclined to consider them 

 as monstrosities due to variation induced by hj^bridization and by change of 

 climate and soil. It was also found that there was a general tendency for 

 plants to approximate in character with age, and that with those more than 12 

 months old it was often diOicult to specify the nature of the leaf or of the 

 bi'anching. 



Local adjustment of cotton varieties, O. F. Cook (U. S. Dept. Agr., Bur. 

 Plant Indus. Bui. 159, pp. 75). — Local adjustment is "the process of selection 

 to restore the uniformity of a variety in a new place." It is attained chiefly 

 by selection, but is entirely distinct from plant breeding for the origination 

 of new varieties or the improvement of old ones. In many instances the intro- 

 duction of well-established varieties into new localities for the purpose of 

 variety tests or crop production has resulted in a diversity among the indi- 

 vidual plants that can not be accounted for by ordinary variation or the uni- 

 form change in environment. This diversity and apparent deterioration has 

 caused the rejection of these varieties, in many instances, as unfit for their 

 new environment. 



Biologically, local ajustment is analogous to acclimatization. It is of much 

 more frequent application and more easily accomplished. It requires no greater 

 care or ability than can be exercised by the average farmer's family. Texas 

 experiments indicate that it will counterbalance the loss due to the boll weevil 

 if aided by improved cultural methods and superior varieties. Local adjust- 

 ment has I'emained unused because the new place diversity which renders it 

 necessary has been confused with changes due to hybridization, direct effects 

 of environment, accommodative changes, and ordinary variation found in all 

 plants and in all places and seasons. New place diversity is quite different 

 from these and more closely related to mutation as described by De Vries. An 

 accommodative change is more likely to be uniformly assumed by all the plants 

 of a variety, as when one variety adapts itself to a windy region by stronger 

 central stem, while the individuals of another variety quite uniformly accom- 

 plish the same end by assuming a prostrate form. 



The Triumph cotton in the fields of its originator is one of the most uniform 

 of seed-propagated plants. Fifty acres produced but 3 plants that were 

 definitely off type, yet a field of this variety at Kerrville, Tex., compared with 

 one at Lockhart, Tex., the home of the variety, showed most radical new place 

 diversity, adjacent plants in many instances being obviously unlike. These 

 divergent characters are fully described in this bulletin. Some of them at 

 least were transmitted to plants grown from the seed of these divergent plants. 

 Still fuller notes are presented on an experiment to test this point conducted 

 at San Antonio, Tex., with the King variety in 1907. 



Failure to understand and take advantage of the facts of local adjustment 

 has vitiated results of both the farmer's method of testing a new variety in a 



