496 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 60 



improvement of American varieties. With the knowledge that fiber 

 analysis has given them of the strength, fineness, length, uniformity, 

 and other features of their cottons, and with such light as research has 

 so far been able to shed on the combinations of these properties that 

 give a cotton superior spinning value, cotton breeders in the United 

 States have done a magnificient job, and on a nationwide scale. Most 

 of this improvement has come about in the last 20 years ; withm that 

 time, it is said, as much advance has been made in cotton as in auto- 

 mobiles. Fiber fineness of the crop overall has probably increased by 

 more than 10 percent. In 1940 a pound of typical 1-inch cotton con- 

 tained about 90 million individual fibers ; today the number approxi- 

 mates 100 million. Great progi-ess has also been made in the breeding 

 of cottons of greater uniformity of length. Seed stocks of the cottons 

 of known superiority have been multiplied over and over; many of the 

 varieties shown to be inferior have disappeared from the scene. 



Much of this improvement has been carried over into the baled crop ; 

 and, were it not for a new factor in the equation — that of mechanical 

 harvesting — most, if not all, of this remarkable achievement should be 

 evident in the cotton delivered at the mill door. But mechanical har- 

 vesting, essential as it is in the competitive push to hold down produc- 

 tion costs, has brought a series of new problems for the ginner. Pres- 

 sure for a solution of these problems of cleaning, drying, and ginning 

 mechanically picked cotton has been greater than the original Federal 

 ginning laboratory at Stoneville, Miss., could sustain. To meet the 

 demand, two additional laboratories have been added, one for the 

 Southwest region at Messilla Park, N. Mex., and the other for help 

 with problems of the Southeastern region at Clemson, S.C. The 

 Imowledge of soimd ginning practices developed in these three institu- 

 tions, each now with its own fiber laboratory, is earned by State and 

 Federal extension specialists and communicated in a practical manner 

 to giimers in 16 cotton-growing States. In turn, it is translated by 

 them into the conservation of producers' values through better 

 ginning. 



Cotton now has to be better than ever. No longer is it enough to 

 meet the more exacting specifications of textile end-products; in the 

 modern mills of today, where processing costs are cut to the bone, 

 machines are operated at speeds never thought to be attainable in times 

 past; and, in some instances, intermediate processes, once believed 

 necessary in spinning, have been eliminated altogether. Each ad- 

 vance in manufacturing techniques makes a new demand on the quality 

 of the raw material. Thus the goal of research lies always farther 

 ahead. 



In a sense, nevertheless, it may be said that fiber science has now 

 come of age. The literature grows apace. In its Fiber Society and 

 other professional organizations, scores of intent workers meet regu- 



