142 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
on a roller gin. In the ordinary Upland, where the fibre varies from } to 
1: inches long, the seed is covered with a dense coating of short hairs— 
is a “tufted ’’ seed as the growers say—and this prevents the use of the 
roller gin, a saw gin being necessitated. The saw gin tears the fibre so 
seriously that there is no object in increasing its length unless it is borne 
on a smooth seed, so that the roller gin can be used. Mr. W.A. Clark, a 
careful planter, of Columbia, South Carolina, who is co-operating with 
the Department of Agriculture in this work, early realised the difficulties 
in the problem and took up the first necessary step—the production of a 
smooth-seeded strain of the Upland Cotton. This he secured, after five or 
six generations of careful selections, in a strain which he called the 
‘ Klondike.’ 
In the ordinary sorts of Upland Cotton smooth black seeds, similar to 
those of the Sea Island Cotton, are occasionally found mixed with the 
ordinary tufted or green seeds. Originally certain Upland sorts, such as 
Peterkin, had smooth seeds, and the production of such seeds in sorts 
commonly having tufted seeds may be due to hybridisation of the ancestors 
of the plant with the Sea Island or some smooth-seeded sorts of the 
Upland. 
Mr. Clark selected at random and planted a quantity of smooth black 
seeds from the ordinary Upland Cotton, and the great majority of the 
resulting plants produced the ordinary tufted seed ; but a few had mainly 
smooth black seed like those from which the plants were grown. Seeds 
were selected from the few plants which produced mainly smooth black 
seed, and were planted the second year. This season a much larger pro- 
portion of the plants produced smooth black seed, but still many pro- 
duced the ordinary tufted seed. Seeds were again selected from the 
plants producing smooth seed and planted the third year, and so on 
through five generations, when the character was fully fixed and all the 
plants came true, producing only the smooth black seed. 
The ‘ Klondike’ was then hybridised with the Sea Island, and while it 
is too early to pronounce as to the practical value of the hybrids secured, 
some are exceedingly promising, having fibre intermediate in length and 
fineness between the two parents, and more abundant than in either 
(fig. 48, H). It is also interesting to note that here, again, the increased 
vigour so commonly resulting from hybridising different species and 
races is very markedly exhibited in many cases. 
A second important problem in Cotton breeding which is receiving 
attention is the production of a tawny Cotton of a grade similar to the 
Egyptian, which is extensively imported into the United States, and 
manufactured largely into fine underwear, &c. The Egyptian varieties so 
far as yet tested in the United States have failed to give satisfactory 
results, and it seems that races especially adapted to conditions obtaining 
there must be secured. Experiments are under way in crossing the 
varieties of the Sea Island and Upland grown in the United States with 
the Egyptian races, and with the dark brown Pieura or Peruvian Cotton 
with a hope of securing brown or tawny races suited for culture in the 
United States which will take the place of the tawny Egyptian Cotton 
now imported. 
